"In the first quarter, we played a triangle offense, with Thiem single-handedly inside to attract the pack, and Meng ran out of space on the perimeter, just like he did in the playoffs last season." Before the start of this game, Popovich, after announcing the starting lineup, took out the tactical board that had been prepared long ago and announced the tactics that the Spurs would execute in the first quarter. Because the Spurs have used the triangle offense many times in the playoffs last season, and these players on the court are already very familiar with the triangle offense, so this summer offseason, the Spurs did not do too much tactical training.

Although O'Neal Jr.'s strength is not weak, and he is still a year ahead of Duncan in the NBA, but in pairs with the two FMVPs, O'Neal Jr. looks a little immature, whether it is the jump ball at the beginning or the defense of Duncan, O'Neal Jr. is much worse. Although he has played 4 seasons with the Trail Blazers, the total playing time is not more than Duncan's one season, so O'Neal Jr. obviously lacks a lot of experience in the game, although the bounce and bounce speed seem to be a little better than Duncan, but O'Neal Jr., who has never jumped the ball, I don't know if he is too nervous, the referee has not yet blown the whistle, O'Neal Jr. jumped up first, and O'Neal Jr.'s behavior also caused the fans to laugh.

After Duncan's successful jump shot, Avery Johnson advanced the ball to the middle circle, and directly handed the basketball to Duncan near the free throw line.

When the Pacers sent the baseline ball, Travis Best dribbled the ball and gestured towards Jermaine O'Neal, and it was clear that the Pacers were trying to help O'Neal Jr. build confidence through the confrontation with Duncan in this game. After the failure to trade Meng Xu, the Pacers are ready to build a team around Jermaine O'Neal, Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose this season.

"Meng, don't you have a little memory? It's easy for me to foul me if it's so tight. For Meng Xu, who follows him closely behind him and pulls his jersey from time to time, Reggie Miller really feels like he wants to vomit blood now, last season's finals under Meng Xu's defense, Reggie Miller was already quite uncomfortable, but after this summer, this guy's defense seems to have improved a lot, the most obvious is that his body is stronger, he has no advantage in the confrontation with his body, and the most blood-making thing is that Meng Xu has gained so much weight, It's just as fast as last season.

"Reggie, do you know what my greatest pleasure is?" When Reggie Miller stopped, Meng Xu immediately hugged him tightly, put his left hand on his waist and dragged his jersey, and almost hugged him directly. "My greatest pleasure is to watch you strike iron, that kind of clattering sound, which makes my blood boil all over my body."

"MD, bastard, I'm going to score 30 points on your head in this game." Reggie Miller, who has always been a first-class person in the NBA, has always been a first-class person, and now he finds that the guy in front of him is not much worse than himself.

"Reggie, I don't want the game to be over, you're not scoring 30 points, you're getting 30 pieces of iron." After seeing that Reggie Miller was a little angry at his trash talk, Meng Xu's heart also rose with a sense of accomplishment. But what Meng Xu didn't know was that the reason why Reggie Miller was angry was mainly because of the championship, he had worked hard in the league for 13 seasons without winning a championship, and the guy in front of him wore a championship ring in his rookie season, and he showed off to himself before the game.

In the current lineup of the Pacers, Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose are both players with very strong off-ball ability, so the Pacers' tactics last season were Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose's run-and-run X**P tactics, but after the introduction of Jermaine O'Neal this season, in order to make O'Neal Jr. better integrate into the Pacers' system, O'Neal Jr. has become the inside starting point of the Pacers' new tactics. At the same time, because O'Neal Jr.'s current strength is not enough to support the entire interior line of the Pacers, Thomas's tactics for the current Pacers are limited internal and external combination tactics, and the core of this tactic is actually Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose's X**P tactics, but it is just that a little bit of O'Neal Jr.'s singles and strategies on the inside line are added, if the Pacers can have a Duncan or O'Neal who is almost invincible in singles, then this lineup is perfect, but this is destined to be a dream. So now Thomas can only pray that O'Neal Jr. doesn't waste his talent and can quickly grow into a superstar like Duncan this season.

