When everyone didn't expect it, the Rockets narrowed the gap to 2 points with several beautiful combinations of Wen Hao and Harden. At this time, the Celtics head coach finally woke up, and the Rockets' backcourt had begun to cooperate. They are not as lacking in tacit understanding as the outside world says. And once a player with the strength of Harden and Wen Hao starts to play together, it will be very scary.

So Stevens made arrangements for the Celtics players: "Rondo is the main defense Wen Hao, you are much more physical than him, you can cover him comprehensively, so that he can't jump shots, can't break through." Babu, you defend Harden, still guard his left hand, put him right. Remember, the purpose of my defense is to cut off the connection between the two of them, and you can't prevent them alone, but you must not let the two of them cooperate. ”

"Got it, Coach." Rondo nodded while wiping his sweat, and at the same time looked at Wen Hao on the Rockets' side, and said secretly in his heart: No. 5, just wait, I will definitely let you see what real defense is.

As soon as the second quarter came on, the Rockets were still all on the court. They're going to turn the score around.

Seeing this, the Celtics couldn't show weakness, and they didn't replace the main team, so that Rondo and Babu continued to fight with the Rockets with the main team.

The first shot was attacked by the Celtics, and on offense, the firepower of Rondo and Babu was definitely not weak, and Babu's sharp breakthrough and Babu's elusive passing made the Rockets unguardable, and they quickly scored a goal.

Coming back, Team Rocket attacked. Harden controlled the ball, and Wen Hao kept going around on the inside, trying to get rid of Rondo's entanglement. Babu mainly defends Harden, mainly defending Harden's left-hand breakthrough, making it difficult for him to break through the interior and only give Harden a long shot.

But the Celtics clearly underestimated Harden's offensive firepower, although Harden is a left-hander, in the summers of the past two years, he will always spend a lot of time practicing his right hand, and now his right hand handling ability is very strong, at least to the league's upper middle level. At this time, seeing that Babu was defending his left hand from breaking through, he directly made a simple change of direction and hit the inside line with his right hand. When the opposing center, Joel? When Anthony came to make up for it, his European step was shown again, and when he stepped past Anthony, he was in an unguarded situation and scored an easy layup.

The next time, Babu didn't dare to put Harden's right hand again, but stood in the middle to defend, so that he could defend Harden's left hand and his right hand. But in this way, Harden's left-hand advantage was brought into play again, and he directly used his speed to pass Babu and made a frontal layup.

Seeing this, the Celtics head coach knew that something was wrong. Although he cut off the connection between Wen Hao and Harden, Babu was obviously unable to defend Harden alone, so he had to adjust his defensive strategy so that Rondo, who had a better defense, defended Harden, and Babu defended Wen Hao.

In the next offense, Rondo defended Harden, and the effect was really much better than Babu. Although Harden changed direction left and right, accelerated and slowed down, he still couldn't break through Rondo's defense. Truth be told, Harden's biggest strength is the fast-break counterattack, which he has the highest success rate, either scoring the ball or making foul free throws. Playing this kind of ball, his ability can even be comparable to James.

But when it comes to positional offense, Harden isn't too effective. He's not too fast, he's not jumping too high, and it's hard to break through against a well-defended perimeter player.

Harden dribbled with just over seven seconds left, and still couldn't break through, and when he was helpless, he suddenly saw Wen Hao throw off Babu's defense from the inside and come out to ask for the ball. Although Harden was reluctant in his heart, he still passed the ball to Wen Hao for the sake of the overall situation at this time.

After Wen Hao received the ball, he made a shooting feint, and Babu pounced and flew over Wen Hao's head. Wen Hao didn't hurry into the inside line and threw to score.

The second ball, concocted by the Rockets according to law, and it was Harden who passed the ball to Wen Hao, who faced Babu's defense and used an extremely fancy turn - turning around after 360 degrees on the spot. One turned around, and Babu was so directly shaken that he couldn't even find the north, and Wen Hao easily broke into the inner line. Joel? Anthony was cautious this time, for fear of being shaken again, and stepped on small broken steps to make up for the defense.

At this time, Wen Hao threw the ball directly in the direction of the basket, and turned around to defend. Behind him, Howard descended from the sky, relayed in the air, and split the buckle with one hand.

Although the commentator at the North Shore Garden Arena belonged to the Celtics, he couldn't help but shout when he saw such a wonderful attack: "Good shot!" ”

"Oh my God, this is the best ball I've ever seen tonight."

