On January 7, Beijing time, the 19th round of the CBA regular season, Xinjiang team defeated Shanghai team 96-121, and the team's longest winning streak of the season (3 consecutive wins) just achieved came to an abrupt end. In this fiasco, the performance of the Xinjiang team was lackluster.
In just the first quarter of the game, the Xinjiang team was completely suppressed by the Shanghai team. In the first half of the game, the Xinjiang team can still negotiate with the Shanghai team. But after Shanghai replaced small foreign aid Franklin, Xinjiang was quickly blasted by the opponent to attack 15-0, and the game basically set the tone from the second half of the first quarter. In the last three quarters, the Shanghai team continued to set off a wave of attacks, but the Xinjiang team was difficult to overcome. Not only can the offensive end not compete with the Shanghai team, but the defensive end is full of holes. In this way, the Xinjiang team was already 30 points behind when it played less than 4 minutes in the third quarter. After this, the Xinjiang team also lost its ability to resist early, and the second battle between the two sides this season finally ended with the defeat of the Xinjiang team.
Logically, the performance of the Xinjiang team should not be like this. One is that they just won three consecutive victories before the game, although the strength of the defeated Jiangsu team, Sichuan team and Qingdao team is not strong, but at least, the Xinjiang team played its own rhythm and found more confidence; the second is that the Xinjiang team only had its first meeting with shanghai team 9 days ago, that game, Xinjiang team took a rotation of the team core Abdul Shalamu, but they still created trouble for Shanghai team in the first three quarters, and once led for a long time in the first half. In the last quarter, behind by 16 points, the Xinjiang team still chased only 3 points in the last minute, and almost staged a big reversal.
But now in the second battle with the Shanghai team, the Xinjiang team has been beaten to no avail. Veteran Zeng Lingxu's absence due to injury is not a small loss to Xinjiang, but due to injury, Zeng Lingxu has averaged only 17 minutes per game this season, averaging only 6.9 points and 4 assists per game, and only 7 points and 5 assists in the last game against Shanghai. That is to say, the lack of Zeng Lingxu has not yet reached the point of breaking the bones for the Xinjiang team. What's more, the last time he played against Abudu Salam of Shanghai, no matter how you look at it, the Xinjiang team should have a better performance. But after the game began, the speed of the Xinjiang team's rout was very surprising, and it did not look like a team that had just won three consecutive games and created the team's longest winning streak of the season.
The shanghai team's combat effectiveness in this game is so strong that it is directly related to their last fiasco against the Shandong team. In that game, the Shanghai team was completely suppressed by the Shandong team, and after the post-match summary, the Shanghai team in this game also played more engaged and hard, and it was not difficult to understand the excellent performance at both ends of the attack and defense. But that's not the key to Xinjiang's fiasco.
In the final analysis, the key to the defeat of the Xinjiang team is that it does not play well. If nothing else, just the control errors, Xinjiang's performance was very bad, and in the whole game, they made as many as 24 mistakes, equaling the team's worst performance of the season. It is worth mentioning that the last time they made 24 mistakes was also against the Shanghai team, that is to say, the Xinjiang team that played against the Shanghai team for the second time basically did not learn too much experience from the last mistake.
On the offensive end, the Xinjiang team attacked very unclearly. Especially in the homegrown core of Abdul Salam. The Xinjiang captain played 31 minutes but only 12 shots, including some shots in garbage time. In the first quarter of the game, the Xinjiang team's ball was delayed in handing over to Abdul Shalamu's hand, even if Abu did not take the initiative to open his hand to ask for the ball, the Xinjiang team did not play him more. In the first quarter, A not only shot once, but even the team's only foreign assistant, Mortree, was once difficult to receive the ball. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for the Xinjiang team to fight against the Shanghai team, after all, Mortri and Abdul Salam are the few offensive advantages of the Shanghai team. Throughout the game, the Xinjiang team's attack almost had such a problem. With more play and less fast attack, the Xinjiang team did not attack the basket but chose to shoot from a distance, if their three-point shots were excellent, it would be enough, but their three-point shots of 25 shots were only 4 of 25. At the same time, the Xinjiang team has repeatedly had unreasonable scenes of forced throwing or role players throwing the ball, resulting in Abdul Shalamu and Mortree being able to turn back and run many times.
In the final 16 seconds of the game, Xinjiang, who was 27 points behind, requested a timeout, and head coach Adi Jiang laid out the final attack. But back on the court, the Xinjiang team that chose to shoot three-pointers shot three no sticks, and finally ended the attack with a leak under the Basket of Lutubra, which did not play the effect they wanted at all, and this is also the epitome of the Xinjiang team's attack is not ideal.
Defensively, xinjiang's performance was also a mess. Too many rounds, Xinjiang team "watched" the opponent counterattack on the layup to score easily. Other times, the Xinjiang team's defensive joint defense was easily broken through to the basket by Shanghai team's small defender Yuan Tangwen to complete the score, and there were many times when there was a complete omission or overlapping defensive positions on the defensive end. The mess at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends eventually led to the Xinjiang team's fiasco against the Shanghai team, and some of the confidence they had just regained was scattered.
Originally, the Xinjiang team looked like it had picked up after the start of the second phase of the regular season. The addition of foreign aid Mortree has brought a great complement to the Xinjiang team's interior line, whether it is offensive or rebounding, Mortree has performed well (averaging 28.2 points and 16.2 rebounds per game). At the same time, they also nearly created a reversal in the final quarter against Zhejiang and Shanghai, and with a wave of three consecutive wins, Xinjiang seemed to have renewed hope of impacting the playoffs. But the organizational confusion in the attack and the huge loopholes in the defensive end have become the biggest obstacles to the progress of the Xinjiang team, which is difficult to make up in a short period of time.
After losing to Shanghai for the second time, Xinjiang is still ranked 14th in the league, two wins away from 12th-place Jilin, and it still looks like there is still hope of entering the top 12, that is, the hope of qualifying for the playoffs. But at the same time, the Xinjiang team has the same record as Sichuan and Tianjin behind the ranking, so they actually have no advantage in impacting the playoffs, but the competitive pressure is very high. In the case that Zeng Lingxu's comeback time is unknown, the Xinjiang team would do well to bring in a good small foreign aid to make up for the organizational deficiencies, otherwise, their playoffs will still be difficult.