Chapter 368: Never Give Up
The loss to the Heat did not come as a surprise to McMillan, in fact, he was mentally prepared to lose before the Finals officially began. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info was only looking forward to winning when Ye Feng scored consecutive points to equalize the score, but in the end he swallowed a loss.
However, the first game also exposed a lot of problems, the Trail Blazers' interior offense obviously can't be counted on, and as long as Spoelstra is not stupid, he will not continue to let Joel Anthony and Bosh partner in the starting lineup, unless he is willing to let Haslem play with the starting lineup in the final decisive moments. In other words, the interior of the Trail Blazers is mainly to defend first, and the offensive focus is still on the outside.
Ye Feng has become a player that the Heat focus on, and at the last moment, they would rather let go of Matthews than let James and Wade block Ye Feng together, which can be seen in their tendencies on the defensive end. At this time, someone else needs to take some of the pressure off him, and Miller is of course the first choice, although he is older than Bibie, he has a certain advantage in terms of height and weight, but his age makes it difficult for him to stay on the court for long periods of time.
So the only thing that can be done is the shooting guard position, and McMillan decided to put Batum as the team's shooting guard in Game 2, and Matthews was responsible for leading the benches to fight during rotation time. McMillan also did the opposite, when others thought that the Trail Blazers would only have a small lineup, he suddenly sacrificed a big lineup, which must have caught the opponent off guard.
There are two advantages to putting Batum in the starter, one is that he can replace Ye Feng's role in the tactical system, although it is a weakened version, but this defect is completely negligible when he is on the field at the same time as Ye Feng, so that Ye Feng can put more energy on scoring.
Second, Batum's height is simply crushing in the No. 2 position, and with his movement speed, he will not be overstretched in the No. 2 position, and in terms of 10,000 steps back, even if he is blown up by Wade on the defensive end, at least he will not play soy sauce on the offensive end like Matthews.
McMillan wasn't worried about the Heat's sudden change, as they won Game 1, proving that Spoelstra's previous lineup was at least not a big hole other than Joel Anthony. In fact, except for Popovich, who doesn't play by the cards very well, no coach in the entire league will choose to take the initiative to change the lineup without suffering injuries and getting the series off to a good start, which can simply turn the team into a mess.
As he expected, Spoelstra largely maintained his original starting line-up, only putting Haslem at power forward to partner Bosh. It seems that this interior combination is still quite interesting, Bosh with a height advantage runs to the outside to shoot, and Haslem, who is at a height disadvantage, is responsible for grabbing rebounds on the inside, except for the Pistons Five Tigers who beat the Lakers to win the championship that year, it is estimated that no team can do this kind of thing.
Although Aldridge was very pitiful in the last game, and he was basically playing soy sauce until the second half, he is still the current No. 2 star of the Trail Blazers in the final analysis, and McMillan decided to give him another chance, and before the game, he ordered Aldridge to play the basket strongly, hoping that this guy can listen to it.
Fortunately, Aldridge is not a guy who is insensitive and can watch his team lose and do nothing. He understands that he failed to help the team in the entire second half of the last game, and he is also aware of his flaws, although this flaw can not be changed overnight, but it is not a problem for a game to break out into a small universe, this time he really listened, whether to change it or not, put it aside, at least this game can not be coaxed.
After the game started, the Heat players also wanted to block Ye Feng's passing route like they did in the fourth quarter of the last game, but what made them feel helpless was that Ye Feng switched to a no-ball style of play this time, and the ball was in Batum's hands. Although it is difficult for Batum to get rid of Wade's defense, when his teammates are actively running, he can directly pin the ball to the top of the arc, so that Wade's defense becomes useless.
Stimulated by the failure of the last game, Ye Feng entered a state of crazy scoring at the beginning, especially with Batum sharing the organizational task, he has completely put all his energy on the offensive end. As for whether James can defend it, this is not within Ye Feng's consideration, anyway, he can't let Batum come to the double bag together, the last game has proved how terrifying Wade's scoring ability is.
Although James defended with all his might, Ye Feng often called a cover and then got rid of his defense, Batum's pass was always just right through the Heat's defensive system to his hands, and then it was the three-point shooting that made James sigh.
Ye Feng didn't know that the three-point shooting rate was not as good as the two-point shot, but firstly, the three-point shot was a cost-effective way to shoot, and secondly, Aldridge and Camby completely focused on the rebounding scramble, with Ye Feng and Batum's defensive speed, the Trail Blazers were not very afraid of being counterattacked by the opponent after losing the frontcourt rebound, so every time after the iron, there were always Trail Blazers players competing with the opponent for rebounds under the basket, and Ye Feng's several missed shots were basically smoothly returned.
Anyone with a discerning eye knows that the overall hard power of the Heat is definitely above the Trail Blazers, and even ESPN's prediction believes that the Heat have a nearly 70% probability of winning the championship, of which the overall score of 4-2 is the most probable. But Ye Feng didn't think so, he even felt that these predictions didn't make sense at all, the strength of the Heat was really strong, otherwise how could the Pioneers encounter a black start? But will the stronger side be able to win the championship?
If that's the case, then why bother with a series? Isn't it over just looking at the comparison of the strength of the players on both sides? Wouldn't the NBA be a slave to money and a never-give-up competitive spirit? The more money you spend, the more superstars you can collect, and then build a dream team to book the championship directly, not to mention whether the league allows such a thing to happen, at least simply stacking stars is not the way to win.
Why is competitive sports so fascinating? Largely because there will be classic battles in which the weak defeat the strong on the field, and it will be taken for granted that the strong will defeat the weak, but the weak will defeat the strong and that is an eternal classic. In order to make a name for themselves, every Trail Blazers player will never give up!