In the second meeting between Shanghai and Beijing BAIC, even if Beijing BAIC has a home advantage, I believe that most fans will make a one-sided prediction that the Shanghai team will sweep the opponent and directly advance to the quarterfinals. After all, Beijing BAIC not only has two major foreign aids, Booker and Leaf, been absent due to injuries one after another, but the veterans in the team, Zhai Xiaochuan, Fang Shuo and even Fan Ziming, are all fighting with injuries, and more importantly, Keane, who is considered to be a substitute foreign aid for Beijing BAIC, has no unimpressive data in addition to killing opponents throughout the season, and only has 1 game with more than 30 points. In addition, the defensive end is very different from Booker and Leaf, so even if Beijing BAIC has a home advantage, it is still very likely to be swept by the Shanghai team.
But the surprise happened again, not only did the Shanghai team's two major foreign players Bledsoe and Bacon perform sluggishly, but the domestic players also seemed to struggle to play the passion of the home team. In the end, when almost the whole game was suppressed by Beijing BAIC, he lost this crucial battle with a score difference of 99:116 by 17 points. Is it a lack of preparation or is Liu Peng's guidance careless?
The biggest feature of both Shanghai and Beijing BAIC this season is instability, which is the biggest similarity between the two teams. However, after the run-in of the lineup and the outstanding performance of a large number of young players, the overall performance of the team has gradually been in a period of steady rise. Although Beijing BAIC introduced a small foreign aid Booker in the later stage, the team's overall performance has also risen steadily, but the biggest pain point this season is that "it is not strong when it is strong, and it is not too strong when it is weak". Therefore, at the end of the regular season, both the overall ranking and the selection of opponents in the playoffs are in an unfavorable situation, especially in the first game against the Shanghai team, not only the two major foreign players have suffered injuries one after another, but also the Shanghai team is almost helpless. The inside offense couldn't be played, the outside three-point was inaccurate as a whole, and the defense was powerless to limit the play of Bledsoe and Bacon, the two major foreign aides of the Shanghai team. Therefore, in the first game, Beijing BAIC is basically considered one of the teams most likely to be swept out early.
But facing Beijing BAIC again, the Shanghai team really didn't seem to be underprepared, and it was indeed a little careless to underestimate the enemy. Even if they were playing away, the Shanghai team was almost stunned by Beijing BAIC at the beginning of the game when they were almost all healthy. In the first quarter, Beijing BAIC found its touch, and the whole team scored 7 three-pointers, and let the little foreign aid Kean alone shoot 6, and what is even more terrifying is that Beijing BAIC actually scored a high score of 35 in the first quarter. Although the Shanghai team also scored 31 points in the first quarter, most of them relied on the inside line to create kills, to be exact, most of them were obtained by free throws. This is the biggest defeat for the top four teams in the playoffs, at least on the defensive end. It was under this kind of momentum that Beijing BAIC drove the offense with defense in the next three quarters, so that the whole team was completely infected, and almost every player threw confidence and made bold shots as long as they had the opportunity. This is the reason why Beijing BAIC successfully won the game.
In particular, Keane, a small foreign aid of Beijing BAIC, was driven by his excellent hand in 6 shots in the first quarter, and the defensive end was also very active, you must know that although Keane arrived to the team earlier than Booker this season, when Booker arrived, Keane was basically placed on the edge of the team. There were even rumors that Keane was going to be cut, although he was retained by the team later, but he was always a backup foreign aid, to be exact, it should be the third substitute foreign aid. Throughout the season, Keane rarely played more than 30 minutes for Beijing BAIC, and his scoring average was only 17.2 points per game, and the number of games with more than 30 points was even few. But in this game, Beijing BAIC single-foreign aid battle, Keane had to take out his housekeeping skills, and the outside three-point may not be a means to save the team, but it will definitely become a scoring skill to bite the score. Therefore, Keane showed his strong outside projection ability in the first quarter of this game, and scored 6 three-pointers in the first quarter of the game, which also laid a solid foundation for Beijing BAIC to establish an advantage, and established the first credit for the team's final victory. He finished the game with 33 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists.
In fact, for the Shanghai team, there is definitely a chance to win this game. The reason why the Shanghai team was able to defeat Beijing BAIC by a large margin in the first game was due to a strong defense, especially the excellent performance of young players and the drive of foreign aid. But in this game, the Shanghai team seems to be a little lax on the defensive end, especially the outside defense, in the first quarter of the game, Beijing BAIC scored 7 three-pointers, and most of Beijing BAIC's interior offense is to choose the middle shot, and there are not many inside kills. Moreover, the most obvious offensive point of Beijing BAIC is the small foreign aid Keane and the veteran Fang Shuo on the back line, and the Shanghai team only needs to do a good job in these two points of defense. Especially Keane's lack of height, once he uses tall players to cover him, or even use a double bag at a critical moment, it is difficult for Keane to get a chance to shoot, and even passing the ball will be particularly difficult. But in this game, Liu Peng's director didn't seem to consciously wrap Keane, and even when there was a very high outside three-point shooting rate in the first quarter, there was no special focus defense in the back.
In addition, in the first game of the Shanghai team, Bledsoe, a small foreign player, exerted too much force, played about 30 minutes and scored 41 points, although the impact on physical fitness was not too great. But in the second game, the focus of the attack should be on another foreign player, Bacon, who should be used as the team's key foreign player, rather than choosing to split the playing time equally between the two. In this game, Bledsoe, a small foreign aid, was obviously not in good shape, the desire on the offensive end was not strong, and the defensive end was a little slack, and he only scored 18 points in 27 minutes in the whole game. In particular, the interior offense is even more different from the previous game, most of them choose to force their shots on the outside, and the shooting rate of 1 of 6 is still very low. But Liu Peng's guidance still uses Bledsoe as the starting foreign aid, which may be the main reason why Bacon did not play in the end. Pepper played 20 minutes in the game, which was longer than the previous game, but the efficiency was not high, and the whole mood did not seem right, so he only scored 14 points in the whole game, especially his best killer feature, and the desire to impact the interior line was not too strong.
The collective downturn of the two foreign aides may also be one of the reasons for the Shanghai team's loss. But for the Shanghai team, the game that could have been swept was a crucial battle of life and death, and once the young people played abnormally, the foreign aid could not play their own height. This game will become the biggest price paid by Liu Peng's careless and careless enemy.