"Hahahaha, Erwin, where are the gods and Buddhas you are talking about?" At the end of the first half of the game, taking advantage of the time to insert the advertisement, Michaels and Magic Johnson began to joke again, before the start of this game, Magic Johnson swore that in today's game, Meng Xu and Duncan will definitely stage a wonderful showdown, and also gave this game a god and Buddha hegemony, such a domineering and leaky name, but at the end of the half, Meng Xu 9 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, Tim Duncan 7 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks, where is the god and Buddha battle? On the contrary, it was the Pacers' Jermaine O'Neal who scored 17 points and six rebounds in the half, and pulled out the limelight.

"El, what are you anxious about, this game is only halfway through, and the exciting showdown is still to come." Magic Johnson, who couldn't hold his face a little, didn't let go, and after Magic Johnson finished speaking, Sean Elliott, who was sitting next to him, couldn't help laughing.

"This guy is really giving me a headache." Popovich, who had already walked into the player's tunnel, looked at Meng Xu's back not far away, and while talking to himself, he reached out and grabbed his head, and the hair that was already thinning was falling out several more under Popovich's ravage.

As the defending champion, Popovich now has only one goal, that is, the championship, and the Pacers are undoubtedly the biggest obstacle to the Spurs' title defense, the two regular season matchups between the Pacers and the Spurs are the best opportunities for the two sides to test each other and practice tactics in advance and find flaws, inspired by the Pacers' loss to the Hawks, Popovich also wants to practice some new tactics in today's game, but at present, the effect is not ideal.

Of course, the reason why the Spurs' new tactics did not achieve the expected effect was not because Rick Carlisle was skilled, nor because the core of the Pacers, Meng Xu, played at a super level, on the contrary, Meng Xu only scored 9 points in the half, which also proved that Popovich's strategy of wrapping Meng Xu was correct, but the shift of the Pacers' offensive axis made the Spurs' wrapping of Meng Xu useless.

Originally, in Popovich's expectations, using the bag of Bruce Bowen and Robert Hawley to maximize the consumption of Meng Xu's physical strength in the first half, as long as Meng Xu's physical strength has problems, then the Spurs will take away the Pacers in a wave in the third quarter, but except for a few offenses after the opening, no matter how Robert Hawley provoked, Meng Xu did not have any response, and the more Meng Xu was like this, the more worried Popovich became, so that Popovich never dared to relax his defense against Meng Xu, and in the second half of the entire second quarter, asked Robert Hawley to defend Jermaine O'Neal, who was a cut taller than him and a lot stronger, and the result was that Robert Hawley was ruthlessly beaten by Jermaine O'Neal.

"No matter, follow the scheduled plan." While slowly walking to the locker room, while constantly thinking about it in his mind, finally when Popovich walked to the door of the Spurs' home locker room, Popovich made up his mind, although the situation on the court has not yet reached the state he expected, but Popovich is still ready to implement the established strategy, ready to defeat the Pacers in the third quarter, because as long as there is a game with Meng Xu, Popovich does not want to drag the game to the last moment.

"Erwin, maybe the battle between gods and Buddhas you said is about to be staged." At the end of the intermission, the players from both sides walked out of the players' tunnel one after another, looking at the players from both sides who had already walked into the court, Michaels said to the Magic Johnson next to him with an expectant expression.

"Hmm." Originally, I thought that Michaels was making fun of his magic Johnson again, but after seeing Tim Duncan and Meng Xu, who were already standing near the middle circle, he instantly lost this thought, Tim Duncan with a blank face, Meng Xu with a relaxed face, Magic Johnson already felt the momentum emanating from them, and when he thought of this, Magic Johnson was a little impatient.

Under the expectation of countless spectators, the second half of the game began, just as Magic Johnson expected, the first offense of the third quarter of the game, Tim Duncan personally played, and the first half was always near the paint area, the Spurs' offense, Duncan did not go directly to the basket, but ran to the right side of the three-point line and stopped, without caring about the defender behind him, Duncan, who received Parker's pass, turned his back to NN-Hilario and chiseled in.

One hit, two hits, after NN Hilario had been completely out of position, Tim Duncan took his left foot as the axis, and completed the turn very easily, the basketball thrown by Duncan, rebounded into the net after hitting the rebound, and hit a textbook mid-range back turn to play a board jumper, after the shot, Duncan also glanced at Meng Xu not far away very rarely.

Offensive and defensive conversion, due to Robert Hawley's downplay, the Spurs' defense of Meng Xu was obviously a lot lax, no matter how good Bruce Bowen's close defense is, it is obviously unrealistic to expect him to limit Meng Xu alone, so this time, Meng Xu received the basketball passed by Tony Allen very easily, and Meng Xu, who received the ball, waved his hand at Jermaine O'Neal, who was about to pull up for his own block, indicating that he didn't need to block this time.

Back-to-back defense has always been Bruce Bowen's shortcoming, not to mention defending a player like Meng Xu with top-notch back-to-back ability, so when Meng Xu held the ball in one hand and leaned sideways on Bruce Bowen to start testing, Bruce Bowen was somewhat weak-hearted.

"It hurts." Although he had enough mental preparation, when Meng Xu began to exert his strength, the pain from his chest still made Bruce Bowen a little unbearable, and he endured the pain in his chest, and Bruce Bowen, who was taken a step back by Meng Xu, pasted it again, but Bruce Bowen, who had just been pasted up, was pushed away by Meng Xu again, and this time Bowen retreated a lot farther than just now, nearly a meter away, there was already enough space and time, Let Meng Xu choose the way to end this attack.

Just when Bruce Bowen thought that Meng Xu would use his back to turn and break through himself, Meng Xu, who had completed the turn, jumped up directly in front of Bruce Bowen, due to the distance, although Bruce Bowen had subconsciously made a blocking action, but there was no way to interfere with the basketball thrown by Meng Xu, he could only watch the basketball fly over his palm and fly over his head.

"Beautiful shot, beautiful back-to-back jumper, Meng Xu responded to Duncan's offense just now with a near-perfect back-to-back jumper." When Meng Xu hit this ball with the same shooting method as Duncan, Magic Johnson instantly shouted excitedly, and Meng Mi's identity was revealed at this moment.

"Tim, how's this ball?" After the shot was hit, Meng Xu said with a smile at Duncan, who was about to fight for a rebound but pounced on an empty game, which was a response to Duncan just now, although because of the distance, Duncan definitely couldn't hear what he said, but Meng Xu knew that Duncan would understand what he meant without hearing the voice.