The next possession was still King Arthur isolating. Wang Yi drove to the basket, drawing Pang Bo's defense, then passed to Antoine, who dunked it home once again.
In these two Lakers possessions, Wang Yi had scored both times, but each possession had cost him a great deal of stamina.
At that moment, Wang Yi called a timeout. First, to catch his breath; second, to make adjustments.
He waved his hand decisively.
"Zone defense!"
Chris Paul and Rondo nodded as well.
Over the past few minutes, King Arthur and Antoine had been relentlessly attacking the basket. The Lakers could no longer contain them with man-to-man defense and could only rely on a zone.
Of course, playing zone would give the opponents opportunities to shoot threes from outside, but there was no helping it.
Tactics on the basketball court might seem endlessly varied and incredibly complicated, but they were actually simple when boiled down: either defend against drives or defend against threes.
When defending drives, the defense outside the three-point line would inevitably be weaker. When defending threes, the defense against drives would inevitably be weaker.
If you mainly defended drives and the opponent could make their threes, then they would most likely win.
If you defended threes and the opponent had several players capable of driving inside, then they would also most likely win.
Basketball was that simple.
But the Lakers' advantage was that they currently held a 17-point lead.
Their margin for error was still fairly high.
So after they returned to the court, the Lakers attacked first, but failed to score.
On the other end, all five Lakers players shrank inside the three-point line and began playing zone defense.
King Arthur had been around the block for many years and was a seasoned veteran. On top of that,