The first quarter of the game ended in a daze of Van Gundy, the Knicks were beaten to the ground, and all the statistics were far behind the Jazz, the Jazz led by 13 points, and scored 36 points in a single quarter, which made Van Gundy, who has always been defense-oriented, unacceptable, and what made him even more unacceptable was that he had no action at all to resist the Jazz and resist the old man named Jerry Sloan. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

At the beginning of the second quarter, Van Gundy did not replace the aging Johnson as in the past, but left him on the court, and he could see that in the face of his old rival Karl Malone, Johnson was in excellent shape, at least offensively back to the level of the past, Van Gundy changed to the bench lineup, led by Johnson, and played against the Jazz.

On the Jazz side, Malone did not choose to rest, he, like Johnson, only rested for two or three minutes in the first quarter before returning to the battlefield.

Neither side had very strong second lineups, and with both sides investing heavily in defense, the second quarter started with a tight start but not much to score.

The Jazz's defense is actually really similar to the Knicks, and the defense of both sides is filled with a lot of physical contact, and under the conflict between the two sides, there is a faint spark.

It seems to be a common rule in the league, and in the land of Jazz, as long as no one is killed, there seems to be no foul. Come to think of it, in this land full of Mormons, the referee would not dare to be too colorful.

The Jazz's bench lineup is also dominated by pick-and-roll tactics, but it is obvious that the bench lineup's execution ability and starters of this tactic are too poor.

The Jazz's forwards and guards made a pick-and-roll on the wing, but they were a little slower to get out of the way, blocked by John Wallace, who has been firmly in the lineup of Van Gundy since that game of efficient scoring.

The pick-and-roll didn't block it, it didn't take it apart, and the Jazz's offense came to a standstill, but at this point, Malone stepped up, and Sloan asked him to play at this time just to get him up at a time like this.

Malone took the pass, and the person took advantage of the situation, turning into a frame at the free throw line, and Johnson pounced directly, trying to force Malone back to his back again.

But Malone didn't care about this, and saw Johnson rushing up, and directly hit Johnson's chest with his shoulder, Johnson was hit by this blow and floated back to his original position, stumbling under his feet, and seemed to be a little unstable on his feet.

Seeing this, Malone directly accelerated past Johnson, Johnson didn't want to be passed by Malone so easily, so he hugged Malone's waist, Malone failed to rush up, hurriedly shot, missed, but fortunately, it caused Johnson's foul, two free throws and one hit.

Van Gundy had to replace Johnson with Kurt Thomas, the reason why he didn't use Camby, firstly, Camby's physical confrontation can be said to be the worst among the Knicks, about the same level as the veteran Chris Dudley, and now the injury on his body is not good, and Thomas is more suitable for such an occasion, this is a new defensive titan produced in New York, all kinds of small actions are endless, and Sprewell is on the court together, After all, the Knicks can't rely on just a bench lineup to try to break through the Jazz defense led by Malone.

Sprewell, too, was an iron man, playing the full first quarter and only returning to the court after just three minutes of rest.

After having an offensive arrow, the Knicks' offense began to pick up.

Sprewell didn't use the help of his teammates, he received the ball outside the three-point range, facing the Jazz defender, he first made a tentative step, the defender took a half step back directly, Sprewell squeezed along this half step, shouldered, squeezed away the defender, and there was a broad road in front of him, but Sprewell still did not let his guard down, accelerated, stopped, shook up the defender who was chasing after him, and did not try to challenge Malone, and directly solved the battle with a jump shot on the spot.

Sprewell easily hit this ball, Sprewell has a very magical characteristic, that is, stability, in fact, it is never a good hand, there will only be one or two times a season when the shooting percentage is above 50, which is also a strange thing in the league, a top scorer has been hovering around 40%, but Sprewell is really terrible, in the first year in the Warriors, he scored 36 points directly with an 80% shooting rate, which is also his rare proud work.

The Jazz offense, Thomas brought new instructions from Van Gundy, and he and Sprewell directly clamped Karl Malone and blocked Malone's receiving route. It has to be said that in the absence of Stockton, this is really a good idea.

The Jazz's ball - couldn't find a chance to shoot at all, and actually shot a three-shot in a hurry, but at this time, Malone struggled hard, pushed Thomas away, stepped forward to grab the rebound, and just when he was about to shoot, the indicator beeped, and twenty-four seconds came. Marlon ran to the backfield in hatred.

The Knicks began to organize the offense, or rather, Sprewell began to play singles again, only this time, Sprewell faced a bit more defensive pressure. Sprewell still easily broke through the Jazz's defense, but this time, he just took a step into the three-point line, and was intercepted by the Jazz's players, Sprewell quickly transferred the ball out, but the Knicks player who received the ball hesitated and did not shoot, when he hesitated, the Jazz's supplementary defense arrived, and as a last resort, he passed the ball back to Sprewell, but at this time, Sprewell was under the defensive range of two people, and this irresponsible pass made Sprewell almost miss, he could only barely control the ball, and then stepped on small steps to drill out of a gap left by the two people's bags, and directly chose to shoot.

The shot was crooked, Malone won the rebound, did not choose a fast break, but steadily advanced to the frontcourt.

It seems that feeling the action of the main general, the overall rhythm of the Jazz has slowed down, this ball Jazz played extremely patiently, constantly blocking, blocking, blocking, blocking, unknowingly, it actually formed a situation where Malone singled Charles, and when he saw the opportunity, the Jazz point guard directly hoisted the ball to Malone, and Malone hit Charles on his back.

There was no suspense at all, Ma Long squeezed, pushed, and turned around, Charles was squeezed and didn't know where to go, and Ma Long directly re-dunked it.

Gradually, the difference between the Knicks and the Jazz became wider and wider, and as a last resort, Van Gundy was ruthless and directly put on a purely defensive lineup, barely blocking the Jazz's offense, but at the same time, the Knicks' offense completely stagnated, and only occasionally relied on Sprewell's impact to get one or two points.

At the end of the first half, the Knicks returned to the away locker room dejectedly, and even the huge cheers in the stadium could not reach the ears of the Knicks players, the Knicks were too miserable in the first half, 60:42, so that the opponent scored more than 60 in the half, and this situation in the history of the Knicks was still far from antiquity, but at that time, the legendary coach of the Knicks-Holzman led the Knicks to average 120+ points per game without a three-point line.

In the Knicks' group of players with their heads down, Mo Xi is undoubtedly the one with the lowest head hammer, Mo Xi didn't score a point in the entire first half, lost all 8 shots, and only picked up two rebounds, which was extremely eye-catching.

The exhaustion of back-to-back games, the fatigue of consecutive away games, the discomfort of Highland Stadium, and the most terrifying away experience, all of which combined to make the Knicks feel powerless, will miracles favor the New Yorkers again?