Chapter 1204 1203. First Win in the Eastern Conference Finals!

Wade made 18 of 33 shots and 13 of 20 free throws, scoring 49 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists. O'Neal also scored 24 points and 12 rebounds, with a very high efficiency of 10 of 16 shots, but the Heat lost to the Hawks by 15 points with a score of 97 to 112!

No one on the Hawks played as aggressively as Wade.

Liu Mang scored 16 points in the first quarter, but was targeted by defense later. He only scored 26 points with 9 of 19 shots.

McGrady scored 15 points in the third quarter, but only scored two points in the first quarter. Except for the third quarter, he was also targeted most of the time. He scored 24 points with 7 of 17 shots.

Jason Terry took advantage of Liu Mang's defense and played 29 minutes in the game, 11 of 18 shots, and scored 30 points!

From a personal perspective, the three Hawks of the Hawks can only compete with O'Neal alone, and they are still behind, but the three of them scored 80 points together!

With Josh Smith scoring 11 points and Kwame Brown scoring 9 points and 9 rebounds, the five main players of the Hawks scored 100 points, while the Heat scored 49 points by Wade and 24 points by O'Neal, and only Antoine Walker scored 15 points, and no fourth player scored in double figures.

In the star-studded match, the three Hawks of the Hawks took turns to beat the Heat!

…

Win the first game!

The morale of the Hawks was greatly boosted!

At the beginning of the game, McGrady was fouled twice by Wade, and he could not play in the first quarter after playing for more than five minutes, disrupting the rotation plan of the Hawks, but breaking the plan allowed the Hawks to play an unexpected start, scoring 33 points in the first quarter, establishing an advantage in one fell swoop.

After the game, the Hawks won the Heat by 15 points, which did not become the focus of today's topic.

Today's focus is on Wade's 20 free throws!

In contrast, in the first two rounds of the Hawks' series, the Hawks averaged only 21 free throws per game against the Pacers, which was a near-fight. In the technical defense battle against the Cavaliers, the Hawks averaged only 17 free throws per game.

In the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Hawks had only 23 free throws, while Wade alone had 20 free throws. The Heat had 35 free throws, 12 more than the Hawks!

Of course, almost all of them were concentrated on Wade and O'Neal. The two had 28 free throws, O'Neal had 8, and Wade had 20!

Except for Liu Mang, anyone else who touched Wade was a foul.

Except for the second half of the first quarter, the first half of the first quarter and the second and third quarters were all Pat Riley's iron-blooded defense mode. The two teams were so fierce that if there was any physical contact, it was estimated that both teams would be fined so that they could not even get five players on the court.

But if he touched Wade, he would be called for a foul, forcing the Hawks to defend one-on-one, and Wade scored 49 points.

But even so, the Heat still lost!

The league's whistle problem was strongly criticized, but the Hawks did not appeal, mainly because McGrady attacked the referee with discriminatory language against women. If he insisted on appealing, he would be suspended, and the league kept silent.

Fortunately, because the referee's whistle favoring Wade caused too much of a sensation, McGrady's scolding of the referee was not investigated by the media and did not expand the bad influence.

Of course, this is the opinion of the media and fans. The Hawks took the initiative to use Liu Mang and Prince to defend Wade. They took advantage of Prince being a pure defensive player with a 33% three-point shooting rate and used his footwork and height to interfere with Wade and consume Wade. They took advantage of Liu Mang's advantages of not being targeted by the referee and having no physical restrictions to consume Wade, causing Wade's physical fitness to decline and he could only focus on the offensive end. The Heat's single defense on the outside was weakened, so they could only double-team Liu Mang more, giving McGrady and Jason Terry the opportunity to explode in the second and third quarters.

This game was also analyzed a lot. The conclusion drawn by the media that the Heat was suddenly widened was that the Heat wanted to use the whistle given by the referee, but was used by the Hawks instead.

The headline news given by the domestic media was "Too clever to be clever", Pat Riley wanted to be clever and use the referee's whistle that favored Wade to make a fuss, but he gave up the excellent defense in the first half of the first quarter, which led to step-by-step quagmire.

However, no matter how the media bombarded and how the fans discussed, the league did not explain the scale of the penalty.

If we analyze each foul one by one according to the rules, Wade's every time he went to the free throw line was justified and there was definitely a foul action, it was just a matter of scale.

The media and fans only criticized the scale of the penalty, not the foul, because Liu Mang faced a much stronger defense than Wade, but he only had 6 free throws in the whole game.

…

"Tracy, it's just 3,500 yuan, just think of it as a loss to avoid disaster!" Liu Mang comforted McGrady, who was feeling sorry for his wallet.

McGrady was so sad that the team did not appeal the technical foul for him, which he could accept, but he still felt sorry for the money!

This was his fourth time in the playoffs this year. The main reason was that he received three technical fouls in the five games against the Pacers during the many fights with Artest. The fine for this technical foul reached 3,500 US dollars. McGrady has lost 11,000 US dollars in this year's playoffs...

Fortunately, he was not suspended. McGrady could only accept Liu Mang's statement of "spending money to avoid disaster".

After the first game, the Hawks' confidence was greatly improved.

Even if Wade scored 49 points, they won!

The playoffs are a place for stars to compete, especially in this kind of defensive confrontation game, you can often see a role player who is usually a sharp shooter shoot N shots and 0 out of 5, just like when the Heat were upset by the Bulls last year, their sharp shooter Damon Jones, who averaged 2.7 three-pointers per game in the regular season, shot 4 out of 15 three-pointers in the playoffs, completely lacking the style of the regular season, and Stan Van Gundy didn't dare to send him to the court.

This time, the Heat and the Hawks are the same. The role players of both teams are very inaccurate. The Hawks rely on the three eagles, and the Heat rely on Wade, O'Neal and Antoine Walker to score.

If the next game is still like this, Liu Mang and McGrady are very confident!

Fighting for stars and defense, they are not afraid of anyone!

After the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Hawks' next game against the Heat will be on May 25, with two days of rest in between.

Among them, May 23 is the Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Mavericks.

On the morning of the 23rd, the Eagles players went to the stadium to hold a team meeting, studied the shortcomings of the first game, discussed the more clear advantages, and studied how to expand the advantages.

Strengthen the existing advantages and make up for the exposed disadvantages.