Entering the Second Quarter (Part 2 of 2)

Once again, Chen Xi pulled off a move with an extremely high degree of difficulty, easily slipping inside the three-point line.

And he hadn't even slowed down!

After getting past the double-team, Chen Xi gathered the ball and took off into his three steps, then drove toward the basket.

As he took those two steps, he even had time to dribble one-handed and make a Rondo-style pass fake, fooling Prince, who was coming over from the side to help.

Then, with no one under the basket, Chen Xi leaped off one foot and casually laid the ball in with a little finger roll.

11–8

With a fluid, almost magical move, Chen Xi tore through the Nets' defense and single-handedly stormed into their paint.

At the same time, that possession exposed one of the Nets' current weaknesses.

Rim protection.

With Claxton drawn away from the basket and Paul George occupied by Chen Xi, Brooklyn clearly didn't have enough defensive resources in the paint.

On the sideline, Atkinson stood with his arms folded across his chest, his expression calm.

As the head coach, there was no way he hadn't noticed the problem.

But Atkinson also knew another truth: there wasn't a single team in the world without weaknesses.

Even a powerhouse like Oklahoma had plenty of weaknesses uncovered and targeted by other teams' repeated analysis. The Nets were no exception.

Fortunately, at this point, their issues with rim protection weren't especially serious.

After all, there weren't many teams with enough firepower to pull Claxton, George, and Durant away from the paint all at once.

Even if a team managed that, the players left over probably still wouldn't find it easy to get past Prince's defense.

In the end, the problem was simply that the Thunder were too strong.

In the league today,