On January 3, Beijing time, the 18th round of the CBA regular season, Fujian team defeated Guangsha team 84-109, Fujian team super foreign aid Gordon temporarily stopped the indiscriminate bombardment on the offensive end. He scored 22 points and six assists on 10-of-25 shooting in 28 minutes, both of which were season-lows. With the decline in Gordon's playing time, Fujian super newcomer Li Yiyang also has a rare opportunity.
This time against Guangsha, Gordon suffered what may have been the most challenging match of the season. Guangsha has plenty of players on the outside, from Sun Minghui, Zhao Yanhao, Zhu Junlong to the young Zhao Jiaren, Zhao Jiayi and others, who take turns to consume and pack Gao Deng. Guangsha's outside line may not have particularly strong defensive top soldiers except for Sun Minghui, but they are young, physically strong, energetic, much fiercer than Liaoning's previous defense of Gordon, and more desperate to execute the head coach's intentions on the defensive end.
Under the defensive strategy of Guangsha, the brave such as Gordon also encountered a lot of pressure. Gordon's breakout and mid-range shooting ability have been as stable as ever (10-of-19), but he made 0-of-6 three-pointers and made very limited free throws. At a time when every escape was difficult, Gordon's wild run on the offensive end finally stopped and played one of his most peaceful games of the season. With 4:17 left in the third quarter, Fujian, who were 26 points behind, replaced Gordon with Li Yiyang, and Gordon ended his personal battle for this game.
Before facing Guangsha, Gordon's performance was quite courageous. The super foreign aid who averaged 30.4 points and 8.1 assists per game in Fujian last season was unstoppable in almost every game after re-emerging for Fujian in the second stage of the regular season. In the first game against Shanxi, he exploded with 54 points, 12 rebounds and 14 assists, announcing his return with a super triple-double; in the second game against Jilin, he had 36 points, 9 rebounds and 10 assists; in the third game against Liaoning, he scored 46 points, 6 rebounds and 8 assists; the fourth game was the last PK Tongxi, he contributed 51 points, 6 rebounds, 11 assists and 7 steals.
In these four games that have been played, Gao Has averaged 46.8 points, 8.3 rebounds and 10.8 assists, which is the highest in the league in terms of points and assists. Moreover, he is the only player in the CBA to average 40+ points per game, far higher than Hudson, who is second on the scoring list (averaging 32 points per game). The fly in the ointment is that although Gordon is in the field like no man's land, in these four games, Fujian only defeated the more vulnerable Tongxi, and the other three games, Fujian all lost, which also made Gordon, who played a heroic role, become a veritable "CBA first lone hero". Counting this game with Guangsha, Gordon has scored a total of 209 points in 5 games this season.
But behind the heroic performance of Gao Deng, it is a torment for Fujian super newcomer Li Yiyang. Gordon played in his first four games, averaging 43 minutes per game and ranking first in the league. Because of too much reliance on Gordon's play, Fujian also gave him unlimited firing rights, and Gao's average of 35.8 shots also ranked first in the league, far better than second place Jones (averaging 22.5 shots per game). Because Jones's arrival occupies a lot of playing time and firing rights, Li Yiyang, a first-year newcomer who also plays point guard, has to make sacrifices for this.
The data can very intuitively show how big Li Yiyang's sacrifice is. In the first stage of the regular season, when Fujian was still in the all-Chinese class, Li Yiyang, a college player who had just entered the league, averaged 28.8 minutes per game, averaging 9.8 points, 6.7 assists and 2.4 steals per game, although the offensive end lacked aggression and the shooting ability needed to be greatly improved (shooting 37.6%), but in tandem offense and defense, Li Yiyang did a very good job. In the big reversal of the Beijing team, Li Yiyang contributed 7 points, 9 rebounds, 12 assists and 6 steals, and fang shuo and other main players of the Beijing team in multiple single defenses. Against Sichuan, he contributed 28 points and 7 assists.
At that time, although the Fujian team had a dismal record, Li Yiyang, who had long been famous in college and on the Internet, still gained enough attention by relying on solid performance, and his youthful playing style made him highly praised. The Fujian team, which entered the reconstruction after trading Wang Zhelin last summer, also seems to have won a cornerstone choice in advance, and in the case of the injury of wang Yixiong, the leader of the 2021 CBA draft, li Yiyang, who was selected by the Fujian team with the 6th pick in the first round, quickly used the performance to get the fujian team's reuse.
But with gordon's return in the second phase of the regular season, Li Yiyang's playing time plummeted. In the first four games, when he averaged 43 minutes on the high field, Li Yiyan's average playing time in the same position plummeted to only 6.3 minutes per game, only 22% of the average playing time in the first stage. Due to the lack of shooting ability of Li Yiyang, who is 1.81 meters tall, his personal style is not known for his offensive style, he cannot play a scoring guard, and Gao Deng, who is 1.91 meters tall, also plays point guards, and the Fujian team finally chose to sacrifice the young Li Yiyang, after all, Li Yiyang's current ability is still far from Gordon.
In this game with Guangsha, the Fujian team lost its resistance early, and Li Yiyang only gained 20 minutes of playing time, which was also the most time he played in the second stage of the regular season. Although Fujian is still a fiasco, at least, Li Yiyang no longer has to play the role of water dispenser administrator this time. In the 20 minutes of playing time, he tried to perform himself, and finally delivered 8 assists, completed 2 steals, and his performance in tandem attack and defense was still remarkable.
It's just that for Li Yiyang, such games are a minority after all. Although the competitiveness of Fujian has further declined after trading Wang Zhelin this season, they have not been spoiled in advance, so they will certainly not give up the use of Gordon early and instead cultivate the young Li Yiyang. More often, Li Yiyang will definitely watch the game off and off the field, playing the role of water dispenser administrator. For Li Yiyang, who entered the professional league from a college campus, this is also the most direct way for him to feel the cruelty of professional sports.