Chapter 469: Relief
Seeing that Darm Porter was still twisting in the Nets' half, Alan Houston couldn't stand it anymore and kicked it in the ass of Darm Porter.
"Second goods!
"Ahh The Haitian also came back to his senses, and was kicked out of his temper by Alan Houston all of a sudden.
"Don't take a step back, keep an eye on your guys, remember how you play full-court marking?" Alan Houston shouted, stopping his teammates who were about to return to defense, and preemptively stood next to Joanbari and took a defensive stance.
The audience is pressing!
Not only the Nets players, but even the Knicks players were surprised.
Van Gundy's brow furrowed, but he quickly responded: "Chauncey, you don't care about the others, just keep an eye on Kidd the whole time." Sean, pay attention to the defense. ”
Van Gundy's meaning is obvious, since he wants to play full-court pressing, Kidd, who has the greatest impact on the Knicks' implementation of this tactic, is of course the most important target to target, and it is of course essential to take care of him!
"Damn! dare to look down on us!" Kidd was furious in his heart, took the basketball with a lot of effort, and then tried to take advantage of the Knicks' defensive position to get forward and attack. But as soon as he took a step, he was stopped by Battier, and before Kidd could react, Billups behind him made a decisive shot.
That's the style of Billups when he steals, and if he doesn't shoot, he will definitely see blood as soon as he shoots.
The basketball was broken, causing the Nets to form an offensive formation and suddenly became chaotic. Billups saw the opportunity and threw the ball to the basket, and Darm Porter pulled it up on the spot and caught the basketball in the air to add two more points to the Knicks.
Van Gundy, who had been scared for so long tonight, could finally vent his inner depression at this time, rushed to the sideline in a few steps, waved his hand a few times and shouted: "Continue to press the whole audience, and defeat them in one go!"
Kidd stared coldly at the electronic scorer at the top of the Madison Square Garden arena, the score displayed on it was extremely glaring. In just over ten minutes, he felt like he had gone through a journey from heaven to hell, and the original good situation was actually dismantled in an instant. In the last two minutes, he lost the courage to resist, which was a great shame for him.
The dribble was broken, the pass was broken, and Kidd felt humiliated in a quarter more than all he had done before. Now that the Nets are in chaos like a swarm of headless flies, he, the core of the team, is naturally to blame.
"Jason, the next time we get it back, it's our carelessness tonight!" Kenyon Martin said in a deep voice as he walked over and put his arm around his boss's shoulder. In fact, Martin also felt incredible in his heart, why did the Knicks players who were still depressed like zombies in the first half suddenly change their appearance in the second half?
At first, they were able to cope with the situation on the field, and the two teams were still evenly matched. But at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Knicks were completely nightmare for the Nets' defense. There was even a time when he was afraid of receiving the ball, because as soon as the ball was in his hands, he would immediately find Knicks players to chase and intercept it.
"Kenyon! We will be the ones who will win next time. Regarding the Nets being overturned by the Knicks with a big lead, Kidd's tone of voice was inevitably a little disappointed.
"Of course!" Martin grabbed Kidd hard and walked towards the tunnel "We still have a chance, we can wait until the playoffs if we want revenge." I'm going to have to let these New Yorkers and Lamar bastards know that we're not easy to bully either, and all I can say is that luck isn't on our side. ”
Compared with the lifelessness on the Nets' side, the Knicks' side is indeed a different scene. This is the first time they have knocked a giant like the Nets to the ground without Lamar, whether it is a rookie like Sean Battier and Samuel Dampoter, or a mainstay like Billups and Alan Houston, or a late veteran like Olajuwon and Johnson, everyone's face is full of excitement, everyone hugs and encourages each other as if they have won a championship.
Alan Houston, as one of the core players of tonight's big victory, was naturally surrounded by reporters at this time, and he was very willing to be interviewed after winning the game.
"People used to say that we had a lot of rookie players and old guys on the team, and they thought we weren't going to get far. Especially after Lamar's injury, everyone thought we were finished, and the Knicks must be out of action this season. But what was the result? We slapped these people in the face and told them what was right and what was wrong!"
