On defense, he always kept half a step back, never rashly reaching for a steal. Instead, he firmly blocked Mitsui Hisashi's running lanes, constantly using little tricks and trash talk to bait him into exerting himself to break free.
Whenever Mitsui Hisashi tried to run around a screen to get open, Yueye Hongming stayed right on his heels, forcing him to pick up his pace and make bigger movements to find space.
Even when Mitsui Hisashi briefly shook him off and found a chance to shoot, Yueye Hongming lunged at him with everything he had. Even if he could not block the shot, he would make Mitsui Hisashi expend more energy.
The tactic paid off immediately. After several runs, Mitsui Hisashi began gasping for breath, sweat streaming down his forehead. Even his once-steady shooting form gradually began to slip.
For Yueye Hongming, containing this perimeter threat required almost nothing extra. He only needed to keep baiting Mitsui Hisashi into burning through his stamina to dismantle his outside threat. No matter how good his shooting touch was, an exhausted Mitsui Hisashi could no longer deliver consistently, and Shohoku's perimeter offense stalled as a result.
Shohoku was also losing ground in the battle inside.
Akagi and Yu Zhu had always been evenly matched. Under normal circumstances, neither could get the better of the other, and they could only keep each other in check on offense and defense.
But now Shohoku's situation had taken a sharp turn for the worse. As captain, Akagi carried the pressure of the entire team on his shoulders. He worried about Mitsui Hisashi being shut down outside, about the exhausted Liu Chuanfeng, and about Miyagi Ryota's struggles against Chi Tong. Anxiety over the team's fate filled his mind.
That distraction left him unable to deal with one problem