The world's best combo guard

Chapter 164 161 [Unheard of game rhythm]

"Fans and friends in front of the TV, everyone, good morning, I am Xu Jicheng (I am Zhang Weiping), the opening game of the NBA2003~2004 season finals. The game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Detroit Pistons will start soon. This game will be played by the two of us. Let's explain"

On the other side of the ocean, in the BJ CCTV sports studio, for the upcoming NBA Finals, CCTV Sports obviously also attaches great importance to it, and directly sent two heavyweight head commentators.

As usual domestic fans are familiar with, both Zhang Weiping and Xu Jicheng are naturally trying their best to guide the game at this time.

"Let's talk about the advancement of the two teams first! Although the Lakers are the best in the league on paper, their advancement with the luxurious F4 combination is not easy, especially in the Western Conference Finals. If it wasn’t for the Chinese player Li Hao to come forward, maybe they would be swept out by the San Antonio Spurs. At that time, they would be sent out by the San Antonio Spurs for two consecutive seasons. Relatively speaking, the Detroit Pistons in the East can be regarded as the dark horse The system has been played to the extreme, and no one can think that they can easily eliminate the Indiana Pacers. Therefore, from these two perspectives, the finals between the Lakers and the Pistons did not end with the Lakers easily defeating the Pistons as people predicted. "Even if he is a die-hard fan of the Lakers, Kobe and even Li Hao, Zhang Weiping is very cautious in his analysis at this time.

"Indeed, both teams have shown us tenacity on the road to promotion, especially compared to the Detroit Pistons, the Lakers have performed particularly profoundly in this regard, it has nothing to do with the position, Phil Jackson's After all, the Purple and Gold Corps withstood the pressure and still had the temperament that a rich team should have, and we have all seen that as they finally advanced to the finals, the state of each player is ushering in recovery..." Xu Jicheng on the other side After taking over the chatter, he continued to analyze.

In the Staples Center, the game has already started, and the super-large display screen on the scene shows the starting lineups of both sides of the game.

Detroit Pistons: Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace!
Los Angeles Lakers: Li Hao, Kobe, Devin George, Medvedenko, Shaq O'Neal!

At the beginning of the game, Li Hao took the ball and met his "old friend" Chauncey Billups on the offensive end.

Whether it was Li Hao or Chauncey Billups, neither of them thought that in just one year, the two people whose identities looked very different at the beginning would stage a head-to-head confrontation on a stage that attracted much attention like the finals.

"Li, I have to admit that you are outstanding, but young people are young people after all. Maybe the future of this league belongs to you, but now"

Li Hao didn't expect that his old friend would be the first to spout trash talk at him.

"Come on, Chauncey, to this day, our identities are perfect, you know it's hard for you to get cheap from me"

While talking, Li Hao quickly crossed Billups' right side and made a successful throw.

Li Hao took the lead to score two points for the Lakers, and the home fans immediately cheered. As long as Li Hao is in good condition, the game will basically be concluded. To a certain extent, this is "Li Hao's Law". Research by Lakers fans found that in the last 10 Lakers games, as long as Li Hao can hit the first shot, the Lakers will eventually win the game.

However, no one expected that tonight, "Li Hao's Law" seemed to be broken by the people of Detroit.

Because after Li Hao hit the first goal in the opening game, the Lakers didn't score a single point in the next 4 minutes of the first quarter.

It's like being caught in a vicious circle. Even though Phil Jackson has adjusted the timeout during this period, the Lakers players just can't send the ball to the basket.

In turn, the Detroit Pistons have scored 13 points!
13: 2!

When the first quarter of the game entered an official timeout, the atmosphere at the Staples Center looked a little dull.

The faces of the fans were very serious because they saw an unbelievable scene from the first half of the first quarter.

The Lakers players have five positions, and almost every point is restricted by the Pistons. Kobe couldn't make a breakthrough, and he didn't make a strong shot. Chiseling does not move.

