After the Bulls won the Eastern Conference semifinals G1, they already knew what level the Magic were.

Originally, there was no pressure in this series. But after G2 started, it turned out that this was not the case.

Obviously, he still plays at the Chicago Union Center, but the Bulls are at a disadvantage in terms of whistles.

Especially when it comes to Howard, even Garnett can't touch it, which makes people confused about the situation!

If Adi exerts his strength and wants to praise Howard, then Garnett, who is also Adi's star, will always be able to defend Howard normally.

The problem is, Garnett can't touch Howard, Doane can't touch Howard, and the Bulls can't touch Howard.

In other words, as long as Howard gets the ball, he has to make a basket or a free throw.

In order to avoid such a dilemma, the Bulls can only adopt a strategy of going around the front defense and limiting Howard's possession.

This also leads to the fact that the Bulls can't defend themselves on the outside, and the Magic's shooters can find some opportunities to shoot.

Of course, because of the pending penalty scale, the Magic also got a lot of free throws in this game, making up for the lack of scoring ability.

24-25, after the first quarter, although the Bulls relied on the advantage of overall strength to take a one-point lead, but the main players committed two fouls per capita, which was still very stressful.

In order to win tonight's game, Doon and Garnett are constantly working on the bench for other players, and at this time, they must not affect the team's overall performance by being annoyed by the referee's unfairness in decision-making.

And Scott Skeys, in order to minimize the impact of the main players accumulating fouls too quickly, also had to arrange more rotation players to play.

There are many veterans who can play for the Bulls, but if they want to win, they still need to be led by the stars.

Therefore, if you want to tide over the difficulties, you still need to rely on Doon to stand up for a while.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Doon continued to play.

And the Magic, on the other hand, didn't expect Doon to travel at a staggered peak.

After the game officially started in the second quarter, the Bulls started running.

It's not the Bulls' previous defensive counterattack, but the Suns' eight-second offense, constantly moving the ball, as long as they are outside the three-point line, they will shoot immediately if they have a shooting opportunity.

Of course, if there is a chance to block and dismantle Shun and cut the bottom of the basket, it is natural to play.

However, the overall focus is still on shooting, which is to drive the pace of the game and increase the cardiopulmonary burden of the Magic outside shooters through fast breaking.

The vast majority of shooters, once they keep turning back and running for a short period of time, their hearts are racing, and then at high heart rate, their shots are not accurate.

Although most NBA shooters have been trained in this area since childhood, only a few people such as Curry and Ray Allen can really maintain shooting stability and three-point shooting percentage in the playoffs.

Then again, Howard wasn't on the court at this time, and the Magic's ability to protect rebounds wasn't that great.

Although the Bulls' outside shooting percentage is not as high as expected, it is not a rebounding force for the Magic.

The Bulls relied on their height and athleticism to grab some offensive rebounds.

However, it also relied on the Magic's increasingly chaotic game rhythm and defense, and scored some simple goals by mistake.

During this period, Doon held the ball from time to time, both from the outside of his own strong shots and to create some scoring opportunities for his teammates.

Therefore, the Bulls reversed the score for a short time in the first two minutes of the second quarter, and soon overtook the score again, extending the margin to more than 5 points.

However, when the second quarter was more than 5 minutes into the game, the Magic called a timeout first, Doon went off the court for a while, and Howard returned to the court.

The Bulls tried to use Garnett and Milicic to form an interior twin tower and team up to limit Howard.

Although because of the whistle problem, he basically stood up and defended, but Howard's hand work was too bad, and the scoring method could only rely on dunks.

With the interference of Garnett and Milicic's long arms, it still had a very good effect.

It can be said that it took a quarter and a half for the Bulls to find the right way to win.

Let Howard take the ball and play alone, anyway, there is a big man on the inside to protect the frame, and Howard's finishing ability is not good, so he is here to send rebounds.

The Bulls regained their defensive counter-attack and built their lead further.

By the end of the second quarter, the score had come to 41-51, which was exactly 10 points.

After the Bulls already knew how to limit Howard's scoring, this game was not difficult for the Bulls to play.

At the beginning of the third quarter, Doon returned to the low post to help his teammates draw the defense.

