Although the Knicks' current bench lineup is not as strong as it used to be, it is still much better than the Celtics, and Van Gundy basically replaced the starters at the beginning of the second quarter, leaving Brand to lead the second lineup, with Dale Davis, Mark Jackson, Kukoc, and Witherspoon on the court.

The Knicks may not have developed enough on this lineup, but they were more than enough to defend themselves, with the offense going to Kukoc and Brand, and the rest being responsible for passing defense and rebounding.

But what caught them off guard was that the Celtic leader stepped up.

Paul Pearce, who is back in the No. 3 position, is starting to make a difference.

Pierce catches the ball from outside the 45-degree three-point line on the left, lowers his center of gravity, and faces Kukoc.

Even though Kukoc is known as the "European Jordan", he still has some shortcomings of European forward players, such as traverse speed, especially since Kukoc is still a tall man of six feet and ten inches.

Pierce suddenly raised his center of gravity and kicked the ground violently, and the photographers on the sideline could clearly see that Pierce's sneakers were even deformed. Pierce changed sharply to a direct and strong attack on Kukoc.

Kukoc didn't react at all, and when he realized he had been broken by Pierce, he hurriedly moved to the side and back, hoping to use his height advantage to push Pierce out.

Pierce didn't bypass Kukoc, flipped over to the initiative and pasted it, directly on Kukoc, and suddenly stopped and retreated.

Kukoc hurriedly pounced, only to find that Pierce slowly rose from the ground and stuck to Kukoc's body again.

"Toot ~"

Kukic was fouled on a shot, and Pierce walked to the free throw line and made both free throws.

Kukoc was going to go back and return Pierce, who would have thought that he was touched by the Celtics' backup point guard, Kukoc's height was too tall, and in the face of the Celtics' small point guard, he couldn't protect the ball well at all, and was directly pulled out of the ball.

Celtic fast attack.

Although the Knicks' defensive fast-break ability is top-notch, these people on the court are now older, and the Knicks seem to have always liked balloon stars. The Celtics are young and strong, and the Knicks' bench simply can't catch up with them, and the Celtics have a fast break.

Immediately after the next round, Pierce hit Kukoc again, and this time Pierce even chose the same move, a step-back jumper after the break, but this time Kukoc didn't seem to be so lucky, and was beaten into a 2+1 by Pierce.

Pierce was dressed roughly, looking at the scoreboard, at least the score was catching up, although there was still some distance, but at least it was comfortable to watch.

In five minutes, Pierce showed the world what is called an offensive kaleidoscope, breaking, back-to-back shooting, step-back jumpers, three-point Pierce took out all the offensive skills he would use, this time it was the Knicks' turn to desperately hang the score, but fortunately, in the first quarter, the Knicks established a big enough advantage, and the Celtics failed to overtake the score.

Pierce played the whole first quarter, and after five minutes, it was really a bit tired, it was just an ordinary regular season, far from desperate, and the Celtics chose to replace Pierce with Antoine Walker, another of the twin stars.

Seeing the Celtics' adjustments, the Knicks were still relieved, but they did not take it lightly, and also made substitution adjustments, replacing Kukoc, who was not outstanding in performance and even completely blown up by Pierce, along with Witherspoon and Brand, and replaced the Knicks' other Spreville with the outside two shots and the absolute core Moxi.

Van Gundy's move is clearly to strengthen some of the offensive efforts. Since winning the championship, Van Gundy has been a bit of an enlightener, although he is still extremely persistent in defense, but he has also changed his way of looking at offense, and sometimes even tries to break down opponents with offense, which is really a big improvement for Van Gundy.

Not long after the Knicks made adjustments, the Celtics returned to the prototype, Dale Davis is old, yes, but he is a real Eastern tough guy, he is the character who carried Ewing, O'Neal, Rodman, and Ranbier, although almost all of those people have reached the end of their careers, but this also shows Davis's toughness, Walker, a big man who likes to float outside and throw three points, is really helpless in the face of this kind of rough man who is not "gentle" at all, at the same time, The Knicks' trident, Moxi, Houston and Spreville began to be completely powerful under Mark Jackson's threading the needle, focusing on scoring, and the three people who didn't have to think about organizing the offense suddenly burst out with huge firepower, and after only playing for more than four minutes, the Knicks actually played a wave of inhumane 24:8 offensive climax, and the score difference went straight to 20 points.

The Celtics panicked, they never expected the Knicks' scoring explosion to be so strong, and what was even more terrifying was that all these 24 points were chiseled out by them with two points and two points, of which only four points were free throws, not even a three-pointer.

The Celtics immediately switched to the starting line-up, and Pierce was back on the pitch ready to force the savior.

After Pierce came on, the defense against Sprewell didn't seem to be any different than against Kukoc, and the scoring was still easy to score.

Pierce chose to play Sprewell with his back this time, and the defensive back-to-back offense may be the worst part of Sprewell's defensive ability, after all, even in the second position, Sprewell's height of about 196 is not very popular, not to mention that he is now in the third position, facing Pierce, who is a head taller than him, Sprewell does have some headaches.

Pierce slammed his back hard against Sprewell's chest, then turned around and went straight inside and hit the basket.

But Sprewell is not Kukoczy, Sprewell's defensive ability is still extremely strong, although the first step was thrown off, but Pierce is not the kind of scorer who relies on speed to eat after all, Sprewell followed toughly, Pierce was planning to repeat the old trick, and after withstanding Sprewell, he directly retreated and jumped to shoot, and suddenly caught a glimpse of Mo Xi began to move quietly to this side, Pierce still gave up the idea of retreating and jumping, and it was a fake move.

Pierce pushed Sprewell for a while, and then dribbled and pulled a step back, and Sprewell was pushed away, and Mo Xi thought that Pierce would be a direct step-back jumper, and quickly moved a few steps sideways, forcing over, but found that Pierce didn't mean to retreat at all.

Mo Xi panicked in his heart, until he was shaken, and it was too late to retreat, so he saw Pierce simply use Mo Xi as a wall, separated from Sprewell's defense, and passed directly from Mo Xi's side to attack the basket.

Mo Xi turned around and reached out to make amends, but Pierce made a big drift in the air, and simply came to the other side of the basket and scored a cricket.

At halftime, the Celtics scored 43 points, and Pierce scored 23 points alone, but Rao is so, facing the Knicks who scored 50 points on the opposite side, Pierce still feels powerless, and he clearly understands that the Knicks have not really started to exert their power.