Rick Carlisle's hoarseness finally worked, and Shaquille O'Neal, who ate four hot pots in a row in the first half of the first quarter, finally broke out.

As soon as he came back from the timeout, he received a pass from Kobe Bryant, turned and dunked inside to score two points.

Compared to Yao Ming, Cato's defensive style is a bit unintelligent, he only knows blindly hard top, but this is also in line with Cato's personal positioning - a meat shield-type center.

After this ball, the Lakers also defended the Rockets' offense.

Then, O'Neal continued to wreak havoc on the inside, scoring in the frame again.

It looks like the shark has completely exploded.

O'Neal scored consecutive points, Kobe Bryant also broke through and made a foul, plus Derrick Fisher broke through the layup and scored two points, and in a blink of an eye, the Lakers equalized the score, and even relied on Fisher's layup to overtake the score.

The team suddenly fell behind, and Qiao Hai was not impatient, he had no intention of calling a timeout at all, nor did he have any intention of adjusting.

The Rockets replaced Francis and Yao Ming, and the sudden wave of falling behind was understandable, and Qiao Hai didn't expect to suppress the Lakers in the whole game, especially when O'Neal had found his form and completely exploded.

The Rockets continued to hit iron and make turnovers, and the Lakers scored consecutive points to widen the difference.

At the end of the first quarter, the Lakers led the Rockets by 6 points at 28-22.

Qiao Hai was not surprised that the Rockets were behind after the first quarter, in fact, he was already very surprised that O'Neal could not score in half a quarter that he was able to limit.

Replacing Francisca Yao Ming in the second half of the first quarter was also a last resort, this game was a 48-minute game, Qiao Hai had to share the playing time of all the players, maintain the fitness and condition of the players, which is also one thing that a good head coach should do.

As soon as the second quarter began, Qiao Hai replaced Yao Ming and Francis, and Kobe Bryant led the team alone on the Lakers' side.

In this way, the Rockets have a certain advantage, especially on the inside, Qiao Hai enabled the inside combination of Dalius Sangera, Yao Ming and Sangella, and the inside combination of Samaki Walker and Robert Horry has obvious advantages.

But at the beginning of the second quarter, it was not Yao Ming who broke out, but Steve Francis on the guard line.

In the face of Bryan Shaw's defense, Francis scored 6 points in a row, leading the Rockets to chase consecutive points, and halfway through the second quarter, the Rockets narrowed the score to 29:32, only 3 points behind the Lakers.

Then, the official timeout, the Lakers made substitutions, replaced O'Neal, and replaced Kobe.

The Rockets kept Yao Ming, replaced Steve Francis, and then replaced Ralph Alston and Ron Artest, at the end of the second quarter, street ball king Ga'atai was in hot shape, and the Rockets broke out again.

Finally, at halftime, the Rockets tied the score at 46:47, and the Rockets were in front, and they were only one point behind the Lakers at halftime.

"At halftime, the score was 47:46, and the Lakers led by one point."

"In the second quarter, the Rockets were crazy about chasing points, and in the entire second quarter, the Rockets won the Lakers by as many as 5 points."

"The Rockets played a perfect second quarter, Steve Francis broke out for half a quarter, Ron Artest broke out for another half quarter, and while this Rockets didn't have S-class players, they had a lot of A-class players."

……

At halftime, Qiao Hai got a statistical table, which was counted by Tang Yi, which is different from the NBA's official statistics, this statistical table is more detailed.

Qiao Hai glanced at the shooting heat map of the Rockets in the first half, in the first half, the Rockets made very few mid-range shots, and almost all of the points came from under the basket or high posts and outside the three-point line.

Steve Francis played well, scoring 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting in the half, and Ron Artest also had a strong performance, scoring 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting in the half.

On the contrary, Yao Ming and Carlos Boozer performed averagely, one scoring only 6 points and the other only 4 points.

Qiao Hai further studied the Lakers' defense in the first half, and the difference between Rick Carlisle and Phil Jackson is that defensively, Rick Carlisle did bring a system to the Lakers.

The core of this system is not O'Neal, nor Samaki Walker, but Kobe Bryant.

In the first half of the Lakers' defense, Kobe Bryant constantly moved sideways in the waist position, and various auxiliary defenses complemented the defense, almost single-handedly supporting the Lakers' overall defense.

Therefore, the mid-range position is airtight by the Lakers.

The opportunities are in the high post and outside the three-point line, as well as under the basket, but under the basket, the Rockets don't score much inside, especially Boozer, who only scored 4 points in the low post.

To sum up, in fact, once the Rockets' interior line gets the ball, the Lakers will immediately shrink the defense into the interior and force the Rockets to pass the ball.

Then gather all your forces and defend the Rocket's mid-range offense.

I have to say that this defensive strategy works pretty well, at least, if it weren't for the outbursts of Steve Francis and Ron Artest, the Rockets would definitely be behind by a big score.

Time was running out at halftime, and after thinking about it for a while, Qiao Hai decided to make a big adjustment in the second half to disrupt the rhythm of the Lakers and Rick Carlisle.

……

"In the first half, we didn't do well offensively and we scored 46 points, which is not a high score."

Qiao Hai said as some players in the locker room felt disapplieving, in this big era of defense, the halftime score of 46 points is not low.

'We're playing against an attacking team, not a defensive team, so I think we should score higher.' Qiao Hai continued.

'In order to do that, in the second half, we need to make some changes.

Qiao Hai picked up a tactical board and quickly circled two points, one point was in the high position and the other point was in the low position.

"We've been practicing but haven't used a set of plays, focusing on high and low positions, Yao, this is your position." Qiao Hai pointed to the high position, and then, he pointed to the low position: "Carlos, this is your position." ”

"The next tactics we have to play are - Princeton offense, keep the tempo down, play positional offense......"

The Princeton offense has always been a bottom-of-the-box offensive tactic for the Rockets, and generally speaking, the Rockets' regular offensive tactics are pick-and-roll offense, with Steve Francis and Yao Ming blocking and pick-and-roll, and Ron Artest and Carlos Boozer blocking.

Once the pick-and-roll offense is locked by the opponent, the Rockets will sacrifice hammers on either side of the corner.

Princeton's tactics have been pressing the bottom of the box, and it has become the Rocket's hole card tactic, and in this game, at the critical moment, the Rockets will rely on this style of play to win the game.

……

……

At the end of the fifteen-minute half-time break, the two teams returned to the field.

The Rockets' starting four plus Carlos Boozer came on, and on the Lakers' side, the power forward position was also replaced by Robert Horry, and the other positions remained the same.

Both teams played with the strongest lineups, and with a one-point difference, every moment of the second half became a decisive battle.