the rest, only noise

Chapter 708 An Invincible Situation
"Coach Lu, this game is getting national attention."

Tonight's referee is Jack O'Donnell, an old acquaintance of Louie's, who can be regarded as an impartial referee.

"I hope this kind of conflict will not happen again." O'Donnell said tactfully, "You know the league has been paying attention to this round of the series."

Hearing this, Louis laughed and said, "It sounds like it's all our fault? Why do you have this perception?"

O'Donnell watched the Knicks' incoming players and knew what Louie wanted to do.

"What you're going to do will escalate the conflict."

"Jack, I'm sure you're not a prejudiced person, let me just say that," Louie put his arms around O'Donnell's shoulders, and said affectionately, "Suppose there is an adulterer. Well, forget it, like Eddie Fisher (Eddie Fisher) and Elizabeth Taylor (Elizabeth Taylor) adultery of the century, who do you think is at fault? Is it Eddie? He fucked his wife just after his best friend died in an accident. Is there something wrong with him? Or Elizabeth? , the husband sought comfort from his married friend not long after his death, which one of them is at fault?"

"Uh uh."

O'Donnell is flabbergasted by Louie's abstract but impeccable similes.

"It's hard to pin the blame on someone alone, right? If one of these two doesn't want to do it, then there won't be an affair, so it's a joint responsibility between the two. So, going back to this conflict, if Larry doesn't drag Dennis down, the conflict won't escalate. I don't blame Larry. That's his way of playing. But, Jack, are you trying to remind me of this to show that the responsibility lies with New York?"

O'Donnell couldn't refute Louis: "You know I didn't mean that."

"Of course, I have been pushing the league to establish an award for the best referee of the year. If the league passes my proposal this year, I will definitely vote for you."

O'Donnell hadn't expected such a thing.

"Coach Lu, are you kidding me?"

"How could I joke about such a thing?"

In fact, this is not a joke, it should be said that it is not even a joke, it is just a hello.

But O'Donnell's reaction got Louie thinking that maybe he could actually make the suggestion at this year's annual meeting.

On the one hand, you can gain the favor of the referee, on the other hand, there is the best referee of the year, and naturally there is also the worst referee of the year.

In order to maintain the stability of the league, although the award for the worst referee will not be set up on the surface, satisfactory referees will get the most votes. Those referees who don't get many votes are naturally recognized as bad referees in the circle, like Dick Bavita's cerebral palsy. Wouldn't he face up to his professional ability because of this?

This thought flashed for a moment, and Louis decided to focus on the game first and not think about anything else.

In the remaining 5 minutes of the second quarter, the Celtics had a hard time.

Because murder is pressing, although it will be late, it will not be absent.

Originally, this set of defensive plans that frightened the entire league was specially prepared by Louis for the Celtics.

A few years have passed, members of the murder press have come and gone, and now they are finally fixed, with Wilson, Rodman, Stevens, and Saley as the core framework, and the fifth person always changes according to the characteristics of the opponent.

Tonight, fifth in the murder pack is Reggie Williams.

As a winger who came to vote this summer, he is one of Louie's favorite backup players.

He is like a shrunken black version of Kirilenko, he can do everything on the defensive end, and he can do everything on the offensive end. If his body is not too glassy, ​​his development prospects are at least an All-Star.

Now, Louie puts him in the murder press, alternating with Doug West and Danny Ainge as the fifth man.

The Celtics suddenly found the game much more difficult.

The Knicks put out a murderous press that fared worse than the legendary press lineup that haunted Boston in the 1987-88 season.

Two first-defense leaders, one of which is still DPOY, and there are more mature Stevens and John Sely.

Jimmy Rodgers came on for Isiah Thomas, looking to use his speed to break the game.

For the Celtics, it is the most ideal situation for Thomas to break the murder press.

But things often don't go as smoothly as they want, because the Knicks will start with the defense to avoid easy catches for Thomas.

Even when he gets the ball, it's going to be difficult to get out of that defense.

Many old fans of the national basketball team have a wrong impression of Liu Wei, the old backer of the national team: when he is pressed by the whole court, he can't dribble past half court.

In fact, this impression is very stereotyped, but the fans cannot be blamed, because Liu Wei has indeed been forced by opponents to drop the ball and miss good games at critical moments.Think about Mr. Zhou's throw-in against Poland. If you knew the truth "Mr. Zhou's pass was actually pretty good", would you accept it?I'm afraid I can't.

Why did Liu Wei leave that impression?Because when he was in office, the national team did not have a reliable No. 30 substitute, so he had to be roughed for more than 35-3 minutes every game. There was no problem at the beginning, but in the final stage, the stamina bar could not hold up. It is too much pressure for the defender to face the opponent's full-court press alone.

