God's hand behind the scenes

Chapter 482 When the three points are gone

With strong three-point firepower, the Pistons continued to maintain a double-digit lead at the end of the half, which greatly exceeded Brown's expectations.Before the start of the game, he also thought that his team might be able to suppress the opponent during the game, but he never expected that this process would be so easy, it really seemed like a dream.

Seeing Brown standing in the center of the locker room with a red face, Chang Wei smiled and said nothing. In this era, perhaps only he can see the importance of three-pointers.There are actually quite a few sharpshooters in the league, including Bird and Cole in the distance, Hornacek and Szczerbiak in the near ones, but there are very few teams that focus on three-point shooting, and they are still more accustomed to the inside For singles or mid-range shooting, only the 76ers and Pistons have worked hard on outside shooting in recent seasons.

The outside world believes that Brown is a coach who pays attention to three-pointers. After all, he has served as the coach of the 76ers and the Pistons, but in fact Chang Wei is the key to all this.When he was in the NCAA, he suggested that the head coach increase the proportion of three-pointers in the game. After he came to the NBA, he intensified his efforts. Fortunately, the coaches he met could listen to it. A championship team, so now more and more teams in the league have begun to pay attention to outside offense.

However, as latecomers, they can only follow behind and eat ashes, not to mention that Chang Wei holds the system in his hand, and the three-point training effect for the players is outstanding.Now the Lakers are clearly the latest victim, allowing the Pistons to make 20 of 11 attempts from beyond the arc in the first half, while only Kobe and Szczerbiak made threes of their own.Although O'Neal and Malone's offensive efficiency in the interior is not low, they can only score 2 points in one attack, but the Pistons can score 1 more point than them with a three-pointer.

At halftime, Jackson moaned in the locker room that the only perimeter defenses he could rely on were Payton and Kobe, which is why the Pistons got so many open shots in the first half, not to mention they had a regular Thomas, who was pulled outside to shoot a three-pointer.The only thing Zen Master can do is to move the inside to the high post more to defend, is to pray that the Pistons feel cold in the second half. He knows that it is very difficult to maintain such a shooting percentage throughout the game.

Maybe God heard the prayer of Zen Master, or maybe he didn't want this game to become a one-sided massacre. At the beginning of the second half, the Pistons missed three consecutive three-pointers, and the Lakers took the opportunity to narrow the point difference to single digits.It is not a particularly rare thing to not score in three rounds, but comparing the three-point shooting percentage of the Pistons in the first half, it is a bit weird no matter how you look at it.

Before Brown called a timeout, Billups decisively prevented his teammates from continuing to try their hands outside the three-point line.If it's an insignificant regular season, it doesn't matter if you shoot an unsure three-pointer from the outside, but now this is the finals, and the Pistons are only one game away from winning the championship. In any case, safety is the main thing.

Under the command of Billups, the Pistons quickly returned to their regular style of play. The three-pointer is just a supplement and a nuclear weapon to open up space.And now the Lakers' offensive momentum also needs to be curbed, otherwise the Pistons are likely to lose their advantage due to a scoring shortage.

The Lakers players, who were able to score happily, suddenly felt tremendous pressure, and their tactics stagnated under the interference of the opponent.Although there is also running, they can't run the Pistons players no matter how they run, and the passing routes are basically cut off.What else can we do?Then the only way is to let the stars continue to play singles with the ball.

That is to say, a team like the Lakers can barely continue to increase points by relying on the personal strength of the players, but their efficiency is not high, because every Pistons player crazily stepped forward and bit like a mad dog, preventing them from getting easy shots at all. .

Even if he is as strong as O'Neal, it is difficult to successfully send the ball to the basket under the harassment of Big Ben, let alone other people.The least affected by the Lakers should be Kobe. This is a top scorer who can hit shots while being blocked from sight, but he obviously cannot take on the scoring responsibility of the entire team alone. The transformation of the Black Mamba is not yet We have to wait until the time when he leads the team alone in the future. Now Kobe can score, but he doesn't have the ability to fight against a team alone.

At this time, the physical fitness of the Pistons has become their biggest advantage. After all, the physical energy consumed in defense is much greater than that of offense. Fortunately, Chang Wei has always emphasized physical fitness in training, otherwise the Pistons' defense may be at best. It's been going on for a while.And if you want to defend against the star-studded Lakers, long-term high-intensity defense is the key.

Under the crazy pressure of the Pistons, the Lakers only scored a total of 20 points in the third quarter. With four major stars and one Szczerbiak, this is a number that is enough to embarrass them.Although the Pistons made 6 of 1 three-pointers in this quarter, they still scored 25 points by virtue of their breakthrough and mid-range, and continued to maintain their lead.

More importantly, in this quarter alone they contributed 4 steals and 2 blocks, forcing the Lakers to a staggering 8 turnovers.You must know that the Lakers played mostly singles with the ball in these 12 minutes. Logically speaking, if there are fewer passes, the turnovers will also be reduced, but the Pistons can force them to make mistakes. This is no ordinary defensive strength.

Although Chang Wei admired offense very much, he never thought that Brown's more important defense would be swept into the garbage dump of history. In fact, most championship teams have a balanced performance on both offense and defense.Even if their performance on the offensive or defensive end is more prominent, the other end can at least maintain the upper-middle level of the league.Indeed, if the Pistons didn't have the conventional weapon of defense, their sudden drop in three-point shooting would be enough to dig a big hole for themselves.

For this result, Zen Master felt very helpless. Obviously, the Pistons did not have such a sharp three-pointer in the first half, but the players under his command were still lost in the impregnable defense, and they also did not play the offense they were good at.This old coach who has coached in the league for many years is a little at a loss. Is the Pistons destined to win the championship this season?So what's the use of the Lakers getting Payton and Malone before?The only good news is that there is still the last quarter, and the Lakers may not have a chance to turn around.

(End of this chapter)