As for Li Hao, under the interference of Chauncey Billups, he couldn't handle the ball well and comfortably.

Everyone knows that the Detroit Pistons are known for their defense, but they didn't expect their defense to be so terrifying, as strong as Kobe's embarrassing data of 4 for 0 shots under Prince's defense.

"The Los Angeles Lakers are in trouble, unprecedented trouble. In terms of mobility alone, the Detroit Pistons are even better than them. The speed of each of their players is very fast, which makes the speed that Lee and Kobe rely on. is gradually losing its effect”

"The biggest problem now is that Lee can't handle the ball relatively comfortably at this point. We all know that the Lakers are used to playing the triangle offense. However, when the ball cannot run smoothly, the so-called triangle offense will no longer exist."

On the Lakers bench, Li Hao and his starters tightly surrounded Phil Jackson. Everyone hoped that Phil Jackson could figure out a solution.

The same is true for Li Hao. When the breakthrough and speed he trusted most lost their effect, Li Hao was a little confused for a while. He didn't know how to organize the team's offense well.

"Listen, try singles, guys, you must be confident. In terms of personal ability, you are as good as any opponent"

Phil Jackson came up with his proposal.

Li Hao and the others nodded, maybe they can only really do it at this stage.

The game restarted, Kobe is very accomplished in singles, this is a well-known thing in the world, so Li Hao and the others tried their best to give the ball to Kobe.

However, unfortunately, Kobe's attempts failed several times. Prince's defense is so good that even if he defends one-on-one, he makes Kobe very uncomfortable.

At the critical moment, Li Hao increased his speed to the extreme, and then he just tore a few holes from Chauncey Billups' hands in a row, helping the Lakers score hard.

Everyone can see that Li Hao is desperately fighting, but they also understand that his style of play can only be effective for a while, and this game is far from over. If Li Hao continues to play at such a limit, what will happen to the next game? manage?
21: 8!

At the end of the first quarter, the Lakers trailed by 13 points, an unbelievable point difference.

What made the Lakers fans even more frightening was that the team's 8 points in the first quarter came from Li Hao.

Li Hao scored 8 points in a single quarter, which sounds pretty good, but in fact, no Lakers fan would like to see such stats on Li Hao, because everyone knows how Li Hao got these 8 points.

Defense, this damn defense again!
Many home fans waved their arms angrily. From the Western Conference Finals to the present, the Lakers seem to have no idea how to play when they encounter such a strong defensive team.

Where is the hearty offense that the team showed in the regular season?Is it all soft dough?
Is Phil Jackson really a champion coach?Why hasn't the triangle offense in his mouth been effective until now?
"Boss, it's not just an offensive problem now. It would be fine if it's just that the opponent restricts us to score, but the problem is that the opponent doesn't feel too much pressure on the offensive end. I think we should do it on the defensive end. Even better, another form of the triangle offense is the defensive counterattack, the opponent can hit our defensive counterattack, why can't we?" Kobe put forward his own opinion.

When Kobe said this, Li Hao and the others immediately reacted, yes, now that I think about it, they not only played poorly on the offensive end in the first quarter, but also did very poorly on the defensive end, otherwise, even if they themselves If you can't score, at least you can make your opponent lose points.

Back in the second quarter, Phil Jackson made personnel adjustments. He sent up Rick Fox, who wanted to be better defensively, and replaced Devin George.

As for the Pistons, Brown maintained the starting lineup.

Perhaps, compared to the Pistons, the Lakers at least have a certain advantage in terms of lineup depth.

However, it's the same problem again. This lineup advantage is almost the same as nothing when the Lakers can't play offensively.

At the beginning of the second quarter, the Lakers also increased their strength on the defensive end. It has to be said that the Lakers lineup led by Li Hao and Kobe does have top-level defensive capabilities.

Although the Pistons had three 20+ players in the regular season, they also fell into a scoring shortage for a while.

