Chapter Seventy-Eight: Sweeping the Raptors
When the Raptors came to New York, they received a huge "welcome" from the people of New York, especially the two brothers Carter and Maddy, who shone in the slam dunk contest this year. Pen & Fun & Fun www.biquge.info young people who were almost out of breath under the pressure of the omnipresent pervasiveness of New York, and that feeling rose to the maximum until they arrived at Madison Square Garden. There is always a lot of blood in the bones of young people, and the blood of the Raptors generals is excited.
But they didn't expect the Knicks' basin of cold water to come too quickly, too suddenly, so that they were not prepared at all.
It was Patrick Ewing and Antonio Davis who jumped the ball on both sides, and it was a completely non-competitive jump ball, with Ewing jumping the ball with ease.
It's just that the Knicks' offense did not advance layer by layer as usual, but suddenly accelerated the pace of the offense.
Ewing picked the ball back and was caught by Moxi, who did not pass the ball to Ward, but made a small long pass directly to Sprewell, who feinted to shoot, shaking the nervous Carter directly, and then quickly hit the basket himself. Before the rest of the Raptors could react at all, Sprewell had already made a layup and turned around and ran to the backcourt.
The Raptors were caught off guard at the beginning, which they didn't expect, and in the eyes of many people, the Knicks were a slow classic car, and they felt very uncomfortable with such a quick offense suddenly.
After being taken first, the Raptors quickly responded with their own.
Carter holds the ball and singles Sprewell. In the impression of many people, especially after this year's slam dunk contest, Carter is firmly remembered as a dunk, but Carter also has an excellent shooting and breakthrough skills that have been covered up under the dunk.
Carter's basic crossover, constantly cross-dribbling widely, but Sprewell put his center of gravity extremely low, a posture that you just don't let you in.
Carter couldn't find a chance to get past Sprewell, so he brought in Charles Oakley to block him.
The duo were quick to pick and roll, and Oakley was tough enough that Moxi and Sprewell had to switch guards quickly.
This time, it became a slightly bulky Moxi defensive Carter.
Seeing that the defender in front of him had changed, Carter did not hesitate, and directly accelerated to break through, and Mo Xi forcibly followed behind, but he was still cleaned by Carter in two or three steps, and Carter had already arrived in the penalty area!
Just as Carter was about to take off and dunk, Carter suddenly felt a lightness in his hand, and after a closer look, he found that Sprewell had put down his defense against Oakley early and cut the ball directly behind him. Carter quickly ran to the backfield in anger.
Because of the Knicks' opening wave of rapid offense, the Raptors' defense was extremely fast, but when the Raptors fell into position, they were surprised to find that the Knicks had no plan to attack quickly, and the whole team was advancing unhurriedly as in the past.
The rhythm is relaxed, and at the beginning of the game, the Knicks showed the bearing of the king of the East last season.
The Knicks began to attack positionally. Compared with the Raptors, the Knicks' offensive tactics are undoubtedly much richer, of course, just compared to the Raptors.
The Knicks used to play tactics and singles with the ball inside.
Ewing and Oakley are not only teammates for many years, but they are also close friends in private, and they know each other very well.
This ball, when Ewing catches the ball on the baseline, Oakley already knows what Ewing is going to do. Turn around in the low post, break through half a step, then turn around again, turn your back, lean twice, and roll over for a jumper.
Oakley guessed accurately, Ewing moved low post as always, half-turned to break through, turned back and hit back, turned over and jumped.
It's just that Oakley has been away from New York for two years after all, and Ewing's actions are as always, but the result is somewhat unexpected by him.
On the outside, Mo Xi just finished covering Houston, Houston came to stand by outside the three-point line, at this moment, Mo Xi suddenly started, and rushed directly to the basket, because of the distance between Mo Xi and Ewing, so Mo Xi cut into the road without anyone to block, Mo Xi cut into the restricted area without any resistance, Ewing did not shoot after turning over, but passed the ball to Mo Xi.
Oakley knew it was bad when he saw Ewing's hand, and hurriedly retreated, but Mo Xi was already in front of him. Oakley was about to forcibly hold Mo Xi down, but when he saw Mo Xi about to get up, he pounced directly and reached out to pull Mo Xi's arm directly.
Who knew that Mo Xi just shook after receiving the ball, as if he had already guessed that Oakley would come to make up for the defense, he flashed straight to the side, dodged Oakley's foul, and directly split the dunk with one hand.
