After the Spurs' successful jump shot, the first offense of the first game of the playoffs this season, the basketball was passed a few times from the outside, and finally went to the team's boss, Tim Duncan.

Duncan, who received the ball outside the box on the right side, turned his back to the basket and Tim easily pushed past Cliff De Robinson, who was defending him, before turning around and shooting to give the Spurs the lead with a trademark slam shot. Cliff Robinson is a typical small forward style of big forward, 2.08 meters tall, but weighs only 225 pounds, and suffers very much in the interior confrontation, but his mobility is very good, so his offensive range is also very outward, and the scoring methods are mostly mid-range shots and 3-pointers.

The Suns quickly sent the ball in the backcourt, and after Hardaway received the ball, he easily erased Mario Elie, who defended himself, and soon the Suns formed a 3-on-2 advantage in the frontcourt, except for Meng Xu and Johnson who retreated quickly, the rest of the Spurs have not returned to the halfcourt.

Facing Johnson, who was defending himself, Hardaway passed the ball to Livingston, who had rushed to the edge of the free throw line, and Livingston turned and stepped back after breaking through, throwing the basketball in the direction of the basket, and Marion, who was unguarded, jumped high in the air and dunked the ball into the basket.

"Boy, see it." After landing, Marion, with his eyes wide open, demonstrated at Meng Xu in front of him.

"A hillbilly who has never seen the world, why don't you just dunk a basket and see what you can." Meng Xu muttered a few words at Marion, and then ran to the bottom line to send the ball in the backcourt, at which time Popovich on the sidelines had already started yelling at the court.

"I've tried hard enough, okay." Hearing Popovich blame the players on the field for being slow to retreat, Meng Xu also slandered in his heart.

After Meng Xu slowly sent out the baseline ball, Avery Johnson slowly dribbled the ball across the halfline like a snail, and after the basketball passed several times in a row, the unguarded David Robinson received the ball and hit.

The Suns still want to repeat the old trick, send the bottom line book quickly, in order not to be sprayed by Popovich, this time it became Meng Xu who defended Hardaway, under Meng Xu's containment and interception, Hardaway took 6 seconds to pass the half, and at this time the other players of the Spurs had already returned to the defense in place, and the Suns had to fight a positional battle with the Spurs.

After halftime, Meng Xu switched positions with Mario Elie again and went back to defend Marion, and it was too much of a loss to use Mario Elie to defend Marion. The current Hardaway is no longer the all-powerful Jordan successor of the past, after several major injuries, Hardaway's breakthrough threat has been greatly reduced, and the current offensive means rely more on mid-range shots, but Hardaway's ability to connect the team is still very good.

Suns power forward Cliff DRobinson has always hovered near the free throw line, there is no intention to go inside, and the Suns' center Luke Longley is also very close to the bottom corner, in this case Duncan and David Robinson have to defend very far away, Duncan is better, now David Robinson's turn and movement has slowed down significantly, the Suns now have a good breakthrough, will definitely make the Spurs full of holes.

For the Suns, a team that plays small ball, playing positional warfare is undoubtedly to attack its own strengths, basketball in the outside of a circle, a little helpless Hardaway had to hold the ball to impact the Spurs' inside, after seeing Hardaway's obvious intentions, Duncan had to give up Cliff Robinson, turn around to defend Hardaway, the overall situation and the field vision is very good Hardaway, easy to send a ground pass, trying to pass the ball to Duncan behind Cliff Robinson, who is already empty.

"Oops, it's going to be broken." Just as the basketball passed through the gap between Duncan and Mario Elie, a dark shadow appeared in front of Cliff DeRobinson.

Meng Xu, who was originally entangled with Marion, saw that Cliff De Robinson was already empty at the edge of the free throw line, and subconsciously went to make up for the defense, not wanting to hit it by mistake, and the basketball passed by Hardaway to Clive Robinson was directly held in Meng Xu's arms.

After Meng Xu broke the ball, he did not directly launch a fast attack as usual, but stayed in place to protect the ball.

"Idiot, don't hurry up and retreat." Seeing Marion, who was still pestering him, Meng Xu said angrily.

Meng Xu's average steals per game this season are close to 4, and he is the steal king of the league this season, and the fast-break dunk after the steal is also one of Meng Xu's main scoring methods, but in this game, Meng Xu did not play a fast break after the steal, but waited for his teammates to pass the half, and then went to play a positional battle.

"The Spurs are forcibly slowing down the pace of the game, and they want to pull the Suns into the rhythm of the Spurs, so that the original advantage of the Suns will all become a slight trend." After only a moment of contemplation, George Gervin understood Popovich's tactics.

The Suns are one of the fastest-paced teams in the league, and the Spurs are one of the slowest, the Suns have young players and play small-ball tactics, while the Spurs are a bunch of old guys and play twin tower tactics, the same one minute, the Suns can complete more than 5 or even 6 attacks, while the Spurs play 4 times is not enough.

Before the game began, Popovich's tactic in the locker room was to slow down the pace and play positional battles, isn't the Suns fast? Just let him not get up fast, it is best to play more than 20 seconds in a round, as long as he can drag the sun into the familiar rhythm of the Spurs, then the Spurs will win, Popovich also deliberately pulled Meng Xu, instructed Meng Xu not to be impulsive, slow down his pace, even if the ball is broken, he can't play a fast attack, and he would rather not score points in the positional battle, and he can't pull up the rhythm of the game.

"Why does Meng like to fight for frontcourt rebounds so much in this game?" As the game progressed, Spurs assistant coach Mike Budenholzer gradually found that Meng Xu was a little different, in the regular season, Meng Xu had never been so active in grabbing rebounds in the front court, no matter if his teammates missed the shot, Meng Xu was basically the first to retreat.

If Meng Xu heard the assistant coach's words now, he would definitely say, "Nonsense, a frontcourt rebound is 8 points, wouldn't it be a big loss if you don't grab it." ”

"Meng is very excited about this game!" Regarding Meng Xu's performance on the court, Popovich can only understand that Meng Xu is too excited, after all, it is the first playoff game of his career. After a season of observation, Popovich also knew that Meng Xu's judgment of the rebounding point was not good, and he relied entirely on speed and bounce to rush for rebounds.

In the first quarter of the game alone, Scott Skels called four timeouts, trying everything to speed up the pace of the game, but they all failed, not only that, but the pace of the Spurs is getting slower and slower, obviously playing the inside can easily score, but they have to pass around there, increase mistakes, and even have a 24-second violation, which is really laughable.

In this game, in order to delay the Suns' offensive time, the Spurs also did everything, and they saw the side that scored in a football game scooping the ball from the goal, but they shot and hit, and then grabbed the basketball with the defender, and held it in their arms and did not let go, this game also appeared, but fortunately, after the referee on duty blew a technical foul on the Spurs, the Spurs players stopped this shameless behavior.