Haythorne looked at Wen Hao on the court and continued: "The breakthrough of the Rockets No. 5 is too sharp, although as a commentator for the Celtics, I don't want to say good things about the Rockets, but his breakthrough is too sharp. ”

"Yes, Harden, the Rockets' point guard, is very efficient on the fast-break counter-attack, but not so good when he's on the ground. Many teams have seized on this and dragged the Rockets into positional battles and ultimately won against the Rockets. Well, now that Team Rocket has Wen Hao, they can completely rely on his breakthrough in positional battles. And he's a good passer, and he can create plenty of chances for his teammates after breaking through. In this way, the Rocket Team has terrifying combat power, whether it is a fast attack or a positional battle. Coupled with the height of their inner Warcraft and Da Yao, such a rocket team is terrifying. Gorman, who resembled a Zen master, shook his head and said.

"yes, if they keep up this momentum, I'm afraid they can compete with a team like the Heat."

"I don't know if our Rondo and Babu can withstand the Rockets' backcourt combination."

At this time, Wen Hao of the Rocket team broke through, he kept passing the ball to the inside and outside, and attacked himself when he seized the opportunity, revitalizing the Rockets' offense. The Celtics, on the other hand, focused on defense and did not put much effort into the offense, plus the defense was unable to defend them, so that by the middle of the second quarter, they trailed the Rockets by 7 points, 35-42.

Seeing this, Celtics head coach Stevens had to call a timeout again. At the timeout, he followed the advice of their assistant coach and instead focused on defense and instead let his players focus on offense.

"We wasted too much energy on the defensive end, but the Rockets' offense was too smooth for us to defend. On the offensive end, we didn't put in a lot of energy, so we're seven points behind. Instead of that, it's better to put all your energy on the offense, Rondo and Babu, your breakthrough is considered to be at the forefront of the league. If you are firing with all your might, few people will be able to stop you. So then we're going to take advantage of that and use our offense to fight them, and see who has the stronger offense. ”

Rondo has no problem with that, whether it is defense or offense, it is what he is good at. Babu was visibly excited, and to be honest, he wasn't very good at defending, and what he liked was offense. Attack and attack, and use the attack to defeat the opponent. In his words, as long as we get more points than the other side, we can't lose, so why defend.

So in the second half of the third quarter, the Celtics began to attack.

Rondo, as a point guard, dribbled past half court and after Joel? Under Anthony's blocking, an acceleration passed Wen Hao, hit the inside line, and then suddenly the right-handed ball hooked from behind, as if it was going to pass to Anthony who was following up. But just when the monster was about to come to make up for the defense, the ball in his hand suddenly retracted and scored directly to the basket.

A behind-the-back pass feint that tricked the defender into a frontal layup, which was Rondo's signature offense.

There was a cheer at the North Shore Garden Arena, and that's what the fans want to see, that's the Rondo they love.

In the second ball, Rondo again blocked Anthony, which was still a feint of passing from behind. This time, the monster was prepared, and it was not fooled, but stayed in front of Rondo. But after Rondo retracted the ball, he didn't make a layup by himself, but suddenly threw it back, and Babu got the ball outside the three-point line, and shot directly with three points, hitting it steadily.

The next ball, Rondo handed it to Babu to deal with. Babu crossed the ball, then squeezed inside with his speed, then pulled a stalk in the air to dodge the Monster's block and score again.

The North Shore Garden Arena is boiling again.

"Great, Rondo and Babu are both open, and disaster is coming for Team Rocket." Gorman, with his eyes, cried.

Haythorne smiled and said: "That's right, so far this season, Babu and Rondo have averaged 45.4 points and 18.6 assists per game, and as long as they both open, then the team will win 90 percent." ”

"As long as we keep in the current form, we will probably win today's game easily."

The two commentators took turns to care about the result of today's game, and on the court, Wen Hao and Harden had already pinched off with the Celtics' backcourt combination.

Now that the Celtics have opened, the Rockets naturally can't show weakness. After Wen Hao dribbled to the frontcourt, after Harden's cover, he took advantage of the short time when the opponent had not caught up and shot directly outside the three-point line. Three points hit again.

With the unsolved three-point skills of a point guard, his three-point shooting rate can reach almost 70% when no one is guarded, which is naturally a solid shot.

Rondo saw Wen Hao hit three points, and did not show weakness, after dribbling past half court, facing Wen Hao's defense, he first bent down, like training, easily changed direction and slowly pushed forward. At a certain moment, when he saw Wen Hao moving backwards with one foot and not landing on the ground, his center of gravity was unstable, and he suddenly started, a huge change of direction, from left to right, to the point of surprise.

He originally had extremely long arms, and his dribble was so large that he looked very ornamental.

Wen Hao landed with his other foot at this time, and hurriedly wanted to slide to defend, but it was too late, so he could only watch Rondo kill the inside line and score a layup sideways.

Wen Hao looked at Rondo's back, and a smile hung on the corner of his mouth: "This kind of battle is interesting." (To be continued.) )