Chapter 543: 542. The Regional Finals Are Poisonous!

Time: May 30, 2003.

What happened: Hawks at Gross Arena, Game 2 of series against Nets.

After the start of the game, the Nets quickly took the lead. The Nets played the strongest defense as soon as they came up, instead of playing offensive and probing at the beginning of the previous game, they directly put Kidd and Lucios Harry The defensive lineup of Adams, Richard Jefferson, Kenyon Martin, and Jason Collins came up and slammed the defense.

After the Eagles were caught off guard in the start, they immediately fought back, who is afraid of whom! The same resorted to defense, and the situation began to become anxious.

After the first quarter, the Nets led by 21 to 18 by three points. In the second quarter, after the two sides entered the rotation lineup, the Nets still fought hard to defend, grind their positions, and scored a single quarter score of 17 to 17.

After halftime, the Eagles were still three points behind, with a brutal score of 35 to 38.

In the third quarter, the two teams played a decent offensive quarter, but the Eagles did not get much benefit. 27 to 28, the point difference not only did not narrow, but was expanded by one point!

After three quarters, the Eagles trailed by four points 62 to 66.

At the end of the quarter, the two teams once again entered a defensive situation. Liu Mang, Jason Terry, and Raheem all tried to open up the situation, but they were all stifled in the trying stage. The Nets deserved to have played in the finals. After being abused by the Lakers 4-0, he didn't have a heart breakdown, which is enough to show how determined his mind is. No matter how bad the offense is, he insists on defense. It doesn't matter if you can't make the shot, just defend slowly and play slowly.

The Nets can't afford to lose. If they lose another home game, their mentality may collapse.

After the Eagles won the first series, some changes have taken place in their mentality.

It cannot be said to be arrogant, nor can it be said to belittle the opponent.

But...satisfaction!

After the Eagles knew that their opponent was definitely the Nets, their goal for the first two games was to win at least one away game and take home home advantage.

In a series like the conference finals, it is too difficult to win two consecutive away games. The Eagles did not feel arrogant in the second game, but just felt satisfied.

From the defense of the two teams in the first game, it can be seen that there is no qualitative difference in strength between the two teams, and there is only one person who can break the deadlock. It just so happens that neither team has a star who can overcome the opponent's current defense and break the deadlock.

In the middle of the fourth quarter, the two teams only scored 16 points in the fourth half of the fourth quarter. The Eagles were 70 to 74, still 4 points behind.

Seeing that the game was going to be grinded to death by the Nets, Liu Mang tried to attack the basket and make a foul, but was met with a more prepared defense by the opponent, because Liu Mang was too fast and too capable when he used the Jordan star card two days ago , the Nets are prepared to play their lives if they can't defend themselves. The degree of playing their lives is based on Liu Wei's performance in the third quarter of the last game. With that ability, the counterattack failed.

In this game, the statistics of the players of the two teams were so ugly that they could not be more ugly. The Nets forcibly relied on the home court advantage to grind the defense to death. The momentum, the Nets can't lose again, and the Eagles' away goal has been achieved. At the last moment, when they rushed to the basket to fight for their lives, Liu Mang was also beaten to the ground.

No matter what Liu Mang said to Kidd, no matter what exciting words he said, his defense without changing his eyes was not as bad as Billups, but it was not much better. He scored 6 of 15 shots in the game. 17 points, the hit rate will reach 40%.

Of course, Kidd was also quite miserable. He scored 3 of 12 and only scored 8 points, but he had 12 rebounds and 8 assists. The key is 0 turnovers!

Today Kidd completely entered a state of concentration, fighting hard to win!

In the end, the Nets relied on their iron defense, 84 to 79, to hold the second home court.

...

With 1 win and 1 loss in the away game, the Eagles lost the second game here, and they were not too disappointed, because the away record is leading, and their team has regained the home court advantage!

The day after the second game, on May 31, the Eagles returned to Atlanta on a chartered flight. Mr. Joe also left New Jersey with Wilkins and watched two games. As a fan, the first game The third quarter was good, but the whole second game was ugly. The two made an appointment to go to the casino on the sea together, and watch the game again when the Eagles reached the final game.

On the night when the Eagles returned to Atlanta, the Spurs' second home court in the west, when they were behind 0 to 1, they also went crazy like the Nets, but it wasn't defense, it was offense!

Duncan scored 32 points, 15 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks. Parker scored 19 points and 4 assists. Ginobili scored 24 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist and 4 steals. The troika ran together for the first time and scored 75 points. , Leading the Spurs to a 120-106 victory over the Mavericks by 14 points!

In the two division finals played in two consecutive days, the content of the game was completely different from what the fans imagined!

In the Eastern Conference series, the first game was fine, but Liu Mang's rampage in the third quarter made the fans overjoyed.

But in the second game, the fans are looking forward to the two teams playing a counterattack. After all, the Nets and the Eagles are the top two counterattack scoring teams in the regular season. Just like in the regular season, he grinds the defense all the way.

After watching the second game, the fans remembered one thing. If the first game hadn't relied on Liu Mang's hurricane in the third quarter, the two games would have been grinding the defense!

Now, the fans finally understand, regardless of how chic and comfortable the Nets and Eagles played in the first two rounds, in the Eastern Conference finals, when the two strongest teams in the Eastern Conference meet, they still return to the main theme of the Eastern Conference.