The Knicks started the game with two straight points.
How could the young and vigorous Raptors be knocked down by such a simple two punches, they got up and charged the Knicks' position again.
It's just that Charles Oakley, a rare veteran in the team, frowned, as a New York celebrity, he knows the Knicks' style too well, although Pat Riley is gone, the current coach is a student of Pat Riley.
The Raptors' offense was still in the hands of Carter, who used him as the first starting point for tactics. Carter forced Sprewell again, Sprewell gave up the position of his right hand on the side of his body, Carter got into it directly, who knew that when he got to the basket, he just jumped, and he felt a black in front of him, Ewing has been waiting for a long time, Carter's physical talent is undoubtedly strong, but there is also a place for strong physical talent to be displayed, under Ewing's squeeze, Carter failed to jump, and obviously, the referee was the first to enter the playoff mode, in his opinion, Ewing did not pull you off the air, Where is this slight physical contact considered a foul?
Seeing that Carter couldn't make a move, Maddie quickly attacked, and with the help of his body, Carter used his strong waist and abdomen strength to force a small pause in the air, and threw the ball out and gave it to Maddie.
Maddie dribbled a step and made a pull-up jumper, and finally hit a shot for the Raptors.
Maddy's success seemed to make the Raptors' eyes shine, and then the Raptors began to give a lot of the ball to Maddie to handle.
But at this time, the Raptors didn't realize that they had made a mistake. In the past 20 years, the best point guard in the league is also a big man more than two meters tall, (in fact, I can't help but think of James here, he actually played point guard in his rookie season, and he was the second Magician) But he is as strong as Magic Johnson, and he is not too far behind in height in the face of tough defense, for example, when a point guard of 1.9 meters is tall, he will also have some mistakes in dribbling and be stealed by the opponent because of the high chassis, not to mention that although Maddie has a good organizational talent, But after all, he is not a pure point guard, and he is not as good as Magic Johnson.
In two rounds, the Raptors returned to the stage of being at a loss, Maddie directly chose to shoot when facing Ward, and as long as Maddie dribbled, Ward would stick it directly, forcing Maddie to stop the ball, and even cause mistakes, steals and counterattacks.
The lack of support on the offensive end also extends directly to the defensive end, and the biggest problem here is the absolute height advantage of the Knicks' twin towers. Antonio Davis and Charles Oakley will even struggle to interfere with the offense of Moxi and Ewing, and once packed, Ward, Houston and Sprewell are all consistent shots.
It's the first time I've felt so at home on the stage of the playoffs. Although he also suffered a little on the defensive end, the Raptors' offensive firepower was mostly concentrated on the outside, which was difficult to hand over to the inside, which directly allowed Mo Xi's advantages to be greatly exerted, while avoiding his own weaknesses.
With a clever baseline connection between Murphy and Larry Johnson, who came off the bench, Larry Johnson glided to the basket to score the ball and end the first quarter.
In the first quarter, the Raptors were pressed the floor by the Knicks, and in twelve minutes, the Raptors were beaten to 27:12 by the Knicks, although the Knicks were notoriously powerful in the first quarter, but now the Raptors are facing the playoff version of the Knicks for the first time, and for the first time they have experienced the strength of the former Eastern Conference champions in the playoffs.
In the first quarter, the Knicks managed to bring the game into their own rhythm, and neither Carter nor Maddy could fly again after that, and the Knicks dragged the game into the rhythm of their favorite defensive battle. Although Maddy scored two three-pointers in the final moments, but the Knicks have become a big trend, Maddy himself is unable to support himself, this game Carter knows how strong the scoring guard is that year, Carter was only three of Sprewell's 20 shots, only relying on free throws to score 16 points, while Sprewell was fluttering nine of 16 shots, cutting 21 points.
For some reason, Maddie always has a feeling that he wants to go home, this Knicks are very strong, but not strong enough, but in any case, it is not something that the current Raptors can deal with. He wanted to show the arrogant media the power of Toronto, but now, it seemed that there was only one place left to hesitate.
Maddy's hunch was not wrong, the Raptors were swept directly, and although there was one of them that was infinitely close to victory, they were still beaten back to cold Toronto by a shot from Houston, and Maddy began to really start thinking about where he was going from here.
I almost forgot to pass it, embarrassed.