Chapter 341: The Importance of Substitutions
After losing the first game, the Knicks players realized the importance of the second game, and if they folded again at home, it would be difficult to get it back, so the Knicks made full preparations for this game, and the players also showed desperate determination. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
After the opening, Wu Huang did not attack much, and the Knicks put the main attack on Stoudemire and Gallinari, especially Xiao Si obviously strengthened the attack, and continued to attack Bosh to score points at the beginning, and it was his stepping up that greatly reduced the defensive pressure on Wu Huang.
Smalls has had plenty of energy in the game since he picked up a knee injury at the end of the regular season, and he's always worried about getting his old hurt again. However, in the face of the unfavorable situation of falling behind 0:2 if he loses one more game, today's Xiao Si no longer hesitated, and he kept breaking through the frame to kill the Heat's weak interior line, shooting 14 of 19 from the field, cutting 34 points and 13 rebounds. At the same time, Iguodala and Gallinari also played at a normal level, scoring 13 and 19 points respectively in this game, and the Knicks' second, third and fourth leaders finally stepped up to share the pressure on Wu Huang.
Wu Huang finally got what he wanted in this game, hugged his teammates once, and he contributed 26 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists in the whole game, this performance can only be said to be qualified for him, but in the third quarter, when the two sides were stuck in a stalemate and no one could easily score, Wu Huang still stepped forward and took over the game through consecutive scores.
Ross Barkley praised after the game that this is what a superstar should do, and that's what a championship team should do. If the Knicks still rely on Emperor Wu to win the game like in the last game, and finally exhaust their physical strength and can't win the game, then they will only face the ending of being eliminated.
Today, the Knicks have a little success in their defense of Wade, D'Antoni uses his human way to govern his body, since the Heat can flank Wu Huang, the Knicks can also flank Wade and James, and he chose the Flash, who is relatively easy to defend.
In fact, everyone knows that these two people are the main reliance on the Heat to win, and they are the number one people who must be marked when fighting with them, but in the first game, the Knicks didn't know whether to gamble or gamble, and they didn't wrap the two around the front from beginning to end, which also made the Flash and the Gorilla God block the God and the Buddha.
Today, the Knicks finally got the hang of it, and from the first minute of the game, they didn't let up their defense against Wade. There is always one person who is inseparable from the Flash's catch, and once he catches the ball, the Knicks will decisively wrap it up. This kind of stubborn defense made Wade suffer, and although he still scored 22 points in the game, it was not easy to get every point.
The Flash was restricted, and Bosh was also limited by a finger injury in this game, which led to a plummeting performance, and the offense of the whole Heat team was naturally affected, and the shooting rate of the whole Heat team in this game was less than 40%, largely thanks to the Knicks' success restrictions on Wade and Bosh. The Heat may have no problem relying on a James alone to beat a team like the Bucks, but against the Knicks, relying only on a gorilla with a weak desire to attack is obviously not enough to win.
Worth mentioning in this game is the Heat's hands-off phase in the fourth quarter, when Wade dribbled from the left wing and managed to get rid of Iguodala, but met Reggie Evans under the basket, who jumped high to block Wade's layup, and the two men collided directly in the air, causing the first bloody scene of the series.
D'Antoni used Reggie Evans today in the hope of using his ferocious defense to protect the basket box and guard defensive rebounds.
Reggie Evans' defense was insidious, as his blocked arm hit Wade's cheek, and when the two landed, the blood on Wade's face had already stained his jersey and the basketball was blocked.
Wade didn't seem to feel pain after landing, picked up the basketball next to him and continued to attack, but the referee would not allow such a thing to happen, according to NBA regulations, players can not continue to play if they are bleeding, the referee immediately stopped the game and asked Wade to stop the bleeding.
Spoelstra was very dissatisfied with the referee's indifference off the court, believing that the collision was obviously a malicious foul by Reggie Evans, but the referee did not even say anything, but asked Wade to stop the bleeding before he could play, this kind of home whistle is already blatantly biased in favor of the Knicks.
