16 May 1999

East Coast of the United States

American Airlines Center Arena in Miami

At this time, there is a life-and-death battle going on here, and every player on the field treats this game as if it were the last game of their lives, although it may indeed be true for many of them. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The Heat returned to the American Airlines Center with a score that did not satisfy all Miami fans, and the four games, each of which was won or lost by more than 10 points, which undoubtedly indicates that the previous games were won and lost only by state, and this one, it is really about fighting bayonets, white knives in and red knives out.

Most of the games in the first round have ended, leaving only the Heat and the Knicks, the Hawks and the Pistons, the Jazz and the Kings, and the six teams are considered old powerhouses, but for the average neutral fan, there is no doubt that the Heat, which has been rendered as the battle of the first center in the East like an ancient knight duel, is more eye-catching to the Knicks.

Mo Xi sat on the court, surrounded by the noisy shouts of Heat fans, some cheering, some shouting, and some mocking the Knicks, but all of this seemed irrelevant to Mo Xi's eyes, not because he was so calm that he didn't care, but because he was so nervous that he couldn't hear it. Mo Xi felt that everything around him was so far away, foggy, even the sound, he listened to Van Gundy's speech, but it was as if he had been blindfolded, he felt his body trembling, trembling uncontrollably.

After the start of the game, the Heat played fiercely, Hardaway swept away the decline of the previous games and scored continuously, and Mourning also singled Thomas to turn over and shoot a jumper, and the entire Heat's offense opened up very strangely, becoming the most familiar Heat fans can't believe that this is them.

The Knicks were beaten a little out of breath and could only steal a few points with Ewing's back, but it was a drop in the bucket.

Van Gundy hurriedly called a timeout to bring on Spreville.

"We're going to go to the basket more, don't let the opponent score easily, and the defense starts from the outside." Van Gundy roared loudly at everyone, just now the Knicks' performance was outrageously poor, and the four points scored were all individual singles, Ewing one, Houston one, and there was no shadow of Van Gundy's team basketball at all.

After returning to the court, Sprewell started the motor, first stealing Hardaway, scoring a layup, and then a Lucky-Ball. Knicks fast break, Johnson flanked the ball and crossed the follow-up Sprewell, Sprewell resolutely shot under the strong defense of the Heat players, both of them seemed to have their hands on the ball, but fortunately, Sprewell was more impulsive, as soon as he raised his hand, the ball flew out, flew high, and then fell straight to the front of the basket under the gaze of everyone in the court, "bang" smashed it, and then there were two "bangs", and the ball magically fell into the basket. Sprewell, who scored the goal, was so excited that he flew straight back from the front to the back in a jet motion.

This ball seems to have brought good luck to the whole Knicks team, and then the Knicks continued to successfully defend, Ewing forced the inside hand on the offensive end, Johnson received the ball in the bottom corner, and successively turned around to shake off the two defenders of the Heat to make a layup, and for a while, the Heat was hit by the Knicks with a wave of 8:0 small climax.

Pat Riley gestured to the Heat to hold steady and not be pushed to the tempo.

For the Heat, steady, slower, means giving the ball to Moning to play alone.

At this time, Mourning and Mourning are facing Larry Johnson, and the two have a grudge entanglement, love and hatred that began when the two were still in the Sherlock Hornets, from the initial best friends, to later turn against each other, and even almost fought in the locker room, after which the two parted ways, one went to New York, and the other went to Miami.

Now that they are facing each other again, the two were instantly detonated. The two steel-like bodies collided with each other with a "bang", and even the audience watching from a distance felt a burst of tooth soreness. Nothing fancy moves, it's completely basic back-to-body movements plus two people experience, technique, and physical confrontation.

"Bang" Mourning took advantage of an impact, suddenly retracted his strength, bounced Johnson away, and made a backward jumper.

Johnson seems powerless in this ball, after all, he is no longer the man who cut everything down in the Hornets back then, and the knee injury makes this man can no longer play as floating as in the past, and can only rely on pure physical confrontation, which is the same as Barkley's career trajectory, the same style of play, the same style of play that changed after the knee injury to develop on the outside, and there is no championship either......

Gradually, the Heat also stabilized the situation, and the two sides were still playing very fiercely, the main offensive points were concentrated on the interior, Ewing and Johnson's strong interior combination, Mourning and PJ Brown's hard interior combination crushed each other like two grinding discs, and a textbook interior confrontation was in full swing.

In the anxious mood of the fans of the two teams and the mentality of the neutral fans watching the excitement, the first quarter ended with a tie between the two sides.

"Ink, ink, don't be stunned anymore, play, play." Van Gundy said anxiously, and it could be seen that the young marshal was once again driven crazy by such an anxious tiebreaker.

