The Trail Blazers, after going through several consecutive super scoring storms, found themselves stuck in a rut in the game against the Bulls.
The Chicago Bulls clearly came prepared, with both tactical planning and psychological conditioning well in place.
The Trail Blazers had an easy schedule during this period, just like last season, with particularly many home games at the start of the season.
Continuous home games, high scores, and big-margin victories over opponents led to a degree of laxity among the players.
Several games scoring over 150 points made the Trail Blazers' statistics explode; under the Princeton System, scoring suddenly became much easier.
In the past, Gan Guoyang and Sabonis would occupy the low post space, but now they cede space and use their drawing power to create opportunities.
One cutting backdoor, one slipping along the baseline, one spin to cut to the basket, each could get a very easy scoring opportunity.
