On the evening of April 20, Beijing time, the second round of the 2023-24 CBA playoffs will officially start. The Liaoning Bengang men's basketball team, which defeated Shenzhen Marco Polo by 37 points at home in the first leg, will continue to sit at the home stadium of Liaoning Gymnasium tonight to meet the challenge of the Shenzhen team. Perhaps because the first game was too easy to win, the coaching staff of the Liaoning team also hopes to use the next few games to practice the lineup as much as possible to prepare for the semi-finals and finals later. Therefore, in tonight's game against Shenzhen, head coach Yang Ming may boldly change the lineup, and the new recruit Sherif Cooper, who played well in the last game, is very likely to replace Fogg in the starting lineup.
The two sides met in the first round, although the Liaoning men's basketball team was in a rusty state in the first half because of a long period of absence from the formation. But after the adjustment of halftime, the team's mental outlook in the second half was refreshed, Yang Ming boldly chose to use the veteran Li Xiaoxu to limit Sallinger, and another veteran Han Dejun was also overturned in the inner line, whether it was Shen Zijie or Li Muhao, they could not form a counterpoint with Han, and the Liaoning men's basketball team beat Shenzhen by 25 points in a single quarter of the game, and made the game lose suspense early in a wave of ways.
Standing at the current point in time, the Liaoning men's basketball team not only has to consider how to defeat the Shenzhen men's basketball team to advance to the semifinals, but also has to consider Guangdong Hongyuan and Zhejiang Guangsha, which may meet in the next round. These two teams in the backcourt, currently have a very luxurious staffing, whether it is Hu Mingxuan, Xu Jie, Waters of the Guangdong team, or Sun Minghui, Witherspoon and Floyd of the Guangsha team, will bring a huge test to the backcourt defense of the Liaoning men's basketball team, if all the pressure is put on Zhao Jiwei and Fogg, their burden will obviously be too heavy.
Because of this, Yang Mingcai hopes to use the series of the Shenzhen men's basketball team to boldly practice the new tactics of new recruit Sharif Cooper as the starter. Judging from the performance of the last game, Cooper himself is still a very characteristic player - excellent dribbling, extremely fast, and very good passing vision, and his personal style of play is very similar to that of Guo Allen in his youth.
Therefore, in tonight's game, the Liaoning men's basketball team is likely to change the starting five to Han Dejun + Li Xiaoxu + Zhang Zhenlin + Zhao Jiwei + Cooper, this lineup is faster in the frontcourt, and the inside line also has considerable hardness, of course, such a set of starters may also make Sallinger play relatively easily in the opening stage, but at the same time, it can better limit the backcourt players of the Shenzhen team such as He Xining and Xu Xu, which can be regarded as limiting the play of the Shenzhen men's basketball team from another angle.
After the last game, the whole Liaoning men's basketball team was happy for Cooper's excellent performance, Zhao Jiwei said excitedly in the post-game interview that Cooper's performance in training was quite good, and his debut did not show his full strength, so let's look forward to what kind of surprises Cooper will bring to fans in the next game.