The Magic let Howard defend Doon alone and try to get Doon for an offensive foul or two.

However, Doon's low-post singles are not only based on brute force, but also in terms of skill, and there are no shortcomings.

Howard was shaken by Doon's footsteps several times, and although he was not shaken, the interference with Doon's shooting had little effect.

The Bulls relied on Doane's 12 points in the third quarter and 16 points from others to extend their five-point lead further.

The Magic were able to bite the score tonight, mainly relying on the referee to rely on free throws.

The Bulls players were not affected too much mentally, and their scoring ability was far above the Magic, and they entered the fourth quarter with a 15-point lead, so there was naturally no problem in this game.

After all, the Bulls don't like to bring a group of small people on the court, and the height advantage has always been one of the important factors for the Bulls to win.

In the fourth quarter, the Bulls continued to focus on the front line, although they couldn't further enhance the defense because of the whistle, but it was okay to enhance the protection of rebounds.

Not to mention, the Bulls can also take the initiative to lower the pace of the game, allowing the Magic players to lose the game they should have won in desperation.

87-98, the Bulls' main team clocked out in the third and a half quarters, and switched to a pure bench lineup in the second half of the fourth quarter.

Even so, the Magic lacked the ability to break through the Bulls' defense and narrow the margin to single digits.

There is no doubt that in the two games of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Bulls have seen through the Magic.

As the star of the house, Howard's lack of self-scoring ability is undoubtedly very fatal.

Even if the league uses a penalty scale, it affects the quality of the Bulls' defense.

Even if the Bulls can only use regular season-level defensive intensity, the Magic still can't score too many points under the Bulls' defense and score more points than the Bulls.

After all, basketball is a sport in which the team with the most points wins.

The Magic lack players who can score consistently, and at the same time, there is no way to limit Doon's scoring and reduce the scoring efficiency of the Bulls' other players, so naturally there is no way to beat the Bulls.

"Who can stop this Chicago Bulls?"

"In a month's time, the Chicago Bulls are going to win the championship again!"

"Dwight Howard scored 29 points and couldn't win! What's so bad about the Orlando Magic? ”

"No team can play seven games against the Chicago Bulls!"

"Doon is difficult to score 40 points in the playoffs this year, and the biggest difficulty is that the opponent is too weak, and the Chicago Bulls don't need him to score high points to win!"

After the Bulls played G2 with the Magic, fans across the United States understood that the Magic could not stop the Bulls from advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals.

After all, the home court is reduced to the away field, and even if the away road is reduced to a graveyard, can the Magic rely on the referee to win the game?

The Magic themselves lacked scoring ability and obviously couldn't beat the Bulls, who were both offensive and defensive.

On May 10, at the TD Water House Center in Orlando, the Bulls and Magic Eastern Conference semifinals G3 started again.

Tonight's penalty scale is similar to the previous one at the Chicago Union Center.

Magic players can give intensity to the Bulls players, and the Bulls players have to defend honestly and can't make small moves unless the referee doesn't see it.

However, after playing G2, the Bulls players already know how to defend and how to play.

And on the Magic side, in order to win tonight's game, even Howard became honest.

Howard did score 29 points in the last game, but he got it back with 18 shots and 15 free throws.

The Magic are short of people to score, but if Howard keeps standing on the free-throw line and shooting only about 50% from the free-throw line, it won't help the Magic win.

In order to win tonight's game with the cooperation of the referees, the Magic finally smarted down for a while, replacing a large number of guards and forwards who can break through, and letting them constantly hold the ball to break through the fouls of the Bulls' interior players.

When Garnett had accumulated two fouls just over four minutes into the first quarter, Scott Skels realized that tonight's game was not going to be a good game.

But it's okay, the situation tonight is already clear.

In this series, the league doesn't want the Bulls to win too easily, but hopes that the Magic can win a few games to add some suspense and excitement to this series.

The Bulls certainly don't want to accept the script arranged by the league, so they can only strive to break the law.

Scott Skels, as the head coach, can only keep changing the interior players who can be used to support the scene a little.

In addition, with the help of timeouts, arrangements were made for the players who will play next, and the team switched to joint defense.