Although the Pacers' players are making the ball for O'Neal Jr., but now O'Neal Jr. is obviously unable to single Duncan under the basket, but O'Neal Jr. also has his own advantages, that is, excellent moving footwork and mid-range shooting, after trying to push Duncan into the interior to no avail, O'Neal Jr. chose to leave the basket very smartly, and at a position more than 5 meters away from the basket, he turned his back and leaned back to shoot, for O'Neal Jr.'s offensive method, Duncan was also a little powerless, I could only watch as the basketball thrown by O'Neal Jr. fell into the basket.

O'Neal Jr. was still a very ordinary guard player in his freshman year of high school, but in his sophomore year of high school, O'Neal Jr. grew almost 20 cm taller in a year, a player with interior height and guard skills, it is difficult not to be noticed, and because of this, O'Neal Jr. has become a talented player in the United States on the same level as Iverson and Kobe. And when O'Neal Jr. continued to gain weight in order to adapt to interior confrontation, his guard-like ball control and shooting skills did not fade because of this. And most of the players in this era will imitate Jordan's backward jumper, and O'Neal Jr. is no exception, a 2.11-meter-tall, excellent movement, and a good backward jumper, thinking about it will make the opposing defensive player very embarrassed.

And O'Neal Jr.'s offense obviously embarrassed Duncan, an interior player close to 7 feet tall, floating outside to shoot, is still very rare in this era, although Duncan's footsteps are also very good, but obviously can't prevent that far, and the Spurs' big forward on the court now is a small forward like Sean Elliott cameo, so he can only be blown up by O'Neal Jr.

In the first half of the first quarter, if you only look at the data, O'Neal Jr. and Duncan exploded each other, O'Neal Jr. couldn't defend Duncan under the basket, and Duncan, who was not covered by David Robin, had no good solution to O'Neal Jr.'s offensive way of constantly pulling outside. Therefore, facing Tim Duncan in the first half of the first quarter, O'Neal Jr. actually shot 4 of 7 and scored 8 points and 3 rebounds, while Duncan also shot 4 of 6, 9 points and 4 rebounds.

At the same time, perhaps for the sake of building up O'Neal Jr.'s confidence, Thomas arranged for O'Neal Jr. and Duncan to fight hand-to-hand under the basket throughout the whole process, and did not wrap Duncan at all, so although Duncan maintained a high shooting rate, Popovich's pre-game tactical arrangements did not play at all, Meng Xu and Reggie Miller played soy sauce throughout the first half of the first quarter, Reggie Miller shot 0 in 1, 0 points, 0 boards and 0 assists, although Meng Xu was a little better, he was also limited, 0 points, 2 rebounds and 0 assists.

The triangle offense is a tactic that encourages singles but restricts singles, but its essence is to make the strongest player on the team more comfortable with singles, so the Spurs' tactics in the first quarter can be said to be successful, or it can be said to be a failure, saying that he succeeded because Tim Duncan is indeed very comfortable playing singles, O'Neal Jr. is worse than Duncan in terms of height, weight, strength and game experience, so Duncan singles O'Neal Jr. is also a hit and a quasi. However, in Popovich's pre-game tactical arrangement, he wanted to attract the Pacers through Duncan's singles on the inside, so as to create shooting opportunities for other players of the Spurs, especially Meng Xu, but the Pacers just didn't include Duncan, even if O'Neal Jr. was spit out by Duncan, he didn't include Duncan, which made the Spurs' running position on the court a little redundant, and the final result on the court became Duncan's superstar single tactics of O'Neal Jr.

At the official timeout, Popovich shook his head and looked into the distance, and Thomas, who was smiling and encouraging O'Neill Jr., didn't know what was going on in his mind at the moment. And the smiling assassin Thomas on the opposite side is very satisfied with O'Neal Jr.'s performance in the first half of the first quarter, O'Neal Jr.'s skills and talent have nothing to say, it is very rare that this guy's ball quotient is still very high, knowing that he can't resist Duncan under the basket, he used his footwork and shooting to pull outside, it seems that Larry Bird's robbery trade once again proves Larry Bird's excellent vision.

"Tim, for the rest of the game, go ahead and play the interior singles, but I want you to kill the Pacers' interior and make them a foul more than you score two points." After instructing Duncan, Popovich turned his head to look at Meng Xu again: "Meng, you have to use your speed to make up for Tim's No. 7 on the opposite side, don't defend him from behind, go around him directly, don't let him shoot so comfortably." ”

"Well, I see."

Thanks to the silent little white... Thanks