Chapter 45: The Green Army Disarms
Under the magical performance of the first quarter, the Knicks led the Celtics 30:21 in the first quarter, and the point difference has not yet reached a double, but the key point is that the Knicks have a high morale because of the Murphy, and in contrast, the morale of the Celtics is low.
After the start of the second quarter, Mo Xi was directly put off the court to rest, played a whole quarter of the game, and also played a near-perfect performance, Mo Xi's physical strength needs to recover as soon as possible.
During this time, the Knicks will rely on the bench to withstand the opposing offense.
This will also be an important point for the Celtics to turn defeat into victory, and now there are obvious injury concerns in the Knicks' lineup, and the Knicks' bench lineup is not too satisfactory.
The Celtics usually use an eight-man rotation, and now that Pierce is out of the game, Joe Johnson and Antoine Walker are on the bench with that lineup. The Knicks, on their side, have a two-point guard lineup of O'Sara, Camby, Houston, Ward and Mark Jackson.
Moxi's performance in the first quarter stimulated a lot of people, but there is one person who will never be in this category, that is Antoine Walker, in fact, in the Celtics, Antoine Walker also said something like "I thought Paul Pierce came to assist me" after being traded shortly after, but Pierce is obviously not as high as James's coffee position, so these things are not well understood, but you just need to remember one thing, this is also an emotional intelligence explosion master, Even if you beat such a person into a flower, it is nothing to him, he can fight as much as he wants.
So after the start of the second quarter, Antoine Walker and Joe Johnson began to shoot frequently on the outside, and the Knicks could only say that Houston had a stable offensive point on the court, and after a while, the difference between the two sides began to move to five points.
Seeing this situation, Van Gundy couldn't help but want to let Mo Xi return to the court, but at this time, Mo Xi had just sat off the court for less than three minutes in the second quarter, so let Mo Xi continue to rise at this time?
Van Gundy is indeed a coach who likes to players hard, but his love for players is undoubted, not a matter of life and death or a more important situation, he actually rarely does this, even in the Rocket period, it is actually Adelman and Ahem who really Yao Ming, everyone knows.
At this time, Van Gundy suddenly saw a person, an unruly black defender with an unruly face, and his back number was very interesting, it was Zero.
"Arenas, play!" Van Gundy said loudly to Arenas. Although Van Gundy doesn't like Arenas, Arenas' playful style is the kind of break and desperate need to score, and when the Knicks desperately need outside firepower, it's when players like Sprewell and Arenas are ready to play.
Arenas was surprised and excited, his heart was actually very worried, although he kept saying that he could blow everyone on the other side after he played, but when he really wanted him to play, it was inevitable that he would be a little nervous, Arenas was very panicked when he heard Van Gundy's instructions this time, and this time, there was no ink regret to escort him.
Arenas was trembling, but he didn't want people to see it.
Arenas replaced Ward and formed a backcourt double point guard with Mark Jackson, it stands to reason that the two are fast and slow, and their styles are very different, and they don't know what will happen when they work together, and from this point of view alone, Van Gundy is still very adventurous.
And Arenas didn't live up to Van Gundy's expectations, and at such a critical moment, he and Houston held up the Knicks together, keeping the difference between the two sides around five points.
Arenas was like a-stirring stick, completely messing up the whole situation, and when the Celtics finally managed Arenas's routine, Mo Xi played again.
In response to Arenas' neurotic attacking style, the Celtics have raised the pace again and again, and even changed the team's offensive focus, but when Mo Xi came on the court, everything changed qualitatively.
Mo Xi once again shocked the audience, guarding the basket alone, but it seemed to attract the attention of the other four positions at any time, Mo Xi began to put most of his energy into organizing the offense while attacking.
After halftime, Mo Xi has cut 24 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists, although the data has not changed much, but Mo Xi's improvement in the overall strength of the team is obvious, after halftime, the Knicks led the Celtics by 14 points at 55:41.
At this time, the Celtics still have hope of turning the tables, but they still undercalculated something, such as the psychology of the players.
After being denied a goal by Moxi, Pierce missed three shots, and it was obvious that both his hand and self-confidence were seriously disturbed. Pierce's performance was mediocre and there were no overly outstanding roles. 4
It seems that he also feels the strength of his own strength, and the Knicks launched an offensive offensive in the second half, and Mo Xi led the way, leading the Royal Guards with knives to surround the Green Army Celtics. What was once regarded as a classic "defend-fast-break" tactic disappeared from the river bottom after Auerbach's departure.
The Royal Guards armed themselves and sent them straight to the closest place to the championship, but the Cavaliers obviously ignored the rookie of the Celtics, and Arenas could evolve at any time if he wanted to.
After Mo Xi came on the court, the situation changed again, the Celtics' last advantage was gone, and Mo Xi began to kill frantically on the court, while the Celtics were a little powerless, and could only watch Mo Xi send the ball into the basket again and again.
The Celtics completely exploded, and Mo Xi clocked in to work in the fourth quarter again, and people thought that this young man would achieve amazing results after cutting such magical data in the first quarter, but who would have thought that Mo Xi's performance after that, although he can also be called the league's first-class center, but in fact, in the face of many power interior lines, it is a bit of a loss.
And Paul Pierce also seems to have lost his fighting spirit because of the opening encounter, became depressed, and rarely shot, in such an environment, the Celtics lost almost instantly, and it was difficult to even get a chance to raise their heads.
Although Mo Xi failed to play his full strength in the second half of this game, he still scored 28 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 blocks for a comprehensive performance.