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Chapter 114
"It's hard to do now!"

Amidst the cheers from the arena, Borrego stood beside Popovich, frowned as he watched the Pacers retreating quickly.

Under George's shocking dunk, the Pacers' morale is already extremely high, and there will definitely be a qualitative improvement on both offense and defense in the next period of time, and for the Spurs, this will undoubtedly hurt.

"It's enough to withstand this wave! Some flaws cannot be covered up by relying on morale!" With his hands on his chest, Popovich said without looking back, just talking like that.

Compared with the game that may collapse, he focused more on George, and even moved his eyes with George's movements.

Popovich has a premonition that George will become a superstar without any accidents, and the Pacers will also become an iron-blooded new army under his leadership, blocking their way to the championship.

In the next game, the high-moralized Pacers kept pressing the Spurs. Fortunately, at the critical moment, Ginobili and Yang Ke stood up.

The two formed a dislocation through cross-screening, and Collison succeeded in consecutive singles, which kept the point difference between the two teams from widening to double digits.

With the hard support of Yang Ke and Ginobili, the Spurs finally dragged to the end of the halftime, successfully withstood the strong attack from the Pacers, and the point difference between the two teams temporarily stayed at 9 points.

Following the team back to the locker room, Yang Ke did not return to the chair and sit down immediately, but took some high-energy food from the table, hoping to speed up the recovery of physical strength by eating high-energy food.

You must know that in the first half, Yang Ke scored 20 points, 14 assists and 4 rebound in less than 1 minutes through real combat, helping the team withstand the pressure, and this also led to his Physical energy is almost gone.

"Boys, you played well in the first half! But, in the second half, I need you to do better!"

Popovich was the last to enter the locker room, holding a tactical drawing board in his hand, looking at the crowd sitting on the chairs, he smiled, and said a rare good word when the score was behind.

After taking a sip of the energy drink, Duncan wiped the sweat off his face and said, "Coach, this is not going to work. We must make a change in the second half!"

"That's right, the morale of the Pacers is still high, passive defense is useless, we need to take the initiative!"

Nodding his head, Popovich pulled a chair from the side and put it in front of everyone while talking, and then he did it with one buttock, and put the tactical drawing board on the ground at the same time.

Seeing that Popovich was going to talk about tactics, Yang Ke hurried back to the chair next to Leonard and sat down. Of course, he didn't forget to grab a few bags of chocolates.

In the game, the Spurs will often set off a counterattack storm suddenly in the third quarter, and use a wave of offense to narrow the score, and even overtake and expand the score.

That's because through halftime games, Popovich is often able to see through the opponent's most commonly used tactics, so as to find fatal flaws, and explain the targeting methods to the players in detail.

It can be said that the Spurs have won many games by relying on the rhythm of the third quarter, and among them, Popovich contributed the most.

Faced with the eager eyes of the players, Popovich did not explain the tactics immediately, but after pondering for a moment, looked sideways at Yang Ke, and solemnly instructed.

"Yang, you don't need to listen for now. Go take a shower first, relax and rest. I need your physical fitness to recover significantly in the fourth quarter!"

When Popovich suddenly stopped him at such a time, Yang Ke was taken aback for a moment, and then after a little thought, he understood that Popovich was afraid that the Pacers would not be taken away by a wave in the third quarter.

So in order to be sure, Popovich asked himself to save his energy so that he could lead another wave of offense when he played in the fourth quarter, so that he could kill the game and win.

"Understood, Coach!"

Nodding, Yang Ke, whose buttocks were still warm, stood up again in an instant, took the unopened bag of chocolates, and walked slowly into the shower room under the envious eyes of his teammates.

10 minutes later, the second half begins.

The lineups of both sides have changed to a certain extent. The Spurs replaced Yang Ke with Parker, while the Pacers replaced Collison with Lance Stephenson.

In the third quarter, the game went on in an orderly manner. The two sides came and went. Within a few minutes, the point difference between the two teams did not change.

Popovich couldn't sit still anymore, and just stood on the sidelines like that, watching the game on the field with his eyes tightly. The occurrence of this situation meant that the tactics he set were useless.

"What's the matter with this Pacer? How do you feel that the current performance is more perfect than when the morale was high?!"

While thinking about the reason, Borrego's depressed voice came into his ears, which surprised Popovich immediately, and looked up at Stephenson who replaced Collison in the Pacers.

With a guess in his mind, Popovich turned around and walked back to the bench, stopped in front of Borrego, and said, "Borrego, give me Stephenson's information."

As the team's chief assistant coach, Borrego always has detailed information on the opponent. It only took 30 seconds for him to hand over Stephenson's detailed information to Popovich.

Sophomore rookie, Stephenson? !Sure enough, the weakest link in the lineup has been filled!
The thin page of information was quickly read, with a flash of light in his eyes, Popovich confirmed his guess, and then he walked back to the sidelines.

Putting his hands behind his back, Popovich looked at the five Pacers players from a distance. Although the cooperation between them was very unfamiliar, their power was born.

Stephenson is several times better than Collison. The same forward swingman, although Stephenson lacks experience, he is better than Collison on both offense and defense.

Especially in terms of defense, after data display and Popovich's on-site observation, he found that Stephenson's defensive efficiency is very high.

Always trying to make trouble for the opponent, he does not hesitate to use his body to compete with the opponent, moves quickly laterally, has good defensive timing, and is very good at man-to-man and zone defense.

It can be said that because of this one-handed substitution, Popovich's wave of tactics was completely declared bankrupt!It can even be said that the Pacers' lineup has been upgraded invisibly!
Grasping Stephenson's file with both hands, watching the slow-moving game on the field, Popovich took a deep breath and returned to the bench. This time he stopped in front of Yang Ke.

"coach?"

"Yang, listen, in the first half of the fourth quarter, when both main players are not on the court, you have unlimited firepower!"

　Came back early...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)