Unfortunately, such a complaint was only exchanged for a technical foul, and the referee did not accept the Filipino's questioning at all, not only did he completely lose the hope of a comeback with a technical foul, but also let Wade return to the court after two minutes, on the grounds that the Flash's blood stains were not cleaned up.
"As I said, every game in the playoffs is a new beginning, and everyone on the planet knows that the Heat live on their Big Three, so just killing one or two of them is equivalent to killing the Heat." Wu Huang didn't see the slightest fatigue after the game, which was in stark contrast to the appearance of a tired dog after the last game
Gallinari was arrogant, and after the game he said aggressively: "I think we can beat anyone. But we are not complacent, and there is still a long way to go. Before, people didn't think much of us, and after losing the first game, they thought we were going to be eliminated, but whether they liked it or not, it didn't affect us. We just have to focus on what needs to be done well and keep trusting each other. ”
After the loss in the first game, there are indeed many media and fans who think that it will be difficult for the Knicks to win this series, their defense looks very far from the Heat, and at the same time, the offense they rely on for a living is not the slightest advantage, and there is no advantage at all.
But Wu Huang always believed that the Knicks could turn the defeat around, he said before the game: "Every player has times when he is deep behind and disadvantaged, but one thing you have to be clear about is that you have to go all out in every game, prepare well, and do your best every time you attack and defend." It's a seven-game series, so we've got to come back from the first defeat and the second game to play something completely different from the first. ”
In this game, Wu Huang proved his promise with practical actions, as long as the Knicks played the advantage of their roster depth, he was enough to influence the victory of the game at the critical moment of the game.
The Heat has a big three, but it's not that the big three are necessarily powerful, the Heat, who can only rely on the big three to win, is actually very good to target, their roster depth is not enough, which means that they don't have the capital to change the lineup, the first game is already the best Heat, they gave the best performance, but the Knicks just moved their muscles.
The next day, "Fox Sports" reported: Knicks VS Heat - the battle between the new generation and the middle generation; A duel between tradition and new models!
There are multiple points to watch in this series between the Knicks and the Heat, and it is destined to be a contest that will not end in four or five games.
The matchup between the two sides, compared to James's thick and vicissitudes of eight-year growth history, compared to Wade's championship ring as a teenager, Hugo's rocket-like background is still a bit thin, after all, this is only his second season.
These two teams are two very different styles that originated from two very different team philosophies.
The Knicks are built in the traditional way of the NBA, each of the five positions has its own role, and is built around the core, and almost every position of the starters will have a similar or complementary style of play behind the bench, so the Knicks have a rotation of up to 10 people, which can be matched with a variety of combinations.
The Heat is a new "Big Three" model, with a strong core combination, but other positions are a mess, and there is a lack of changes in strength.
This is a decisive battle between tradition and modernity, and the defeat of either side may shake their team model, and even affect the trend of the league's future team building policy. Therefore, this round of showdown has great significance for the future style direction of the NBA, which is the opposition between tradition and radicalism.
But perhaps out of disgust with the hearts of the stars, the attention of public opinion has always pushed the pressure to the Heat side, they have no home-court advantage, although they are favored by the media but are hostile to a large number of neutral fans, many fans want to see the Big Three unlucky, but they can tolerate Hugo who became famous at a young age, which is a psychological tendency caused by the "sense of substitution", because everyone hopes that they can become Hugo, can become famous at a young age like him, scandals continue, fame and fortune. As a result, these fans who have placed their hearts on the Knicks have regarded the Knicks as their home team, and they may still hate Hugo as a person, but they want to be him.
The Big Three of the Heat have played the role of villains all the way, they have no such sense of substitution, most fans want them to lose, putting the Heat on the opposite side of the psychology, and many even hope that James will never win the championship. This situation is not simply hostile to the group, it is related to the fact that James and the Big Three always maintain a high posture, in short, the pressure on the Big Three has been beyond imagination.
But everyone knows that James has come under heavy pressure in the past eight years, and after defeating the Green Army, his roar and kneeling on one knee made fans feel the release of inner pressure. But is this pressure being released too soon? If you want to win the championship, there are still two rounds to come.
