Date: May 30, 2003.

Event: The Hawks visit the Gross Athletic Center for Game 2 of a series against the Nets.

After the start of the game, the Nets quickly took the lead, and the Nets came up with the strongest defense, instead of playing offensive tentative trials at the beginning of the game like the last game, and directly took the defensive lineup of Kidd, Rousios Harris, Richard Jefferson, Kenyon Martin, and Jason Collins, and slammed the defense.

After the Eagles were beaten coldly at the beginning, they immediately fought back, who is afraid of whom! With the same sacrificed defense, the situation began to burn.

After the first quarter, the Nets led by three points 21-18, and in the second quarter, after the two sides entered the rotation lineup, the Nets still fought defense, grinding positions, and played a single-quarter score of 17-17.

At halftime, the Hawks still trailed by three points, and the score was brutal 35-38.

In the third quarter, the two teams played a decent offensive game, but the Eagles did not get much advantage, 27-28, the point difference was not only not narrowed, but also expanded by one point!

At the end of the third quarter, the Hawks trailed by four points, 62-66.

In the final quarter, the two teams once again entered the situation of fighting defense, Liu Mang, Jason Terry, and Raheem all tried to open the situation, but they were all strangled in the stage of trying, the Nets deserved to have played the finals, and they were abused by the Lakers 4-0 without an inner breakdown, which is enough to see how firm the mind is, no matter how bad the offense is, insist on defending first, Kidd made 0 mistakes in the whole game, and steadily delivered ammunition to his teammates, it doesn't matter if he can't shoot, defend slowly, play slowly.

The Nets can't afford to lose, and if they lose another home game, their mentality may collapse.

After the Eagles won their opening series, there was a change in mentality.

It can't be said to be arrogant, nor can it be said to despise the opponent.

But...... Satisfy!

When the Hawks knew that the opponent was determined to be the Nets, their goal for the first two games was to at least grab one away game and get the home-court advantage in their hands.

It's too difficult to win a series like the division finals on the road two in a row, and the Eagles didn't get arrogant in the second game, they just felt satisfied.

From the first game when the two teams fought defensively, it can be seen that there is no qualitative difference in strength between the two teams, and there is a lack of a person to break the deadlock.

Halfway through the fourth quarter, the two teams only scored 16 points in the fourth quarter, and the Hawks were still 4 points behind 70-74.

Seeing that the game was going to be worn to death by the Nets, Liu Mang tried to hit the basket to make a foul, but was defended by the opponent who was more prepared, because Liu Mang was too fast and too capable of rushing when he used the Jordan star card two days ago, the Nets were ready to play with their lives if they couldn't prevent it, and the degree of playing was according to Liu Mang's performance in the third quarter of the last game.

The data of the players of both teams in this game are ugly and can not be ugly, the Nets rely on the home court advantage to grind the defense to death, although the Hawks also go all out, but they lack the momentum of the Nets fighting against the water, the Nets can no longer lose, and the Hawks' away goal has been achieved, and when the basket was played at the last moment, Liu Mang was also taken down.

No matter how Liu Mang sprays in Kidd, no matter what exciting words he says, even the defense that has not changed his eyes, although it is not as miserable as Billups, but it is not much better, scoring 17 points on 6-of-15 shooting, and the shooting rate will reach 40%.

Of course, Kidd was also quite miserable, 3 of 12 from the field, only 8 points, but had 12 rebounds and 8 assists, and the key was 0 turnovers!

Today Kidd is completely in a state of concentration and fights hard to win!

In the end, the Nets relied on an iron-clad defense, 84-79, to defend their second home court.

……

With 1 win and 1 loss on the road, the Hawks lost the second game, and there was not much disappointment, because the away record was ahead, and their own team took back the home advantage!

The day after the second game, on May 31, the Hawks took a charter flight back to Atlanta, and Old Man Joe also left New Jersey with Wilkins and watched two games, as a fan, the first game was good in the third quarter, and the second game was ugly throughout the whole game.

On the night the Hawks returned to Atlanta, on the Western side, the Spurs' second home court, after falling behind 0-1, was as mad as the Nets, but it was not the defense, it was the offense!

Duncan scored 32 points, 15 boards, 5 assists and 3 blocks, Parker scored 19 points and 4 assists, Ginobili scored 24 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist and 4 steals, and the troika ran together for the first time, scoring 75 points together, leading the Spurs to a 120-106 victory over the Mavericks by 14 points!

The two divisional finals on two consecutive days were completely different from what the fans imagined!

In the series on the eastern side, the first game was okay, and Liu Mang's rampage in the third quarter made the fans addicted.

But in the second game, fans are looking forward to the two teams can play a counterattack battle, after all, the Nets and Hawks are the top two teams in the counterattack scoring list in the regular season, who would have thought that the game would be played like the regular season of the Spurs and 76ers in 2001, grinding defense throughout the whole process.

After watching the second game, the fans remembered one thing, if the first game was not for Liu Mang's hurricane in the third quarter, both games would be grinding defense!

Now, fans finally understand, don't look at how chic and comfortable the Nets and Hawks played in the first two rounds, when it comes to the East finals, when the two strongest teams in the East meet, they still return to the main theme of the East.

