Chapter 244: Advance to the Finals
With the boos of the Salt Lake City fans in the audience, Liu Han steadily scored the ball, and the Lakers extended their lead to 10 points, and then they had another chance to continue the offense, because Liu Han had no other Jazz defenders in front of him during this fast break.
"Carl's foul was a bit unwise, but it's hard to make the right judgment in a situation like this. The Jazz are in a lot of trouble right now, if they can't close the gap to within 10 points in the fourth quarter, it will be difficult for them to turn the tables in the fourth quarter, and the overall age structure of the Lakers is much more reasonable than that of the Jazz, which means that the Lakers will have more physical strength in the fourth quarter. "Murf Albert is as professional as ever, but his commentary is bound to be offended by Jazz fans, who don't want to hear bad things about their home team.
The Jazz fans have been booing all the time, partly against the referee's decision, but also in a desire to put more pressure on the Lakers players.
With less than a minute to go until the end of the third quarter, it would be difficult for the Jazz to close the gap to within 10 points before entering the fourth quarter.
The Lakers served on the sideline, Liu Han shook off Stockton and received the ball, and the Jazz team came up with two players as soon as Liu Han received the ball this time, but at the first moment when the bag came up, Liu Han passed the ball out, and the vacant Finley received the ball.
Finley didn't feel good today, but in the face of no one around him, he still made a decisive shot, the ball hit the front of the basket and then bounced and fell into the net, and the Lakers' good luck continued.
The Jazz fought back without pausing after the Lakers extended the score to 13 points, and they wanted to squeeze as much time as possible so that they could catch up as much as possible before the end of the third quarter.
But speed is not enough, the Jazz team's physical exertion is greater than that of the Lakers, and now they have to speed up the offense, so their offense is stumbling.
Liu Han's close defense put a lot of pressure on Stockton, so the Jazz's offense could only rely on Malone to show, but with the decline in physical strength, Malone's attention was not as concentrated as at the beginning, and when he played Brent Barry with his back, he held the ball slightly to expose some space, and Barry, who was agile and explosive, found an opportunity to rack the ball out of Malone's hand.
Ray Allen was very clever to snatch Barry's broken ball, and then threw the ball directly to the front court, because Liu Han had already run past half court.
The Jazz's back-to-back turnovers in the final minute of the third quarter wiped out all of their previous efforts, and Liu Han scored the ball with an easy layup in the face of an empty frontcourt, and he was not the kind of player who was wanton and arrogant.
Although the Jazz fans on the sidelines were still booing deafeningly, they were not as good as they were at the beginning of the game, and the Jazz fans were losing confidence.
Jerry Sloan watched speechlessly from the sidelines at what was happening on the field, he no longer had the idea of calling a timeout, for him, everything he could have done had been done, and now he had to leave everything to God.
The Lakers widened the gap to fifteen points, and the Jazz players except for Stockton showed blank faces, they didn't know how to play next, and even Malone, who has always prided himself on being resolute, lost confidence.
Stockton called his teammates together in an attempt to regain confidence, but to no avail.
The third quarter ended after the Jazz's most offensive run failed, with the Lakers leading the Jazz by 15 points heading into the fourth quarter.
Before the start of the fourth quarter, Jerry Sloan didn't say anything to the players, he is now even a little dazed by himself, he was defeated by the Lakers for two consecutive seasons, although it is only the third game, but 3-0 behind, the Jazz's hope of turning the tables can be said to be very small, this Lakers put too much pressure on the Jazz, so big that Jerry Sloan can't find any hope of winning.
The fourth quarter of the game began with a noise of Jazz fans, which contained encouragement and expectation for the home team, as well as taunts and blows to the away team, but now these voices are not as regular as they were at the beginning, but very noisy and mixed together, which makes people feel extremely annoying.
The Jazz launched a comeback led by Stockton at the start of the fourth quarter, and if there was anyone on this Jazz team who had confidence, it was undoubtedly Stockton, the Washington-born white veteran who was like a knight of the medieval world, who expected glory but never found its way.
The Jazz were supposed to replace Stockton and Malone at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but Stockton insisted on playing, so Jerry Sloan put Stockton on the court. When Malone saw that his old friend didn't want to play, he knew that Stockton hadn't completely given up, and for the belief of his old friend, Malone also insisted on playing.
The Lakers made a substitution at the start of the fourth quarter, which gave the Jazz a lot of an advantage at the beginning of the fourth quarter, with a sharper offense and a very aggressive defense, which allowed the Jazz to close the deficit to nine points in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter.
But the Lakers entered the eighth minute of the fourth quarter with Liu Han and O'Neal, Liu Han relied on Nash's pass to hit a three-pointer as soon as he came on the court, and O'Neal also forced Ostertag again on the inside, not only scoring two points, but also saddling the opponent with a fifth foul.
The Jazz's hopes of a comeback are getting slimmer, but none of the fans in the stadium left, and all of them are still supporting the home team at the expense of their strength and voice.
Just when the Jazz were preparing to fight desperately for their last chance of survival, Liu Han once again became a ruthless killer.
Stockton was very difficult to defend by Liu Han in this game, but such a high-pressure defense also made Stockton extremely cautious, although he also made some mistakes in the previous game. However, just as the game was about to enter the final half of the game, Stockton was stealed by Liu Han again.
This ball can't be said to be Stockton's mistake, in fact, Liu Han predicted the Jazz's passing line, ran in advance to slap the ball that Stockton had already received in his hand, and then launched a counterattack with the ball.
Still with a tall body, still a quick stop in a rapid run, Liu Han hit another shot outside the three-point line, breaking the Jazz's last glimmer of hope for a comeback, and the Lakers once again extended their lead to more than 15 points.
Throughout the game, the two teams played ups and downs, the Jazz once found a way to deal with the Lakers, but in the end they still failed to win, relative to the situation on the court, Jazz fans have been actively cheering and taunting the visiting team, however, these are no longer effective.
In the end, in the third game of the much-watched Western Conference Finals, the Lakers won the game 107-94, so that the Lakers led 3-0 in the overall score, and they have already stepped into the Finals with one foot, while the Jazz, on the other hand, they are now on the edge of the cliff. (To be continued.) )