In the NBA, you can never double-team an off-ball player.
Early in his rookie season, Qin Yue used his off-ball abilities to remind all teams that unless necessary, double-teaming him would be counterproductive.
Although Qin Yue’s height and weight determined that his off-ball movent would consu a lot of stamina.
But in just one possession, Qin Yue noticed that Jas...
Was even worse at defending off-ball plays than he imagined.
This is a major weakness throughout Jas’s entire career.
Compared to using physical prowess to pressure on-ball attacks...
As long as you excel at playing off the ball, Jas would habitually lose defensive focus on you.
Back at the arc, Jas’s shot attempt also misses.
It’s the Warriors’ turn to attack.
Qin Yue uses a Brown screen to take a shot from the long two-point area on the baseline.
Swish!
On TNT TV, watching Qin Yue choose not to go for on-ball attacks in the first two plays, Barkley curiously asked, "Is ssiah trying to show those experts who think anyone can score beautiful numbers with the ball that he can also make great plays without it?"
The Warriors’ third offensive play.
Qin Yue seems to confirm Barkley’s guess by using a screen from Brown and then a pick-and-roll with Artest to get a jump shot opportunity near the free-throw line.
Swish!
On the court, Qin Yue scores again with a two-point catch-and-shoot, giving the Warriors an opening 4 points.
Following that, Qin Yue took it easy for two more possessions—only by distributing stamina reasonably can his off-ball offense remain efficient.
Play three, rest two.
This is the advice Ma Long gave him when designing the off-ball strategy before the ga.
Always willing to listen to advice, Qin Yue followed Ma Long’s suggestion, and after resting for two, he made his first three-pointer of the ga from a 45-degree angle on the right, in front of the belated defense of Jas.
Jas had no response to Qin Yue’s three-pointer.
Because during his prior defense, Jas had already lost track of him.
Soon after, Qin Yue attempted another three-pointer in the Warriors’ next offensive play.
Bang!
Under the basket, the loyal Brown exerted all his effort to tip the offensive rebound back to Qin Yue.
And Qin Yue, after a brief dribble and a crossover in front of Gooden, soared into the paint for a one-handed dunk.
Gooden’s proactive help on defense rewarded him with Qin Yue choosing to briefly dribble around him before attacking.
Although Gooden only lasted a second as a "real man," being left behind by Qin Yue...
But persisting even for a second...doesn’t that count as a man?
Quicken Loans Arena.
Qin Yue’s off-ball ga started with a fiery montum.
While the Cavaliers’ offense remained constipated as usual.
Facing the Warriors’ 2-3 zone defense, from the second ga onward, Jas changed his strategy from using screens to find drive-and-kick opportunities to instead finding chances for outside shots with the Bald Lion Cold Arrow.
Qin Yue didn’t understand why a re zone defense would make the Cavaliers, the top-ranked team in the Eastern Conference, look so bad.
In Qin Yue’s limited basketball understanding...
A simple zone defense like the Warriors’, designed purely to clog the paint...
If he were the Warriors’ opponent, he would definitely let the "him" in the Warriors lineup see what it ans to be shattered with a flick of a finger.
In this mont, Qin Yue wasn’t underestimating "himself."
Rather, he believed that the "himself" guarding the 2-3 zone defense for the Warriors was utterly useless.
With such a pathetic excuse for defense, how could "he" be considered the NBA’s new GOAT?
On the court, the more Qin Yue thought about it, the angrier he beca, to the point where he completed an alley-oop slam and couldn’t help but curse "himself," saying, "What kind of shitty defense is this?"
Beside him, the unlucky big Z, who had just co to help defend, beca collateral damage.
So, after sighing helplessly, the normally non-confrontational big Z said to Qin Yue, "Next ti, I’ll try to satisfy you."
However...
Facing what Qin Yue deed "shitty defense," the Cavaliers looked like a headless chicken, failing to figure it out even after three gas and the first quarter.
Outside, Jas, handling the ball, found a breakthrough gap after several missed shots.
Only...
Being too hasty, first he took steps one and two, then moved three and four, and then right in front of Artest, who could have helped on the defense, he perford an awe-inspiring leap step five...
If the rules of the basketball world haven’t changed, this five-step layup shouldn’t have appeared.
But since it did, even soone like Artest, who once won DPOY as a top wing defender, could only gaze at the ball in frustration.
Qin Yue wasn’t sure if the NBA would change the dribbling rules in the future.
But even with the dribbling rules of later years, Jas’s Arican football layup that the referee automatically ignored...
Was still sowhat ridiculous.
"How the hell can you allow such a breakthrough? Even if you had Michael Jordan, you couldn’t stop that!" Artest roared at the head referee, who ignored Jas’s traveling layup.
Artest indeed had reason to be upset.
Because he had been ready to jump up and block Jas’s layup with full force.
But he never expected that Jas, who had moved steps three and four to slip past him, would have tricks beyond the atmosphere.
When the original defensive rhythm was disrupted, Artest’s quick reactions couldn’t stop Jas from rampaging across the court.
Fortunately, on the return, Qin Yue let off so steam for Artest with a standard catch-and-three-step layup.
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