Use the pinch shots of the forward players to limit the breakthrough of the Magic outside players, and force the Magic outside players to finish more with shots, rather than continuing to rush to the basket to create foul trouble for the Bulls inside.

The Magic were not a strong team that was good at breaking through, and the Bulls put a joint defense to shrink the basket, and at the same time deliberately released the outside line for the Magic to shoot.

At this time, when the Magic was behind in the score, the Magic players on the court subconsciously followed Scott Skyles' arrangement and took the three-point shot to chase the score.

Admittedly, he did shoot some three-pointers, but there were also some more rebounds.

The Bulls relied on active positioning, protecting rebounds, and subsequent defensive counterattacks to convert offense, scoring some simple goals to make up for the loss of points from outside shots.

It is precisely because of this that the Bulls still maintain the lead and are not overtaken by the Magic.

Big Van Gundy reacted unquickly, but before the start of the fourth quarter, he also realized that the Magic players had hit the mark.

If the Magic want to win tonight, they can only continue to make fouls and knock the main players of the Bulls down.

Therefore, in the fourth quarter, the Magic outside players, led by Nelson, strictly implemented the tactics of breaking through and making fouls.

After just playing half a quarter, Garnett and Roel Deng were both ejected for six fouls.

If it weren't for the fact that the Bulls' lead was only seven or eight points, the outcome of this game was undecided, and Doon wanted to go back to the locker room first, out of sight.

It's so infuriating! Doon played five seasons in the NBA, and for the first time encountered this kind of situation where the team's main players were sent off one after another by the body hair whistle.

It was precisely in order to slap the referee in the face and the face of the league that Doon was bound to win tonight.

Therefore, Doon didn't dare to help defend anymore, and he didn't dare to foul again.

Even on the offensive end, Doon could only use more accurate and stable shots, without physical contact with the Magic defenders, to score for the Bulls and stabilize the game with his individual strength.

"Medium distance, middle distance again! Doon is dominating the game the way Michael does! ”

"Dwight has defended to the extreme, but he still can't prevent every ball from Doon, we need more people to limit Doon from scoring!"

"Doon's hand is too hot, Stan should call a timeout to cool Doon down."

The fans at the TD Water House Center saw Doon's defensive singles successfully facing Howard again and again in the fourth quarter, throwing into the middle distance worth thousands of dollars again and again, stabilizing the score, and their mentality became more and more explosive.

Twelve years ago, Jordan led the Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals in this way, beating up the Magic led by O'Neal and Penny Hardaway.

After this series, O'Neal ran to Los Angeles, and within a few years, he built the Lakers dynasty in Los Angeles.

Now the Magic finally got another big man, and finally cultivated Howard.

Doon won't break Howard's mentality in a similar way to Jordan, and then beat Howard away and go west, right?

Miami next door has already won the championship, when will we win the championship in Orlando?

Looking at the original star Penny Hardaway, sitting on the Bulls bench at this time, the mood of Magic fans can only be described as fuckless.

However, it didn't take long for Hardaway to get on the pitch and hit a mid-range jumper with his trademark turnaround and step-back jumper.

With just over five minutes left in the game, the Bulls took the lead by only seven or eight points.

Hardaway had an effect as soon as he came up, seizing the opportunity to add another two points to the gap between the Bulls, and the Magic players were directly numb.

Next, the Magic players have no other good options in the offensive round, except to break through and make fouls and stand at the free throw line.

With three minutes left on the clock, Josh Smith also accumulated six fouls.

However, the Bulls still hold a seven-point lead.

The Bulls continued to keep the pace of the game down until the last minute, and the scoring advantage remained above 5 points until the last minute.

97-91, the Bulls won the Eastern Conference semifinals again, pushing the series to 3-0.

And the next game entered the game mode familiar to the Bulls.

The Bulls don't use the script given by the league, but will only do it according to their own script.

Another 4-1 series, the Bulls made it to the Eastern Conference Finals.

The other Eastern Conference Finals team is not known at this time.

The Celtics have a triumvirate configuration, and they are actually inseparable from the Cavaliers.

After a closer look, I found that the knight also had the support of nobles. (End of chapter)