One Year Left to Play

Watching Zhang Hao turn around and walk onto the court, Dean Garnett felt like he was being watched by a demon!

"What do you mean by saying having the same surname is good enough? Do I need to change my last name? I’m really not that Garnett!"

Dean Garnett was somewhat broken, and Garnett’s face, already dark, turned even darker sitting next to the technical table...

...

At 7 PM, the game between the Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves began.

O’Neal was utterly unmotivated tonight, but Zhang Hao was playing very proactively. Garnett wasn’t playing, and facing Doug West’s defense, Zhang Hao kicked things off with a baseline mid-range catch and backed down for a turnaround fadeaway that went in!

Seeing Zhang Hao’s consistent steadiness, relying on the two-hour tiresome pre-game warm-up as usual, his hands were hot at the start, and the teammates breathed a sigh of relief.

O’Neal could also relax and coast, scoring over 20 points every game, watching the guy he disliked on the court fight, truly delightful!

Magician started in place of Kenny Anderson, and with Kevin Garnett missing from the Timberwolves’ defensive end, the Lakers’ offense seemed unaffected. Instead, the Timberwolves’ defense was more impacted.

Magician now had to coordinate the offense, limited by personal capabilities, it wasn’t as good as Kenny Anderson. But with Dean Garnett replacing Garnett defensively, it dropped even more.

However, with Magician as the starter, the Lakers’ perimeter defense was really open...

Barkley, looking at himself as a proper big forward and the shortest starter on the team, wanted to burst into tears...

Timberwolves scored 29 points in the first quarter, quite good, but the Lakers scored 37 points in the first quarter!

Zhang Hao shot 5-for-4 in the first quarter, including 1-for-1 from three-point range, 1-for-2 on free throws, netting 10 points, 1 rebound, and 1 steal. O’Neal feasted with 4-for-4, Zhang Hao ran to the mid-range inside the free-throw line, providing O’Neal opportunities under the basket. Magician played the whole first quarter, scoring 2 points, 7 assists, helping Zhang Hao and O’Neal each get 10 points, O’Neal shot 4-for-4, 2-for-2 on free throws.

Leading by 8 points in one quarter, the Lakers got somewhat complacent.

Entering the second quarter, the Lakers got hit by the Timberwolves 27 to 24. By halftime, Zhang Hao scored 17 points, O’Neal had 16 points, and Magician scored 6 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, dished out 10 assists. The Lakers led 61 to 56 at halftime by 5 points.

By halftime, Timberwolves managed to reduce the deficit to 5 points, feeling hopeful!

Then came the third quarter, a cruel scene; Timberwolves scored only 10 points!

The Lakers sent out Fisher, Doug Christie, George Lynch, Zhang Hao, and O’Neal, all played the entire quarter, holding Timberwolves to 10 points while scoring 26.

Facing the Timberwolves team without Kevin Garnett and just Dean Garnett, due to the absence of Kenny Anderson, the Lakers couldn’t sustain high scores as Magician did in the first quarter with full energy, couldn’t blissfully coast. Third quarter went rough; they lacked offense core but went into defensive mode, they had it! In Timberwolves’ absence of an organizing core, Lakers played a dominating quarter!

At the end of three quarters, Zhang Hao scored 23 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal, 4 blocks. O’Neal scored 20 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks. Lakers led 87 to 66 by 21 points, both clocked out!

Del Harris didn’t send two out in the final quarter, deploying Derek Fisher, Byron Scott, Brian Shaw, Jason Williams, Ben Wallace combo to play garbage time.

Del Harris was quite satisfied with the pairing of Zhang Hao and O’Neal, but he also realized, if Timberwolves hadn’t caught up in the second quarter, getting them to cooperate seamlessly was hard...

Zhang Hao wasn’t clear on what he’s thinking, but O’Neal really wouldn’t cooperate unless under pressure.

"At least when there’s danger, they would still cooperate..." Del Harris thought of this, feeling a bit comforted.

But feeling comfort led to another emergence of grievance for Del Harris.

As a head coach, genuinely too humble!

However, also found something new in the third quarter — Derek Fisher!

In the third quarter, Zhang Hao only scored 6 points, O’Neal only scored 4, Doug Christie and George Lynch didn’t score much. The highest score was Fisher, scoring on catches from Zhang Hao and O’Neal, shooting 6-for-4, 3-for-4 from three-point range, along with 2-for-2 from free throws, scoring 13 points in a single quarter!

Del Harris placed importance on the third quarter, aiming to open the score against timberwolves without Garnett in the third quarter, initially putting Fisher as a trial, tonight Doug Christie and Brian Shaw were off in shooting.

Didn’t expect Fisher to give a pleasant surprise!

Ability is indeed average, but dares to shoot, open shots are very reliable, and dribbling is stable, passing although lacks organizing ability but steady... just steady!

A rookie, yet played very steadily!

Beside Fisher, in the final quarter, another rookie made a regular season debut that caught Del Harris’ eye — Ben Wallace.

Played... still rather poor, facing veteran center Stojakovic, who’s 218cm and 120kg, Ben Wallace couldn’t defend unless holding position, and his positioning was particularly bad.

But very proactive!

Help defense, cooperative defense was also terribly bad, in the final quarter committed 3 fouls, but still proactive, and aggressive!

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