Although it has already obtained a ticket to this year's Men's Basketball World Cup in advance, the penultimate World Preliminary Round match of the Chinese men's basketball team in Hong Kong last night still attracted everyone's attention.
Because this is the debut of the new Serbian coach Jordjevic led the Chinese men's basketball team. The Chinese men's basketball team shoulders the heavy responsibility of this year's Men's Basketball World Cup and next year's Paris Olympics.
After the first training of more than 20 days, the only world-class coach in international basketball who has won medals in the Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships as a player and head coach respectively has brought positive changes to the Chinese men's basketball team.
Although Jordjevic opened his new job with the Chinese men's basketball team beating Kazakhstan 71-59, the process and content of the game were not satisfactory.
In fact, in 2021 and 2022, the Chinese men's basketball team overcame various difficulties caused by the epidemic and was able to qualify from the Asian zone of the World Preliminary Tournament in advance, and Du Feng, a 42-year-old local young coach after 80, contributed a lot.
However, at the end of last year, the Chinese Basketball Association still made a decision to invite Jordjevic, who has an excellent resume in leading both the national team and the club team, hoping to make another breakthrough in the World Cup and the Olympic Games.
The 56-year-old has won Olympic silver, world champion and European champion as a player. After retiring, he has coached top European clubs such as Milan in Italy, Panathinaikos in Greece, Bayern Munich in Germany, and Fenerbahce in Turkey; During his tenure as head coach of the Serbian national team, he finished runner-up in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the 2014 Men's Basketball World Cup and the 2017 European Championship, three world series.
It is worth mentioning that aside from briefly playing 8 games with the Portland Blazers of the NBA as a player, Jordjevic's playing and coaching career has been spent in Europe.
After the Chinese men's basketball team trained to prepare for the World Preliminary Tournament, the most players said when talking about the new coach was "European basketball style".
"The foundation we laid in previous training may not be applicable to the trend of modern international basketball." Center forward Zhou Qi said, "European coaches attach great importance to team understanding, which is an important part of his requirements. ”
Defender Zhao Jiwei said: "He is a European coach, there will be a lot of European ball transfers, and we play different basketball than before. It's like changing the environment, maybe everyone is not comfortable at first. But after this period of training, everyone is making progress in a better direction. ”
"European basketball is relatively high, so we have to learn his philosophy as soon as possible." Veteran Allen Guo also said of Jorjevic.
The "European basketball style" brought by Jorjevic is also reflected in the selection of players for the new Chinese men's basketball team. Tall and large players are favored, including in defender positions that require more flexibility and skill.
For example, in this game, 19-year-old Choi Yonghee, who has never had national team experience, made his debut directly into the starting lineup, and he was close to 2 meters tall and played as a defender.
Turning the former Du Feng's "three guards" combination into a "three-forward" configuration, and using the height advantage of "four big and one small" to impact the opponent, this is the "Eurobasketball style" that Jordjevic expects to play.
However, such a combination of personnel and tactical arrangements did not see more highlights in this game, but exposed a bunch of problems.
Counting Choi Yong-hee, who played the guard swingman, the starting "three forwards" combined to hit only 2 of 16 shots in the game, 1 of 6 two-pointers and 1 of 10 three-pointers. The "height" that Jordjevic wanted did not translate into "scoring" at all, and that was only against second- and third-tier teams in Asia.
Another strange statistic is that all four full-time defenders Zhao Jiwei, Allen Guo, Hu Mingxuan and Zhao Rui who played in the Chinese team had only one assist in the whole game, while Cui Yongxi, who was swinging man, had two assists. The team scored 71 points, but the entire guard line contributed a total of 3 assists.
The need for players to familiarize themselves with the tactical play of the new coach is one of the reasons; But another important reason is related to paying too much attention to height in the use of personnel, ignoring the agility that defenders should have.
Of course, there is a positive side to Jorkovic's "Eurobasketball style". China's defensive intensity and pressure have increased significantly, which is why the team can have a 21-point lead after only 22 points in the first half.
However, as the fitness declined, the defensive intensity and concentration of the Chinese team in the second half also decreased. Coupled with the fact that the offense was not smooth, the Chinese team was once narrowed to single digits by their opponents, losing by nine points throughout the second half.
In fact, when the two teams met for the first time in this World Preliminary Round, Du Feng led the Chinese team, which was affected by the epidemic and had a serious shortage of personnel, and also won by 12 points on the road.
One game doesn't tell much about it, but Jorkovic has to combine his "Eurobasketball style" with the reality of the Chinese men's basketball team.
In Europe, especially Eastern Europe, there are too many tall players with solid basic skills, and Jordjevic cannot bring such fixed thinking to the Chinese men's basketball team. After all, after the era of Yao Ming and Liu Yudong, the poor ability of mid-range and long-range shooting has always plagued the Chinese men's basketball team, and this basic skill problem can not be solved by Jordjevic just by relying on national team training.
For players to adapt to new managers, coaches need to adapt to players. How much room for improvement the new Chinese men's basketball team can be depends on whether Jordjevic can better combine the "European basketball style" with the actual situation of Chinese players.