NBA: The God of Basketball Begins with Precise Scoring

Chapter 8: Further Improvement in Shooting Skills, Starry Sky's Playoff Debut!

The new task issued by the system is to complete two thousand specific mid-range shooting drills and one thousand specific three-point shooting drills.

These shooting drills are mainly divided into three groups: shooting consistency training, shooting efficiency training, and shooting against interference training, with the three groups accounting for 60%, 20%, and 20% respectively.

The training for shooting consistency is further divided into many items, including spot-up shooting drills, which emphasize the consistency of movements and the continuity of feel; drills for catching and shooting after a run, drills for catching and shooting after a dribble, or drills for catching and shooting after a step-back, etc. Each item is a scenario that may occur countless times in actual games.

Even the specific running routes for each catch-and-shoot, dribble-and-shoot, the tactics applicable in actual combat, the possible changes during tactical execution, and solutions for dealing with various changes can all be found in each of the increasingly detailed task specifications.

Therefore, during the shooting practice, Li Xingchen also learned or reviewed all kinds of offensive tactics that might be used on the court, and his court awareness improved a lot without his knowledge.

After all, while other players listen to coaches or trainers explain tactical theories, Li Xingchen can directly visualize all the routes in his mind, making his learning and progress far more efficient than others.

He himself wasn't very aware of it, but his teammates and coaches noticed it very quickly.

As usual, during simulated team battles and tactical training with his teammates, his progress surprised many people.

Wiggins joked, "Lee, I originally thought your spectacular performance yesterday had a lot of luck involved, but now it seems that might not be the case!"

Green chimed in, "That's right. It's been a long time since I've seen a newcomer move so accurately and smoothly within the tactical system that we old guys have been working on for so many years."

Curry nodded approvingly: "Yeah, Lee. You know, as a shooter, making shots is one thing, but you won't be constantly on the court shooting free throws. How to create shooting opportunities through tactical movement, and how to quickly find opportunities to shoot after receiving the ball or while dribbling—these are the more crucial abilities for a shooter. You did both of those things very well today!"

Kerr smiled silently on the sidelines. He was growing to like this young man from the East more and more. He was a guard who could both defend and score, and more importantly, he was smart enough to play and understood the Warriors' complex passing and cutting tactics. This was the kind of player that Kerr always liked the most.

Cole was already silently pondering a question.

Should we give this young man named Li Xingchen more playing time? If so, how much more would be appropriate?

It can be said that Li Xingchen's performance in last night's game was just a fleeting moment of brilliance and cannot be fully convincing.

But at least, it can still help him get more opportunities to practice with other teammates and get more attention from others.

He didn't waste any of it. This was the only team practice before the playoffs officially started, and his performance could be described as steady and improving.

Regardless of how others view him now, at least the Warriors' coaches and teammates have a high level of trust in him, so his playing time and opportunities will naturally increase in the upcoming playoffs.

For a fringe player like him, securing more playing time is the most important survival strategy.

Returning to the topic of task completion, in addition to shooting consistency training, his tasks also included shooting efficiency training and interference resistance training.

He can basically do the shooting efficiency training on his own, which mainly includes timed multi-point shooting and one-minute extreme shooting.

The anti-interference shooting training partly requires the assistance of teammates, and partly involves shooting training that is done immediately after completing a set of high-intensity shuttle runs. The main purpose is to simulate the ability to maintain a stable free throw and shooting feel even when fatigued in the second half of a game.

Before the other team members and coaches arrived, Li Xingchen began training on the parts he could do independently—such as consecutive successful spot shots, timed and counted shots.

Later, following the team's training plan, he also completed some of the tasks of catch-and-shoot and running-and-shoot.

After the event ended, he added several sets of shuttle run shooting drills to his practice.

After a morning of training, he had completed about 15% of the system tasks, which is roughly 300 mid-range shooting drills and 150 three-point shooting drills.

—It may not sound like much, but it's actually twice the amount of a team's normal training.

It's important to understand that his shooting training involves more than just the moment of shooting; it also includes a lot of on- and off-ball tactical movement, and even some shooting drills that require consecutive shots. If he doesn't achieve the consecutive shot target, his progress will be reset to zero, and he'll have to start all over again.

It's fair to say that without a systematic task progress indicator that visualized all his training results over the past half-day, he would have had absolutely no motivation to persevere.

Even so, when he was doing extra practice on shot selection to avoid interference, he felt like he was about to reach his limit and could simulate the state of "fatigue" without even having to do shuttle runs.

He wanted to continue training, but the system panel flashed, reminding him that the continuous training time had reached its limit and that no more training would add to the progress bar.

"That's really scientific. Training is something that can't be accomplished overnight. For things like shooting practice, we should focus on quality rather than quantity."

Li Xingchen pondered to himself, and couldn't help but secretly exclaim how awesome the system was.

If I persevere, I might one day become a world-renowned superstar in the basketball world.

……

After training, Li Xingchen didn't have any other entertainment options. He simply ate and rested in the locker room according to the diet plan devised by the nutritionist, waiting to fly to Salt Lake City with the team in the afternoon.

He has his own goals to pursue, and playing a few games occasionally or reading novels on Qidian.com is the limit of his entertainment.

As for women, they only affect his ability to draw his sword... and his speed in playing ball.

In short, it's not time yet; we should talk about these things after he has achieved his goals.

……

That afternoon, Li Xingchen flew to Salt Lake City with the team.

In the evening, the team held a video analysis meeting to study the Utah Jazz, their opponent in the first round of the playoffs.

In the evening, Li Xingchen practiced shooting for a while in the away team's training hall, slowly increasing the progress bar of the task to about 20%.

Fortunately, all he needs right now is shooting practice, and he doesn't have high requirements for the venue, otherwise there really wouldn't be much training opportunity on the road.

The system wouldn't issue rewards until the task progress reached 100%, but during training, Li Xingchen felt that his shooting had improved a lot in just one day, and he was increasingly looking forward to the game the next day.

The next day was May 23, local time.

That evening, the Golden State Warriors will face the Utah Jazz on the road.

This is the Golden State Warriors' first playoff game this year, and also Li Xingchen's playoff debut in his NBA career!