Mo Xi is actually still a little sluggish now, because the surrounding environment is too unfriendly, which makes him somewhat recall the time when he was still in the NCAA, which is also the same. However, what I could have done at that time, why can't I now? Maybe it's not that I can't, but I just don't think I can't.

Mo Xi got up from the bench, shook the towel, and ran onto the court, and at the beginning of the second quarter, it was a competition of rotation and plastic surgery between the two sides, and in such a critical game, both sides left one or two starters as the backbone. The Heat are Marshburn and the Knicks are Houston.

At the beginning of the second quarter, the Heat had the ball.

In the first quarter, neither side took advantage, and the Heat changed their tactics and delayed their tactics. Knicks fans are very familiar with this tactic, and Pat Riley was the same tactic in New York back then, because it was so boring, the fans strongly asked to leave.

The Heat point guard kept the ball until it was left, and it was Chris Charles who defended him, and Charles was also familiar with this tactic, he didn't go up and press, just tried to drive the opponent into the corner.

The Heat point guard has few passing options, and at this time he can only pass the ball to Leonard, who comes forward to pick up, which is a qualified shooter.

Leonard was closely watched by Houston, there was no chance to shoot, he saw that there was enough time, and hurriedly passed the ball to Mashburn in the bottom corner, and at this time there was not much time left for Mashburn, only 6 seconds.

Mashburn received the ball with one hand, his movements did not stop, he smashed to the ground, pierced through the Knicks' defender, and raised his hand to throw before Camby came to make up for the defense, the ball bounced out of the frame, and the rebound was under the hands of Mo.

Marshburn ran back with a blank face, he didn't like to play in the Heat, no ball possession is one thing, the Heat's tactics often made him choose to shoot at some inappropriate times, in a defensive team, the only efficient and powerful scorer didn't have the right to fire, which made him angry, his stats plummeted after coming to the Heat, and he desperately wanted to prove himself next season and then turn around in the free market.

The Knicks attacked, but the situation of the Knicks was not much better, although there were two attackers on the court, but Van Gundy's offensive tactics were too monotonous, and the Heat's full-time defense for a hundred years was not so easy to deal with, three rounds in a row, and neither side scored.

At this time, it was Mo Xi who stood up first, and he struggled to get to a deep position, Charles saw this, and did not hesitate, and hung the ball to Mo Xi.

In this series, Mo Xi unconsciously felt a great sublimation.

Mo Xi caught the ball, directly a sigma step frame, and did not give the defender any time to think about it, seeing that the opponent's position was on the top, he directly slipped into the bottom line, and used his not too wide back to resist the opponent, and scored a layup with his left hand.

At present, Mo Xi is far from those top center forwards, but he is also a second-rate center forward, and the main thing is his offensive skills. Solid fundamentals, combined with flexible attacking ability and excellent court intelligence are what many people think of him.

The goal seemed to open the box for both sides, and then Mashburn and Houston began to show their excellent shooting skills. One seems to be drunk, all kinds of offensive methods emerge in endlessly, and even the skills on the street court are at your fingertips, and the ball in Mashburn is like a dazzling Western sword; One is like a machine, every shot is exactly the same as the last one, just like a person is constantly copying and pasting, Houston's ball is Yang Guo's Xuantie heavy sword, which is very skillful.

However, this offensive wave passed quickly, and the Heat's old point guard Terry Porter once again dragged the tempo into the Heat's slow death time.

Van Gundy had to call another timeout and change the main lineup early.

Van Gundy is a conservative coach, he will give a lot of trust to newcomers, but will never give him too much playing time, just like Camby, who is in the same position as him, and the same type of Thomas is not as good as him, but after all, he is the old man of the team, and he forced Camby to be on the bench.

In the second quarter, Mo Xi only played three minutes and scored a goal, but just like that, he actually found himself sweating profusely and suffocating defensive intensity.

At this point, the situation on the field became a little delicate, Ward was suppressed, and he was taken out of rhythm by Hardaway, although Hardaway himself did not attack much, but he revitalized the whole team and forcibly slowed down the tempo.

At this time, Van Gundy did not call a timeout, he hoped that the team would hold on until the end of the half, as long as the score did not reach more than five points, it was still under control.

Fortunately, at this time, Ewing stepped up and pulled the score back little by little. At halftime, the Knicks trailed by just four points.

Van Gundy walked to the locker room while holding the tactical board and drawing, and said to himself: Let's see, the next is the most critical time.

Mo Xi walked next to Ewing, he kept looking at the big man next to him, he could feel that this guy seemed to have a raging flame on his body, either kill the game or kill himself.