Chapter 522 - The Season Continues 2 (1/2)
”The Utah Jazz team is having a good season with 12 wins and only 4 losses in 16 games this season, it is one of the teams with the most victories this season, this season with the least games the Utah Jazz team has won almost a third of the games that season.”
”In the first game, the Utah Jazz team lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in a well-balanced game between the two teams, in that game the Utah Jazz team plays at home and has John Stockton and Karl Malone who are two NBA stars to try to get the victory in that game.”
”The Los Angeles Lakers team is the team with the most wins this season with 17 wins and only 1 loss in 18 games, with Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and rookie Jake Smith the Los Angeles Lakers team is the favorite to win this game.”
”That's right, in this game we will also have the confrontation between Jake Smith who is the best PG of this season so far against John Stockton who is one of the 5 best PG of all time in the NBA.”
”In the last game Jake played very well and defended well against Gary Payton, so we are looking forward to seeing what he can do playing against John Stockton.”
This was a game in which everyone was looking forward to the dispute between the two teams, the dispute between Jake and John Stockton and also the dispute between Shaq and Karl Malone, two of the teams that were doing very well this season were facing each other.
Many also expected a dispute between Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman, after all the two faced each other several times while Dennis was playing on the Chicago Bulls team, so this was a game that many people who were not fans of these teams wanted to watch.
The Los Angeles Lakers team would start with Jake Smith playing as PG, Kobe Bryant playing as SG, Rick Fox playing as SF, Robert Horry playing as PF, and Shaquille O'Neal playing as Center.
The Utah Jazz team would start that game with John Stockton playing as PG, Jeff Hornacek playing as SG, Bryon Russell playing as SF, Karl Malone playing as PF, and Greg Ostertag playing as Center.
The game started with Shaquille O'Neal winning the first ball possession for the Los Angeles Lakers team, Shaq passed the ball to Jake who started organizing the play for the Lakers team, Jake advanced the ball and passed it to Kobe Bryant on the right.
Kobe received the ball and Jeff Hornacek came in to press on defense, Kobe held the ball and passed it to Rick Fox on the left, Rick received the ball and Bryon Russell came in to press in defense.
Rick held the ball and passed it to Jake in the back, Jake got the ball and John Stockton came in defense, Jake made a feint and managed to go to the right, Jake moved away from Stockton and tried a shot from outside to make 3 points for the Los Angeles Lakers team.
Jake scored 3 early in the game showing that he would attack normally even playing against Stockton, Stockton was not as good a defensive player as Payton, so he knew that in this game he might not be able to defend as well against Jake.
In another move, the Utah Jazz team was on the attack, Stockton advanced with the ball and passed it to Russell on the right, Russell received the ball and Rick came pressing on the defense, Russell held the ball and passed it to Hornacek on the left.
Hornacek received the ball and Kobe came pressing on defense, Hornacek tricked Kobe with a feint and tried a mid-range shot to score 2 points for the Utah Jazz team, the Utah Jazz team was strong in attack too and so everyone expected a game more balanced.
In another move the Los Angeles Lakers team was on the attack, Jake advanced with the ball and passed to Kobe on the right, Kobe received the ball and managed to deceive the opponent with a feint, Kobe advanced to the inside area and drive to the basket doing more 2 points with a layup for the Los Angeles Lakers team.
In this game, Kobe Bryant was playing well and Shaquille O'Neal also, it made Jake more relaxed to make the passes, Rick Fox was not playing so well in this game again and in this game, Jake did not intend to make many passes to Robert Horry because Karl Malone was defending against it.
In another move, the Utah Jazz team was on the attack, Stockton advanced with the ball and passed Hornacek on the left, Hornacek received the ball and Kobe came pressing on the defense, Hornacek held the ball a little and passed it to Russell on the right.
Russell received the ball and then passed to Stockton further back, Stockton received the ball and Jake came to defend, Stockton passed the ball to Karl Malone further on the right, Malone received the ball and Robert Horry came in to press on defense.
Malone used his strength to move closer to the painted area and did a spin and tried a hook shot to make 2 more points for the Utah Jazz team, the Utah Jazz team's moves with Malone were the moves most likely to end in points for the team.
The first quarter ended with the Los Angeles Lakers team winning with a small points advantage, in that first quarter Jake played for 12 minutes and had 8 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals, it was a good first quarter for the Los team Angeles Lakers and to Jake.