O'Neal Jr. and Artest in 03-04 can be said to be the best year of their careers, and it is also the year when Reggie Miller still has gas in the tank.

However, Artest was not in his best mental state.

This season, Martial Saint Jackson has not yet come to the Trail Blazers, and Artest's absence has put the burden on the shoulders of O'Neal Jr. alone.

"When the team approached Jermaine and then me, I chose the Suns because I thought that there would be Shaq here, so I could learn more and spend the peak of my career here."

In the pre-game warm-up, Miller looked at his former teammates and felt quite emotional.

Before the game, Miller had received a message from his agent that the Suns had basically completed the deal, and probably after the back-to-back schedule, the team would let Miller report to his new club.

If nothing else, this will be Miller's last starting game, and Carlisle will then begin to arrange a new lineup.

"Hey!"

Peyton saw that Miller's mood was not right and walked over to remind him.

"The coach has to arrange a lecture, don't think about anything else, come over and play seriously."

As he spoke, he patted Miller on the back.

"Are you sure it's been traded?"

Miller nodded, not surprised that Peyton could guess that Peyton might have seen too much of this kind of thing.

"Then play the rest of the game."

"Thank you."

The game officially began, O'Neal Jr. got the ball for the Pacers, and Anderson organized the offense.

Reggie Miller came up to ask for the ball, broke through Wade's defense and slotted in, facing Brad Miller in the penalty area and distributing the ball to Harrington on the outside.

Marion let go of Harrington two steps because of his defense, leaving him with a big open opportunity.

Harrington faced Marion, who pounced, made a three-point shot, and was rebounded by Malone.

Payton received a pass from Malone and dribbled to the front court to organize an offense, Wade came up to catch the ball, broke through and stopped the mid-range sharply, also hit the iron, and the ball popped up and was grabbed by Reggie Miller.

At the beginning of the game, both sides were relatively tight, and I didn't find the touch.

The Pacers chose to play inside this time, and O'Neal Jr.'s shot was blocked by Malone, but fortunately, O'Neal Jr. grabbed the rebound and scored a rebound.

Payton made a gesture and beckoned Miller to come up to block the pick-and-roll, and after the block, in the process of going down, Miller failed to catch Payton's ground-hitting pass, and a mistake gave up the ball.

Reggie Miller was in the same position as Harrington, received a point-and-shoot and shot again with a three-point shot, the same iron, and the rebound was picked up by O'Neal Jr.

During this period, the three-point shooting has begun to play more teams and has been incorporated into the regular strategy.

But this hit rate is now at the level of a war criminal.

Most players can shoot 30% from three-point range in a season, making them the league's top three-point shooters.

Especially since there is no concept of 3-and-D players yet, small forwards and power forwards are more often equipped with players who are mainly mid-range and under-the-basket.

It's really rare for Marion to shoot three-pointers like the Suns.

At this time, Junzi Lei is still a leading star, and his main offense comes from killing the inside.

Junzi Lei really started to shoot three-pointers, and it wasn't until the Celtics period, with the big core Garnett, that he began to play without the ball.

Many people's impression of this period is that they don't shoot three points, but in fact, Bai Fan has done research in this area, three points have been focused on development before 05 years, but there are few people who can shoot 3 points, and there are few impressive players, so I think that 3 points will only rise after 05 years.

During this period, most players who play without the ball will be arranged with three-point tactics, even if the shooting percentage is 323 after a season.

This change is very different from that of the nineties.

At that time, more off-ball players took shots from under the basket and from mid-range, which is very obvious when you look at the Bulls' two treble-winning periods.

With Jordan as the core of attack, Pippen didn't average many three-point shots per game in the first three years.

Can't Jordan attract defense?

No way, absolutely impossible.

Including the entire Bulls, there was not a single player who shot three-pointers in the first three years.

In the next three years, Pippen averaged four or five three-pointers per game, and there were also three-point shooters such as Kerr on the team.

This change in tactics is most obvious at this point in time in '03.

It's the last two years that you can't shoot three points, and the head coach won't blame you, and the ball will be returned to you, so you can shoot blindly.

The change came from the Suns' bombardment team.

The Suns used three-point rain again and again in the regular season to stunned many teams, making them find that the original three-point can be so accurate, and the three-point can be so quick to open up the score advantage.

If I can't win a championship, then I'll equip a few three-point players with more accurate role players, and at the same time, let the main offensive players on the outside also master the three-point ability.

And then later, can't the center shoot three-pointers?

It turns out that it can also be.

Bai Fan didn't know if this situation of blind Jiba would have been ended in the past two years without the influence of the bombardment of the sun.

D'Antoni will start his legendary experiments from that team again.

Boom!

There was a loud bang, which caused cheers from the Suns fans at the scene.

Wade used a difficult backhand dunk to ignite the fans.

Bai Fan's thoughts also returned to the game from the boring blind jiba throw at the beginning.

The Pacers called a timeout, only to see a wonderful dunk on the big screen.

Miller missed the mid-range, Wade, who was originally ambushed from the baseline, suddenly entered the restricted area, grabbed the rebound, and under the defense of a group of big men, he slipped to the bottom line and took off, pulled the lever in the air to bypass Jeff Foster, and scored a backhand dunk.

After the timeout, both sides were on the defensive intensity, and the next fouls and mistakes on both sides began to increase, and some people ate fouls one after another and were substituted off the court.

The Suns have been biting the score tightly and have never allowed the Pacers to pull the score above five points, and most of the time, it is a two-point or three-point difference.

The Pacers also limited Miller and Wade to allow the Suns to never play a coherent small climax on the offensive end.

At the end of the first quarter, the Suns trailed by four points at 20-24.

Miller's performance today was a bit unsatisfactory, with only 5 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist for more than seven minutes in the first quarter.

More rebounds were picked up by Malone and the Pacers, especially the Pacers' frontcourt rebounds, which got a lot and contributed to three secondary offensive scores.

Carlisle was not happy with the first quarter of the game, and before the bench, the focus was on Miller and Marion.

Miller's sluggish form is understandable, as Carlisle knows he may be leaving the Suns in the near future.

Marion's form in this game is too undeserved.

He made 1 of 6 shots and 1 of 5 three-pointers in the first quarter.

This is the main reason why the Suns can't chase down points, and it's also the Suns' worst offensive touch.

Fortunately, both men did their jobs on the defensive end and didn't let the Pacers further expand the score.