When the two sides switched to the bench, the 76ers temporarily trailed by two points at 23-25, and two points were nothing in the first quarter relative to the entire game. However, O'Brien did not replace all the twin stars, but let Pierce continue to play on the court with the bench lineup, which is also the usual urine of the Celtics, always maintaining at least one person on the court.

Brown didn't think much of it and fielded a purely offensive lineup, with Arenas and Reid in the backcourt, Hill and Oku on the inside, and the only defensive player being Lynch at the No. 3 position. Of course, this is not purely for Pierce, the main reason is that there are not many qualified wings in the team, Bale can only be regarded as a swingman, and the substitute can only be used by Lynch.

Because Arenas and Reed took on the team's scoring load, Lynch switched to Pierce whenever the Celtics attacked, reducing the defensive pressure on Reed. It's also his usual role on the team, and Lynch doesn't have much confidence in defending Pierce, but he's going to have to pester the guy who even Bale couldn't do anything before.

But even Bell is weak, how can Lynch stop Pierce? Although Arenas and Reed have a tacit understanding of each shot, in everyone's eyes, Pierce is the most dazzling person on the field at this moment. His movements are very simple, there are not so many fancy moves, and he doesn't even look like a star, but he can just get the ball into the basket.

In the face of Lynch's defense, Pierce burst out and scored consecutive points, and even Reed came up to help prevent him from continuing to score. The other four players of the Celtics are naturally the only ones who want to lead the way, and they are very conscious of opening up space for the boss to play with the ball alone, and whenever there is a ball that he can't handle, they will pass to Pierce.

To some extent, Pierce is now a back-to-back player, and his teammates will choose to give him the ball when they are helpless, but this pot he carries it with reason, and the effect is quite good. Seeing Pierce's continuous increase in points, Arenas was also anxious and began to compete with Pierce, but he felt average today, and after several missed shots, the opponent had opened up the point difference.

When Arenas burst to the basket again but didn't return, Reed frowned and said to him: "Gilbert, you have to pass the ball, we all have a chance on the outside, heads-up is not a good habit, if you want to compete, there are more opportunities!" ”

Arenas nodded, he was also a little depressed, and could only obediently play the breakthrough point. If he had just joined, he would definitely scoff at Reed's words, and then continue to go his own way, but this season Chang Wei has been communicating with him privately to help him get rid of his personality problems, although Arenas is still a little proud occasionally, but in general there has been a big change, so this time Reed gave up the idea of continuing to compete with Pierce as soon as he said it.

But this can only stop the bleeding in time for the 76ers, and they need to do better to erase the point difference, but unfortunately Pierce did not give them this opportunity. At the end of the first quarter, the 76s still trailed by four points at 35-39, and Pierce scored 14 points and three rebounds in a single quarter to give the Celtics a lead, which was not big, but it was already good.

Brown's face was a little ugly, he didn't expect the Celtics to be so difficult, of course, in this year's playoffs, he didn't try to be led by the opponent in the first quarter, but Pierce's performance became a thorn in his heart. He did a good job of limiting Davis in the first round and Kidd and Jefferson in the second round, but Pierce was different, he was neither as immature as Jefferson nor lacking in offensive ability as Kidd, and he was much better than Davis.

So Brown didn't get angry at the first quarter break, he knew that his players had done enough, not that they didn't do their best, but that the opponent was too strong. Brown's idea was to have Snow and Bell double to see if he could contain Pierce, and while that would free Walker, at least he would be much less of a threat than Pierce.

However, Walker is not easy to match, before he had a bad hand just because he was limited by Bale, and now Pierce has attracted two defenders in one go, and it is a little unreasonable that he can't shoot again. In fact, Walker is averaging 22.1 points, 8.8 rebounds and 5 assists per game this season, and although the shooting percentage is not as high as Pierce's, as long as he is given enough space to shoot, it is still no problem to shoot a few open shots, and now the opponent's attention is on Pierce.

Every time Walker hits a shot, Brown's heart goes to pump, and he's the lesser of two evils. Pierce has better offensive skills and scoring efficiency, and instead of letting him continue to score like crazy, it would be better to let Walker do it, at least Durham Porter and Lewis can still grab a few rebounds on the inside, so that the Celtics don't score all the time.

It's a good way to go, and it's a lot better than when Pierce was the main point of attack, but the pressure on Iverson and Lewis is even greater, because everyone can see that the 76ers don't have any other scoring points, and if they target it a little, their offense will be deadlocked. To make matters worse, Lewis's hands weren't as hot as in the first quarter, and Damham Porter was the busiest man on the floor, scrambling to protect the basket and grab rebounds, both frontcourt and backcourt.

Fortunately, Chang Wei has been strengthening his rebounding ability almost all season, the 76ers don't need an interior scorer, and last year's selection of Oku was just an option to add to the team, as a team with a large number of scorers, an interior big man who can defend, grab rebounds and block is what they need, and Durham Porter fits their requirements perfectly.

This is when Durham Porter showed his value, although Barty was difficult and experienced, he still worked hard to grab every rebound, he knew that every defensive rebound he grabbed meant that the opponent had one less offensive opportunity, and every offensive rebound meant one more offensive opportunity for his team, so he played hard.

Under his frantic scramble, Barty retreated, and the Celtics scored hard, after all, it is now Walker as the main attacker, when a team can't maintain a high scoring efficiency and can't grab rebounds, then it's to be expected that they will be in trouble on the offensive end, and now they may have to count on Pierce to come out again and save the world.