After the first game of the Western Conference Finals in '97-98, the Lakers relied on a very targeted defensive strategy to gain the upper hand in the game.

Liu Han's kraft candy style defense made Stockton extremely depressed, and the Jazz's offense could only rely on Malone's personal ability to solve the battle, but because Liu Han limited Stockton's receiving and passing lines well, it was not very easy for Malone to get the ball.

The Lakers, on the other hand, are under the control of Liu Han, playing well on offense, with O'Neal as the axis on the inside, players in all positions keep running and pulling the Jazz's defense, so that they can find the best offensive route when the Jazz are slack. I have to say that Liu Han's control of the game situation is really a master, as long as he is on the court, the Lakers' vacant players will always get the right pass.

When the game reached 8 minutes in the first quarter, the Jazz first replaced Stockton and replaced Howard Ellis, on the one hand, they did not want Stockton to continue to be tortured by Liu Han on the court, and on the other hand, Stockton's current physical strength was not enough to support him to complete the whole game.

The Lakers also made timely adjustments, George Crent also replaced Liu Han and replaced Nash, O'Neal did not dare to get off the court, he must ensure the thickness and height of the Lakers' interior line on the court, otherwise Malone can penetrate the Lakers' defense line except O'Neal alone.

After the Jazz's bench players came on the court, they played with momentum, and their tactics were similar to those of the Lakers, all of which were based on interior players and kept pulling defense.

The new Howard Ellis was very excited to play, and although he was about the same height and weight, he played extremely resolutely, which put Nash under some pressure.

However, the first quarter of the game ended quickly, the Lakers led by 6 points 30-24, Liu Han did not score much in the first quarter, only scored 7 points, but handed out 5 assists and two steals, both of which were obtained from Stockton's hands, and saw how hard Liu Han defended the veteran Stockton.

After the end of the first quarter, the head coach of the Jazz Jerry Sloan is still in distress, the current situation is very unfavorable to the Jazz, the Lakers' targeted defense has greatly reduced the role of Stockton, which means that the Jazz's offense will be semi-paralyzed, as long as Malone attacks alone, he can't fight the Lakers anyway, but now the Jazz can't find the right players to deal with this situation even if they want to adjust, and they can only hope that the Jazz players can play in the next game.

At the end of the break, the Lakers replaced O'Neal as well, completely replaced the small lineup, and began to run, in this lineup, the tallest is Brent Barry and Michael Finley who are two meters and one.

The Jazz also replaced Malone at the beginning of the second quarter, but he rested, and the high-intensity game made Malone, who was like a "muscle devil man", unable to hold on. The Jazz bench lineup has a great advantage in height on the inside, but the Lakers don't pay much attention to the defense when they run and shoot, and all five of them are shrunk under the basket to prevent the Jazz from shooting, but unfortunately only Jeff Hornacek can be called a pitcher in the Jazz team, and there is no decent shooter on the bench.

In this situation, the Lakers stretched the advantage of the score again, relying on Michael Finley and Kittels to hit consecutive three-pointers, and the Lakers extended the gap to double digits.

Jerry Sloan saw that the Lakers' defense was so extreme that he couldn't shoot and replaced Jeff Hornacek and Stockton again after hesitating for a while, hoping to rely on these two to catch up with the score on the outside, I have to say that Jerry Sloan is really poor in adaptability, he could have replaced Hornacek at the beginning of the second quarter, but he always wanted to observe the Lakers' defense more.

However, what made Jerry Sloan very depressed was that when he replaced Stockton, George Krent immediately replaced Liu Han and Ray Allen as soon as possible, which was a special arrangement for the Jazz team.

In desperation, Jerry Sloan could only replace Malone, who had only rested for less than four minutes, and now the Jazz must catch up with the score, so they can only make this move.

The game continued, Liu Han continued to pestering Stockton in defense, and his defense made Stockton, who has always been very calm, a little irritable, and he even received a technical foul for deliberately elbowing Liu Han.

After the third game between the Lakers and the SuperSonics in the last round of the game, Steve Jarvey was nicknamed "blind" by many fans after the game, and the NBA referees are very serious about enforcing the Lakers' games, and they don't want to become "well-known referees" like Jarvey.

Although Malone relied on his height advantage to wreak havoc on the Lakers' interior after he came on the court in the second quarter, but the Lakers' offense under the bombardment system with Liu Han is like having laser guidance, all kinds of shots can be eight or nine without leaving ten, Liu Han was privately joked by his teammates that he brought a blessing for an increase in shooting percentage, as long as he was there, the rest of the Lakers players would be as accurate as if they were hanging.

At the end of the second quarter, the Lakers extended their lead to 18 points.

George Krent didn't make any changes to the Lakers' lineup at halftime, and he felt that what Li Rui said to him was still very reasonable, and since we can always be ahead, it means that this lineup has an advantage against the Jazz.

The Jazz didn't make any adjustments at halftime, as their head coach really couldn't find a suitable way to deal with the Lakers right now.

The game continued in the third quarter, with the Lakers starting again, and the Jazz still in the same lineup as they did at the beginning, and the two teams returned to the state of the first quarter.

Liu Han stepped up his shots in this quarter of the game, because he felt that the Jazz were now focusing their defensive attention on his passing and mobilizing his teammates, and now he could score easily with his shots.

Sure enough, Liu Han hit three points directly in the offense twice in a row, which made the Jazz players a little dumbfounded, and they remembered that the Lakers were the most powerful outside guy.

Stockton stopped defending Liu Han in the third quarter because Jerry Sloan wanted him to focus on offense, and the task of defending Liu Han was once again given to Jeff Hornacek.

Hornacek's previous defense focused on defending against Liu's breakaways and passes, and he ignored Liu's projection in the first half.

After the Jazz once again strengthened their defense against Liu Han's projection, the Lakers once again played an interior offense, and O'Neal became the protagonist on the court.

This is actually Liu Han's power, in addition to his three points can be called a miracle, his grasp of the game situation is also very clear, Liu Han knows what to do at a specific time on the court, and can even mobilize the opponent's overall defensive adjustment through his own behavior, and then give the opponent a fatal blow according to the ideas he envisioned, which is the most powerful thing about him as a core player.

By the end of the third quarter, the Lakers had almost sealed the victory, as they had led the Jazz by as many as 27 points.

After the start of the fourth quarter, the Jazz took advantage of the Lakers' substitution lineup to try to counterattack, but they were stubbornly resisted by the Lakers' bench players, and they used sharp bombardment to control the score lead all the time.

Eventually, the Jazz abandoned the game with five minutes left and lost the first game of the Western Conference Finals 117-91.

Liu played 36 minutes, scored a triple-double of 24 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds, and shot 5-of-6 from beyond the three-point line, so that he has made 35 three-pointers in the playoffs this season, not far from Reggie Miller's record. (To be continued.) )