The Knicks were very smart before the series began, and they downplayed the importance of the 3-1 record in the regular season, while Hugo went along with the fact that it was the Knicks who were willing not to be favored by the world. Perhaps it was more important for him to concentrate on the preparation of the game, and the Knicks had the upper hand in the mentality section at the beginning.
The victory in the first game of the Heat narrowed the gap in the mentality of the two sides, but this victory did not change the overall depth of the Heat and the Knicks There is still a certain gap, although James still focuses on adjusting the team's organization in the second game, but the problem is that his input-output ratio is too small, once he and Wade are cut off by the Knicks, Bosh can not play a giant performance, this Heat team is not even as strong as the Cavaliers in previous years.
The game's stats also reflect the team's embarrassment after the Big Three couldn't all play properly, although James ended up scoring a team-high 6 assists, but the Heat's 10 assists as a whole is enough to show that their overall operation is not good, and they can't use the combination to tear apart the Knicks' not very good defense. And in addition to the Big Three, the Heat have repeatedly missed shots in open positions today, which is also a problem that Spoelstra must solve as soon as possible.
"ESPN" reports as always like to use data to illustrate the problem, before the start of the series, they were one of the camps that supported the Heat to eliminate the Knicks, but they were collectively favored by ESPN experts before the game, which is really not a good thing for the Heat, in addition to the second game of the Knicks to pull back a city, there is another reason here - there were two sets of matchups that were previously favored by ESPN experts, namely the Grizzlies vs. Spurs and the Mavericks vs. Lakers. ESPN's expert panel almost unanimously chose the Spurs and Lakers to advance by a large score, but the Spurs were blacked out and the Lakers were swept 4:0 by the Mavericks. Twelve of the 16 experts in ESPN's prediction of the Eastern Conference Finals are optimistic about the Heat, which is an extremely negative sign for the Heat, because ESPN is not as accurate as the Paolo the Octopus at the World Cup in South Africa, and it can be said that they are a negative mirror image of Paul - the prediction is completely wrong.
Before this game, ESPN experts were praising the Heat's rebounding, and suggested that the Knicks "improve rebounding" before the game, but in this game, the Knicks really achieved a counterattack on the rebound, and the two teams led 43-33 in total rebounds in the second game, and the offensive rebounds led 18-6. As a result, the Knicks also led 30:10 in the second score, which is the biggest advantage that the Knicks can easily defeat the Heat today.
In the first game, although the interior combination of Xiao Si and Gallinari was better than the Heat in terms of height and arm span, it was not enough to grab rebounds with an advantage in height and arm span, otherwise Boozer would not have been robbed of rebounds from the head by Wu Huang in the last round, so the Knicks were blown out by the Heat in the rebound in the first game.
But in today's game, the Knicks unexpectedly ran out of rebounds in the first quarter, and in the second quarter, they scored as much as 12 points to demoralize the Heat. At the same time, he abandoned the interior play of Gallinari and Smalls, and the adjustments that should have been made have been made, and the data can also provide support: the Knicks grabbed 6 frontcourt rebounds in the first quarter and got 18 frontcourt rebounds in the whole game, which is equivalent to picking up 18 offensive opportunities for nothing.
After the Knicks honestly changed the lineup, the problem was thrown to the side of the Heat, when their secondary offensive advantage was no longer obvious enough to decide the game, when they couldn't shoot all three arrows, the problem of insufficient available personnel and the odd difference of the No. 1 offensive position began to come to the fore. In addition, there is the problem that James's individual offensive strength remains, but he has too few active offenses, taking only 18 shots in the game, which is too little when Wade and Bosh are average. Interested fans may remember that in the series between the Heat and the Boston Celtics, James also had less than 20 shots in the game where Bosh and Wade performed averagely. The Heat lost them all.
Speaking of the point guard earlier, the performance of the Heat's two No. 1 positions in the offense is not flattering. In the first half, James and Wade broke through several times to attract the bag, giving Bibby several open three-point opportunities, but he was never able to shoot the ball, and he hit only one three-pointer from beyond the three-point line five times in the game. As bad as him, there are also Chalmers, he had 4 turnovers and 4 fouls in the 25 minutes he played, and failed to shoot one of the 3 three-point shots on the outside
Now that the overall score has been pulled to 1:1, the Heat will still encounter great difficulties in the future, if they want to successfully advance to the Finals, in addition to the Big Three must return to normal, someone in the No. 1 position must also be able to step up, not requiring Chalmers and Bibby to be able to defend Hugo, but at least they must be able to shoot open three-pointers.