So even if the Celtics could catch the ball on every possession, trying to break the Knicks' murderous press alone would be delusional.

This was proven in the 1988 Eastern Conference Finals.

It's just that the Knicks now are more confident and experienced than two years ago.

Rogers hopes that Thomas will buy some time for Bird and Sampson, and try to survive these 5 minutes.

However, in the first minute, the Celtics took the ball to the frontcourt once.

Moreover, Thomas' quick attack directed at the basket was finally knocked down by a block from Stevens.

Stevens was called for a foul, and Thomas fell hard to the ground.

An angry Thomas got up and wanted to do something, but was stopped by his teammates.

The other people on the Knicks field watched eagerly, and if they really started to fight, the Celtics would definitely not be able to get cheap.

Seeing Thomas angrily cursing the street, Louis found it amusing.

On the opposite side, Jimmy Rogers was able to understand KC Jones's feelings when facing the Knicks at this moment.

It makes you angry and powerless. This is the style of the Knicks. They are brutal and self-controlled. They like to use that kind of rough foul to change the mentality of the opponent's players.

Thomas's two free throws proved that his heart is still not messed up.

But these two free throws won't solve the problem.

In the next few minutes, the Celtics successfully dribbled the ball across the half court four times, but only two times constituted a direct threat to the basket.

Moreover, all of them were stopped by the Knicks with fouls.

They allowed the Celtics to score free throws, but it was impossible to break the audience's pressing basket.

For the Knicks, the effect of the murder press was considerable. Wilson didn't score, and Rodman didn't score, but the defense of the two made the Celtics scalp numb.

The Knicks' main scoring points during this period were distributed among Williams, Sely and Stevens.

It was mainly Williams' three-pointers from the outside, and the pie-eating dunks of the other two.

Within 4 minutes, the Knicks played a 16-6 offensive climax. With only 1 minute left in the first half, they forced the Celtics to switch back to Bird and Sampson to prevent the further expansion of the point difference.

Louie waved slowly.

"Obviously, Leader Lu does not intend to reduce the strength of the Knicks' defense."

"No, from his rotation, the defensive intensity has even increased."

Louie replaced John Selley with athletic man Doug West.This person's physical fitness is top-notch. If he were to go to other teams, he must have been trained as a point-grabber in the second team. But the Knicks took a different approach and insisted on positioning him as a defensive champion, training his foundation from scratch.

West's savvy is good, and since his rookie season, he has won the position of the murderer's fifth man rotation.

Louis replaced Sely and let him play to ensure that the five players on the field can achieve the ultimate rotation, supplementary defense, double-team and fierce counterattack after grabbing the ball.

At this time, the score was 59 to 49.

With Bird and Sampson off the court, the score was even. After the two sides clashed, the Knicks put on a murderous pressure on the Celtics, and the score was 4 points in 10 minutes.

Now forced to switch back to Bird and Sampson, Rogers hopes to use the Big Three to change the situation, he is too naive.

After Rodman switched positions, he cut off the pass from the Celtics.

Wilson finally got a chance to make a three-pointer against Bird, who couldn't switch defenses in time.

"Shh!"

The Celtics used the pass to pass the half court with difficulty. They wanted Sampson to take advantage of his height, but as soon as he got the ball, he was pinched by the Knicks and could only pass the ball.

Although the ball was passed, John Long, who received the ball, was already being watched.

Then pass to others, and the Knicks' defensive rotations are also in place.

The Knicks took the advantage of their five-wing lineup without a pure inside line to the extreme. The Celtics had no choice but to hit the 24-second buzzer without scoring.

Then came the Knicks' last drive before the end of the first half.

Wilson took the ball, swung past Lang, and broke through to Williams on the weak side.

The Celtics didn't know how good this guy was, and they didn't even step forward when they saw that he was open, as if he didn't count the three-pointers he made before.

Williams' three-pointer horrified everyone in the Celtics.

Before I knew it, the point difference had reached 16 points.

There are still 7 seconds until the end of the first half.

⑴Guo Ailun, who is generally recognized as better than Liu Wei in dribbling, was pressed by the Australian second team until halftime when he played in the Asian Cup or World Preliminaries in 17 or 18.Some people may want to say that it is no problem for Guo to dribble past halftime in the World Series.But my opinion is that after Yao Huang retired, when the national basketball team played in the world competition, it was not strong enough to make people need to use the full-court press to target your weak back line.Just like playing LOL, your equipment advantage is so great that a few A can kill A, so what kind of operation is there to show.

(End of this chapter)