'We won today and of course we had a lot of trouble in the game, but we got through it! It was important, yes! It was important for us because we proved that we are not parasites who are just waiting for Lamar to enjoy the glory. We are in this team and we have our value for no other reason. We're going to win, we're going to keep winning, and when Lamar comes back, he'll be the Knicks and the same Knicks, nothing will change!"
Alan Houston's words did slap in the face of those experts and professors who thought the Knicks were finished, because the Knicks took practical actions, and those guys always relied on analysis and speculation.
When I returned to the bedroom after watching the live broadcast, it was already more than ten o'clock in the evening, and Lamar was about to go to bed, but she didn't expect Vanessa to wake up at this time.
"Lamar, is the game over?" Vanessa lazily stretched her waist before leaning her body towards Lamar.
"Hmm!" Lamar put his arm around Vanessa and tucked the quilt for her, it was still very cold in New York.
"Did the Knicks win? ”
"Well, win, those guys didn't let me down!" Lamar said with a relieved smile.
"When are you going to go back to the Knicks? Actually, I can really take care of myself here, and don't I have my aunt and aunt?"
"Not yet, I won't leave you alone at home until the doctor declares you safe. Lamar thought of the scriptures of his previous life again, and unconsciously hugged Vanessa: "Don't make up your mind to go to the scene to watch the game, I don't want you to faint in the stadium because of emotional emotion!"
"Okay!"
The morale-boosting Knicks seem to have found confidence all of a sudden after the game against the Nets. In the next back-to-back games, they actually pulled down the two strong teams of Sagramento Kings and Portland Trail Blazers one after another.
Especially in the game against the Portland Trail Blazers, Van Gundy gave a must-kill order against the prison legion who spoke wildly before the game, and at the same time skillfully used his tactics to the extreme. The prisoners who were originally aggressive and ready to take the Knicks sacrifice flag at home lost a little temper.
Originally, at the beginning of this game, the Portland Prison Legion once led by a large score by virtue of home-court advantage, but after the Knicks experienced an eighteen-point comeback against the Nets, their mentality was obviously different. Under the arrangement of Van Gundy and the leadership of Alan Houston and Billups, the Knicks launched a Jedi counterattack in the fourth quarter and showed a team basketball style. The Knicks, who were united, finally hit a three-pointer by Alan Houston five seconds before the end of the game and successfully killed the opponent.
In the technical statistics after the game, the Knicks had a total of seven players score double-doubles, among which McDyes, who replaced Lamar as the starting power forward, rejuvenated himself and got a big double-double of 22 points and 13 rebounds, and in the matchup with Rasheed Wallace, who is known as the roaring god of the Portland forward, completely suppressed the opponent, making the latter only 15 points and 8 rebounds in the whole game.
The Knicks, who tasted the sweetness, immediately regarded team basketball as the treasure of the town team after Lamaringer's absence, and Van Gundy also used this set very well. For a while, people seemed to feel that they had seen the super strong team that almost swept the entire league before.
'I'm very happy with the way the players played tonight, they seem to have understood that if the team wants to move forward, you can't do it alone. I'm not saying Lamar doesn't matter to the team anymore, please don't misinterpret me. Lamar's value is visible to everyone. Even though he's still young, he's already the greatest player in the league! There's no doubt about that, in my opinion, Lamar is the Magic of the Knicks, and the gap between him and Magic Johnson is that Lamar has three championship rings less, and I don't think that's a difficult thing for him. ”
"I'm just saying that after losing Lamar, we've found another way to win. It's still those guys in the team, it's just that we've divided the responsibility of Lamar equally among everyone, and you can see the effect now. Sacramento had a great season, they played a lot of good games, but we still got the win, which proves that we made the right choice! Basketball is played by five people, and we found the right way. ”
The Knicks, who chose the right path, got out of the slump and redeemed themselves from the losing streak and returned to the top team in the league. While they won't be able to sweep as much as Lamar did, they can at least ensure that they don't fall behind as all the league's best teams sprint toward the playoffs and can take a better position for themselves before the playoffs begin.