Therefore, the entire second quarter completely turned into a meat grinder-level defensive battle, and both sides almost had to pay a very heavy price for every point they scored.

32: 24!

Relying on the defensive end, the Lakers regained some ground in the second quarter and narrowed the point difference to less than 10 points.

32: 24!

Well, this is really a crazy score. After halftime, the scores of the two teams are still hovering around [-] or [-] points.

As soon as Li Hao returned to the locker room, he sat on the chair with his buttocks, and then signaled the masseur to quickly take some ice cubes to treat his calf muscles. His calf is now full of redness and swelling, and even some places have scratched the skin , The quarter of the game just experienced was almost the strongest defensive battle that Li Hao had encountered in his career, which exhausted his physical strength very seriously.

Even with some mental preparations before the game, Li Hao had to exclaim inwardly at this time, the Detroit Pistons' defense was too terrifying.

"Phil, it's not okay to go on like this. Li is only a first-year rookie after all. It's impossible for him to adapt to this kind of game rhythm throughout the game. If he falls down, we will be in a particularly passive position in an instant. I don't think so." Deny Lee's excellence on both ends of the offense and defense, but to be honest, it is really difficult for him to continue to play like this."

At the corner of the locker room, offensive coach Judy Brucher took the initiative to find Phil Jackson and expressed his views.

"So Judy, tell me your opinion"

Phil Jackson adjusted his glasses. How could he not know that this kind of game rhythm will only become more and more unfavorable to his team?But for a while, he couldn't think of any countermeasures.

"Phil, the biggest problem we have on the offensive end now is that we can't pass the ball. In the final analysis, everyone on the opponent's single defense ability is very good and Lee is single in organizing the team's offense. The same is true for Kobe. His organizational ability is relatively good. There is still some gap with those top playmakers, so, I mean change, maybe it's time for us to choose to trust Gary again..."

"It is estimated that many people did not expect the situation in the first half to be like this. I have to say that the Lakers and Pistons are absolutely top-notch teams that can advance to the finals. They can both become strong offensive teams. It can also be transformed into a defensive powerhouse in an instant.”

"That's right, looking at the scores of the two teams in the first half, in my impression, at least since the 90s, there has never been such a half-time score in the finals. Such a high-intensity defense"

"This kind of game rhythm will obviously become more and more unfavorable to Ah Hao. We are not inferior, but in fact, the first-year Ah Hao has greatly improved his physical fitness and physical confrontation this season, which makes him In the true sense, he has NBA-level physical confrontation, but compared with those old fritters, Ah Hao is still a bit immature after all. I worry that if he continues to play like this in the second half of the game, Ah Hao will have to stay on the bench due to exhaustion.”

At the BJ CCTV Sports Studio, Zhang Weiping and Xu Jicheng were also analyzing the first half of the game seriously at this time.

When it comes to Li Hao, the two are happy that Li Hao can stand up in the first quarter, but at the same time, they don't want the rhythm of the second half to remain the same, because such a rhythm of the game will affect Li Hao. more and more unfavorable.

In fact, during the intermission, not only Zhang Weiping and Xu Jicheng were talking about the first half of the game, but many people were interpreting the first half of the game at the same time.

"Terrifying defensive intensity, perhaps this series will evolve into the greatest defensive battle since the 21st century"

On the TNT commentary stand, Kenny Smith was filled with emotion.

"Kenny, I agree with your point of view. You know that I have experienced the fierce collision of wild beasts in the 90s. It is no exaggeration to say that the NBA has developed to this day. The defense of the 90s is absolutely unique. In our In that era, even in the regular season where the defensive intensity was not too high, it was rare for a game to break a hundred points. It was really a meat grinder game.”

"But even so, the two teams scored a maximum of 32 points in the halftime, which has never appeared in my impression. Therefore, according to the rhythm of the game, this year's finals may really evolve into this."

(End of this chapter)