The Miami Herald also reported the next day, and they believe that the current Heat team is not good at teamwork, and they ranked last in the league in assists during the regular season. But the Heat rely on the individual ability of the Big Three, so it's not news that the assists are behind, and they won't be seven-inch. But this is not the case with so many assists in this game, and it shows that the Heat's offensive operation is quite fluid, and the giants of the Heat can only rely on their own efforts, and the support given to them by other players on the offensive end is far from enough.
For the league's overall defense, only the Knicks, who can be called excellent in single defense, the Heat who defend like this is really their appetite, so yesterday under the strict defense of the Knicks, two of the Heat's big three played hard and laborious, and it became a luxury to score easily, and the role players who couldn't even touch the ball could only helplessly do switchback and running exercises.
On the other hand, the Knicks, they are actually mostly singles, but they can bloom more, and basketball can cause lethality in the hands of different people, making the Heat generals unable to guard against it, often guarding against this and missing that. If you can't open the offense and defend it, you can only watch the score get bigger and bigger.
In addition, frontcourt rebounds should be another reason for the Heat's defeat, a frontcourt rebound is equivalent to directly giving the opponent a chance to attack twice, or even a direct dunk opportunity, which can greatly boost the team's morale, yesterday's Knicks actually grabbed 18 frontcourt rebounds, which really shouldn't be.
On the one hand, the Heat's interior strength is indeed inferior to the Knicks under normal circumstances, but on the other hand, it also shows that the Heat did too poorly in defense in the second game, especially the protection of backcourt rebounds, which is really ineffective, which requires the team's overall efforts, not something that the giants can do alone.
Of course, for the Heat, which has the Big Three, even if there are all kinds of disadvantages, as long as the Big Three play normally, they can compete with any team and will not fail miserably. But in yesterday's Heat, in addition to James's outstanding performance, Bosh and Wade were not in shape and did not take their due responsibility. When the Big Three have two shortcomings, the Heat can only accept the fate of failure.
Now I just hope that this defeat can be turned into a blow to the head and wake up the Heat, although the victory over the Celtics, but it does not mean that they have won the championship, in order to win the final victory, they still need 8 wins, and the team that can enter the Eastern and Western finals and even the finals, none of them are good stubble, and if they are not careful, they may fall short and become spectators.
After the second game between the Knicks and the Heat, the direction of the media changed again the next day, and at this moment, there were more voices optimistic about the Knicks' promotion, and I don't know where they came from.
But no matter who of the two teams can advance, looking back at these two games, there was a pushing incident in the first game, and someone saw the red in the second game, it can be said that the Eastern Conference Finals are full of gunpowder, and if you don't do it in the third game, the two teams will escalate the conflict and turn it into a big fight.
But on the other side, the matchup between the Mavericks and the Thunder is much more harmonious, and the personalities of Durant and Nowitzki are similar, and they are both somewhat low-key. What's more interesting is that when evaluating each other, they all invariably say that they are each other's fans, and this scene is vaguely a bit of a transaction.
The Eastern Conference Finals are-for-tat, but the Western Conference Finals have a warm tone, which is a bit incredible under the fierce competition in the playoffs, but to a certain extent, it can also see the main vein of the Western Conference Finals - the main strength of the two teams is there, and uncertainties dominate the outcome of the game. Carlisle said that "it's difficult to defend Durant," and Brooks didn't have much to do about defending Nowitzki, and the suspense of victory or defeat was placed on the role players.
In the second game, Scott Brooks took the lead, and when he couldn't contain Nowitzki, his choice to cover the Mavericks' perimeter sharpness successfully made Terry unable to take off, and Barria lost the eye-catching of the previous game. What was surprising was the bold abandonment of Westbrook, and the final victory also left the frustrated Wei Shao speechless.
