Both sides each hit 40+ in the first quarter, and the West led slightly 45-42. Looking at the crazy fans around him, Chang Wei shook his head gently, now everyone is still too restrained when participating in the All-Star Game, if he remembers correctly, in his previous life, both sides in this game were just over 110 points, which looks very high, but you must know that since the 06-07 season, every year All-Star at least one team can get a very terrifying score, sometimes the crazy confrontation between the two teams can make the total score exceed 300 points, and now it looks far less exciting.

Of course, this is also largely due to the shift in style across the league, with the team's offense not being very fast-paced and the players not getting used to playing fast, so it's no surprise that the score is low. However, Iverson, who has adapted to the fast offense, has become the brightest star of the game, and his fast break and sharp three-point shooting are the key to the East to bite the score. However, Brown didn't plan to let his love consume too much energy at the beginning of the game, and in his opinion, to win this game, he could wait until the second half to decide the winner, so Iverson only played less than 8 minutes in the first quarter, and the rest of the time was used by Brown to try other interior combinations.

For the head coaches of both sides, the All-Star Game can replace any player at will, and the stars sitting on the bench are a few stars in the league anyway, and they only need to consider whether their style of play is gorgeous enough, whether they can arouse the interest of fans, whether they can get the ratings of the All-Star Game, and they don't need to care too much about their strength. Adelman's coaching style is more unrestrained than Brown's, so at the end of the first quarter, everyone in the Western All-Stars was given a chance to play, while the Eastern All-Stars had two people, Sprewell and Houston, who had been guarding the water cooler.

However, this does not mean that Brown will not let them play in this game, after all, these two are still better than Mason, and not wanting Mason to play does not mean that they don't want to play Houston and Sprewell. So by the start of the second quarter, Brown put them straight on the floor, paired with Starkhouse, Mutombo and Marbury, a pure All-Star bench lineup.

However, this lineup did not work very well, and it is not for nothing that Marbury is called the "lone wolf", as a point guard he prefers to attack with the ball on his own, especially in the All-Star game, and it is undoubtedly unrealistic to expect him to pass the ball. Stackhouse and Sprewell are also not very willing to pass the ball, Houston has the idea of passing, but unfortunately he has more than enough heart, and both passes to the basket were stealed, after all, he is an endpoint for the Knicks, and passing is indeed not his strong point. In the end, the task of organizing the attack was actually handed over to Mutombo, which made Chang Wei on the sidelines a little crying and laughing, what kind of strange lineup can make Mutombo act as a high-level response point?

Admittedly, Mutombo did consciously add the content of high post strategy when he trained, but first you need to be able to get the ball! Playing together with Marbury's group on the court, the only time Mutombo can get the ball is to grab rebounds by himself, and when he gets defensive rebounds, he can't dribble the ball to the front court by himself, rush to the interior like a guard to complete the layup, and when he gets the offensive rebound, he will directly play a second offense, and bring it out to continue to organize it, isn't it a fool? Mutombo is not a fool, so he will attack directly on the inside.

At the end of the first half, all players from both teams were given varying amounts of playing time, and the score was 62-60, with the East leading by two points. The 24-minute scoring champion was undoubtedly Iverson, who was the most suitable for a quick offense, with 15 points and three assists, and Kobe Bryant in the West was no different, with 12 points, four rebounds and two assists, but no one else on either team scored in double figures.

But it wasn't the two of them who were the brightest stars of the third quarter, as two of the top interior players of the Western Conference All-Stars, Garnett and Duncan, teamed up to dominate the game. There are too few interior players in the East, even if Brown sends Mutombo and Davis to form a twin tower, Garnett and Duncan are both inside and outside styles, Adelman is very witty to let the two of them partner, and with Kidd, Kobe and Payton The three guards, equivalent to two big and three small. It was undoubtedly the happiest time for Kobe Bryant, as Duncan and Garnett teamed up to create numerous scoring opportunities for them, and under Kidd's organization, the Western Star went on fire to take a 42-35 lead in the third quarter, directly reversing the situation of falling behind.

This situation did not come as a surprise to Brown, who was ready to fall behind in the first three quarters and win with defense in the fourth, and a five-point deficit was completely acceptable. Every fan who tuned in to the All-Star Game on the ground and in front of the television quickly saw something they had never seen on the All-Star Game stage, with Brown fielding a lineup of Iverson, Maddy, Stackhouse, Davis and Mutombo in a suffocating high-intensity defense that would have been hard to see in previous All-Star games.

Originally, Brown didn't plan to use Maddie, but Chang Wei repeatedly assured that Maddie was also very strong on the defensive end, which made Brown choose Maddie at the second position, and he was pleasantly surprised that Maddie's defense was really good, and it was a predictive steal in the fourth quarter, and then he completed a fast-break dunk. Brown then remembered that Maddy once played for Villanova University, and he was obviously a star trained by Chang Wei, and the offensive and defensive all-round or something is standard.

The Western All-Stars obviously didn't have any psychological preparation, they didn't score a point in the first three minutes, and they were also hit by the opponent with a wave of 10-0 small climax, which instantly changed from a 5-point lead to a 5-point deficit. Adelman quickly called a timeout, and while setting up the tactics for the players, he was also ready to change to the strongest lineup on his side. Unexpectedly, the sudden defense of the East did not attract boos from the fans at the scene, and the real confrontation was also very eye-catching after all.

Of course, it's not that no one has a lot of criticism about Brown's approach, and Harmon is one of them, and she snorts: "How can the All-Star Game still play defense?" Didn't everyone let go of the attack from beginning to end? Is there anyone else watching the defense? ”

Chang Wei smiled: "Is this ugly? On the contrary, I think that such a fierce confrontation is exciting enough, and I know that the old man wants to win, so in order to win, he will not hesitate to pay any price, as long as he can win. ”