And it's all visible, it's not that the Eagles don't want to speed up, but they can't lift it up at all! Both teams have entered the vicious circle of stubborn defense, the tougher the defense, the stricter the defense, the more iron the shot, and the endless loop.

And not many people pay attention to the western side, actually played two consecutive high-quality and high-scoring offensive matches, the most important thing is that Duncan's score is more powerful than Nowitzki, Duncan's first two games combined to cut 74 points, Nowitzki's first two games added up to only 68 points, Duncan when playing against Nowitzki, not only did a better job than Nowitzki defensively, but also overpowered Nowitzki on the offensive end, with a lineup that now seems obviously inferior to the Mavericks, he was stunned to pull back a city at home.

Fans think that the Spurs' game is grinding and ugly, but this time the Spurs met Nowitzki, who was difficult to defend, and Finley, who looked half-dead in the regular season but suddenly went berserk in the West, was forced to score, but I didn't expect it to play very well!

After the fans compared, they were surprised to find that the initial prediction of the game between the east and the west seemed to be reversed!

……

……

After returning to their home court, the Hawks are hosting a series against the Nets for the second consecutive home game.

Back at home, the Hawks tried to squeeze the Nets with offense, trying to break the uncomfortable rhythm that the Nets had brought in in the first two games.

Unexpectedly, the idea of the Nets was the same, and the style of the game between the two teams suddenly changed, from a defensive battle to an offensive battle!

On June 2, in Game 3 of the series between the Hawks and the Nets, the Hawks defeated the Nets 119-101 at home.

In this game, after the Hawks started the game, they found that the Nets also wanted to suddenly change the rhythm, and after changing the rhythm from the beginning of the game to play offense, Coach Mike Woodson quickly made defensive changes, surrounded Kidd's passing, and limited Kidd's total number of assists to 4, Kidd only got 13 points and 4 assists in this game, although he grabbed 14 rebounds, but the Nets' offense was very poor, and in the case of a very fast pace, the Nets' shooting rate was only 39 percent, and the Hawks side, Liu Mang scored 26 points, Raheem 21 and Jason Terry 30 points to cut the Nets to the ground.

But on June 4th, the Hawks lost their second home court!

Relying on Kidd's rampage, he scored 34 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists, although there were 5 turnovers, but on the offensive end, Kidd scored 30 in the playoffs for the first time in his career!

Mainly using the defensive strategy of the Hawks' successful anti-pass route in the third game, Kidd shot very decisively today, shooting 15 of 27 in the game, the key is that he felt amazingly good, and used the Hawks to shoot to death!

When Kidd needed to be caught in the bag, the Nets went crazy on offense and snatched home court advantage back 125-110.

2-2, after four games, the Hawks were equalized by the Nets!

In this game, the Hawks took it for granted, and Kidd's outburst was an accident, but the successful defense in the third game made the Hawks firmly put Kidd's strategy, and Kidd scored 34 points, after all, the Hawks themselves were careless!

……

Then, the series between the Mavericks and Spurs played immediately after each game between the Hawks and the Nets seemed to have a law of conservation in the iron battle.

Fans had just shifted their desire to watch the game from the East to the West, and then the Spurs and Mavericks began to defend......

After the Spurs came to Dallas, they played two games in a row, mainly because Finley's short-lived peak performance was gone when he returned to his home court, and the Spurs were playing and discovering, hey, only Nowitzki was left!

Then Duncan was responsible for blowing up with Nowitzki, and the Spurs' role players prevented others from dying, and in two consecutive games, the score was 86-83, 91-85, and the Spurs won two games in a row to tie the score to 3-3!

The Spurs continued their strong dominance in this year's playoffs, with three consecutive series and at least a 3-1 lead in the first four games! This kind of dominance, in the past 20 years, only the Bulls and Lakers have done it!

And the Spurs are Duncan's single core!

The playoffs are not over yet, but after four games, Duncan has surpassed Nowitzki in rebounds, assists, blocks and even scores!

This year's Western Conference playoffs can be regarded as a key matchup for big forwards to become gods, Nowitzki, Webb, Duncan, and Garnett have all made the playoffs, and after the collapse of the Lakers dynasty, whoever can have the last laugh is the moment when he becomes a god in one fell swoop, and Duncan has become the one who stands out.

Fans were really shocked by Duncan's performance of averaging 31 points, 17 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 blocks per game in the first four games, and saw Duncan beat Nowitzki like a killer with no waves in his heart.

However, the fans are going to collapse!

After playing the first two games in the East-West finals, fans "understood" that the East is still the iron-blooded East, the West is still the romantic West, the East is defensive, and the West is still offensive.

Atlanta, Dallas, San Antonio, New Jersey, these teams' own local fans, must be watching their own team's games, while the other 25 teams also want to watch the game fans or unhome team fans, except for a few defensive controls, most of them want to watch exciting offensive battles, so the attention has shifted from the east to the west.

However, they found that when they watched the Western Conference Finals, the West was just starting to defend! It was the overwhelming Spurs who prevented the Mavericks from dying.

And the hell in the east turned into a big offensive battle, and the big score was a 2-2 draw! It looks intense, exciting and tense!

Some fans who have bought the live ratings of the two Western Finals in Dallas in a row feel that this year's division finals are toxic!