Westbrook didn't play well in the first game, the whole game felt cold, only 3 of 15 shots, most of the fans' impressions of him focused on the word "brainless", and the Thunder's loss had a lot to do with his state and lack of calmness. And in the second game, Westbrook regained his hand and repeatedly broke through. However, Scott Brooks was not happy with his performance, and Westbrook did not do enough to control the tempo of the team. To a certain extent, Westbrook played too alone, especially under the backdrop of Kidd's old monsters on the other side, and the gap between the two was very obvious, which made the Thunder head coach quite dissatisfied.
In the third quarter of the game, Brooks decisively abandoned Westbrook and replaced it with Eric Mayno as the main point guard, and the tactical change quickly transformed the team into an overall style.
Brooks made a risky move, and a temporary change would be taboo on the court, and it was the team's brain position, which of course required a certain risk, and if it didn't work, it would become a sinner for the team. However, Brooks thinks the breakthrough point for beating Dallas is the whole, and Westbrook's approach is contrary to his original intention. Winning this game now is tantamount to telling his disciple "You should be smart, the team can't play without you".
This is the right choice, and when it comes to the final, the two sides will no longer have too many weaknesses in terms of strength, and the team will become more important.
Although Westbrook won the three championships, he is still too young, although he has a certain advantage in front of the old and spicy Kidd, physical fitness, explosiveness and physical fitness are stronger than his opponents. But under Kidd's lure, Westbrook easily lost himself and made the wrong choice, and Kidd won over the fans in this year's playoffs, including his defensive performance.
Coincidentally, in fact, the defeat of Derrick Rose by Emperor Wu in the East is already a revelation, the playoffs are not a rejection of heroism, but when your opponent is at the same level as you, skill and IQ become the key to winning or losing, even if you want to show individual ability, at least be smart, rather than blindly brave.
However, Brooks' waiver of Willis was not a real turning point, and it was the bench that really decided the outcome of Game 2.
I have to say that in the first game, the magical play of the Mavericks bench, Terry and Barria embarrassed the Thunder bench to the extreme. In fact, the Mavericks' bench has been in great place since the playoffs. Terry, Peja, and Barria became Nowitzki's right-hand men, especially in Game 4 against the Lakers, where the crazy Terry humiliated the defending champions.
The Western Conference Finals haven't even started, and Terry has already started to go crazy! He even threatened, "I can blow up the Thunder bench alone, everyone is the same," and he did it in the first game. But in the second game, James Harden stood up and responded - 23+7, 4 of 7 three-pointers, this is the way to return the other, Harden deliberately provoked Terry today, repeatedly used the height advantage to shoot in front of him, especially a four-point make Terry quite embarrassed.
The Mavericks must feel very bad at the moment, because today, 4 years later, another beard carved out of almost the same mold as Byron Davis once again gave the Nuo Tianwang who is determined to win the championship a slap in the face, his fighting spirit, his savagery, and his provocation, completely ignited the passion of all the Thunder soldiers, so that this young team was imposing and bloodless to win the difficult Mavericks.
In addition to having a bushy beard, Harden and Davis are both somewhat similar in terms of individual ability, belonging to strong guards, running actively on the court, can impact the basket, have outstanding scoring ability, have a three-point point that cannot be guarded against with one hand, and can also lead the team with passion. The difference is that the No. 1 position is more prominent in ball control; And one is the No. 2 position, with excellent passing ability.
After the first two games of the division finals, it is now self-evident how important the bench players are to the playoffs, and look at the stark results of the two games of the Mavericks, as well as the second game between the Knicks and the Heat, and you can see that if the matchup between the main players is difficult to distinguish for a while, the role players who can break out occasionally will cause unexpected damage to the opponent.
The Thunder have Harden, as well as Meno, and they have all become odd players in this game; The Knicks' Gallinari and Evans did the same thing; The Mavericks also have Terry and Barria, and at this moment no one knows what unexpected things will happen next?
But the question is, who is on the Heat's bench? Do they have an X-factor? The answer, of course, is "no", they only have the Big Three! (To be continued.) )