Yesterday, Australia's NBL league continued, with the Southeast Melbourne Phoenix facing the Perth Wildcats. The Phoenix and the Wildcats are currently in the top four in the NBL, but their playoff qualifications are volatile.
Whether it is the Phoenix or the Wildcats, as long as they lose, they may fall out of the top four, so this game is quite critical. Despite this, the Phoenix team still did not trust Zhou Qi in the game, leaving Zhou Qi to take on greater responsibility. At the end of the game, the Phoenix beat the Wildcats 86-80, but Zhou Qi was obviously not reused.
In this game, Zhou Qi still started, but his role is close to "pseudo starter". At the beginning of the game, Zhou Qi cut the basket empty and scored points for the Phoenix. But then, Zhou Qi was quickly abandoned by the Phoenix, and he was replaced, watching his replacement Ashley play more time.
But in fact, Ashley's performance has been much better recently, and he has not suffered so much in the defensive end, so the Phoenix team has not relied so much on Zhou Qi's play. As long as Zhou Qi plays, the Phoenix team's protective frame is much better, but this does not allow the head coach to give Zhou Qi more opportunities to perform.
Entering the final battle, the Phoenix team directly pressed Zhou Qi on the bench, and did not let Zhou Qi play for a second in the last quarter. In the end, Zhou Qi's data stayed in 19 minutes with 5 points, 3 rebounds and 2 blocks, which was very efficient, but the performance space was very small.
In fact, the attention of the NBL has plummeted recently, because zhou qi and Liu Chuanxing, two Chinese players, have a lot less opportunities to play, Zhou Qi is still able to play games, and Liu Chuanxing is more of a marginal person, playing only 2 minutes per game or not playing at all.