And it can be seen that it's not that the Eagles don't want to speed up, but that they can't do it at all! Both teams have entered the vicious circle of slamming defense. The harder the defense, the tighter the defense, the harder the shooting, and the endless loop.

And the western side, which not many people pay attention to, actually played two consecutive high-quality and high-scoring offensive matches. The most important thing is that Duncan scored more points than Nowitzki. Duncan scored 74 points in the first two games. Nowitzki scored 68 points in the first two games. When Duncan played against Nowitzki, not only did he do a better job defensively than Nowitzki, but he also surpassed Nowitzki on the offensive end. Now it seems that the lineup of the Mavericks is obviously not as good as that of the Mavericks, so they just pulled back a victory at home.

Fans think that the Spurs' game is slow and ugly, but this time the Spurs encountered Dirk Nowitzki, who was difficult to defend, and Finley, who seemed half-dead in the regular season but suddenly ran away in the Western Conference Finals, was forced to score. Didn't expect it to look good!

After the comparison, the fans were surprised to find that the game situation between the east and the west they had predicted at first seemed to be reversed!

...

...

After returning to the home court, the Eagles ushered in two consecutive home games with the Nets.

After returning to the home court, the Eagles tried to suppress the Nets with offense, trying to break the uncomfortable rhythm brought in by the Nets in the first two games.

Unexpectedly, the Nets had the same idea. The game style of the two teams suddenly changed, from a defensive battle to an offensive battle!

On June 2, in the third game of the series between the Eagles and the Nets, the Eagles defeated the Nets at home 119 to 101.

In this game, after the Hawks started the game, they found that the Nets were also thinking of changing the rhythm suddenly, and after changing the rhythm to play offense from the beginning of the game, Coach Mike Woodson quickly made defensive changes and responded to Kidd's pass. The siege limited Kidd's assists to 4. Kidd only scored 13 points and 4 assists in this game. Although he grabbed 14 rebounds, the Nets' offense was poorly sorted out. Under the circumstances, the Nets' shooting percentage was only 39%. On the Hawks' side, Liu Mang scored 26 points, Raheem 21 points, and Jason Terry 30 points. Beheaded under the horse.

But on June 4, the Eagles lost their second home game!

Relying on Kidd's rampage, he scored 34 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists. Although there were 5 turnovers, Kidd scored 30+ offensively in the playoffs for the first time in his career!

The main reason is to use the Eagles' defensive strategy of passing the pass line successfully in the third game. Kidd shot very decisively today, making 15 of 27 shots in the game. died!

When Kidd needed double-teaming to defend, the Nets went crazy offensively and took back the home court advantage 125-110.

2 to 2, after four games, the Eagles were evened by the Nets!

In this game, the Eagles took it for granted. Kidd’s outburst was an accident, but the successful defense in the third game made the Eagles firmly release Kidd’s strategy. Kidd scored 34 points. After all, the Eagles were careless up!

...

Then, the Mavericks-Spurs series followed every game between the Hawks and Nets, and it was as if there was a law of blacksmithing and conservation.

The fans just shifted their desire to watch the game from the Eastern Conference Finals to the Western Conference Finals, and then the Spurs and Mavericks started to defend...

After the Spurs came to Dallas, they played two consecutive games, mainly because Finley's short-lived peak performance returned to the home court and disappeared. The Spurs found out, hey, only Nowitzki is left!

Then Duncan was in charge of exchanging blows with Nowitzki. The Spurs' role players defended the others. In two consecutive games, the score was 86 to 83, 91 to 85. The Spurs played two consecutive away games and scored a big score. 3 ratios!

The Spurs continued their strong dominance in this year's playoffs. In three consecutive rounds of the series, they took at least a 3-1 lead in the first four games! This kind of dominance has only been achieved by the Bulls and Lakers in the past 20 years!

And the Spurs are Duncan single-core!

The playoffs are not over yet, but after four games, Duncan beat Nowitzki in rebounds, assists, blocks and even points!

This year's Western Conference playoffs can be regarded as a key matchup between power forwards. Nowitzki, Webber, Duncan, and Garnett have all made it to the playoffs. After the collapse of the Lakers dynasty, whoever can have the last laugh will be the one The moment of apotheosis in one fell swoop, and Duncan became the one who stood out.

The fans were really shocked by Duncan's performance of 31 points, 17 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 blocks per game in the first four games. Seeing that Duncan beat Nowitzki like a killer with no waves in his heart, he really admired Duncan The strength of the two teams, in the case of such unequal strengths of other players on the two teams, led the Spurs to an absolute advantage of 3 to 1.

However, the fans are about to collapse!

After the first two games in the East and West finals, the fans "understood" that the East is still the iron-blooded East, the West is still the romantic West, the East is defensive, and the West is still offensive.

Atlanta, Dallas, San Antonio, New Jersey, the local fans of these teams must watch their own team's game, while the fans of the other 25 teams who still want to watch the game or the fans of the homeless team, except for a few defensive players, most of them are I want to watch a wonderful matchup, so my attention has shifted from the Eastern Conference Finals to the Western Conference Finals.

However, they found that when they watched the Western Conference finals, the Western Conference just started to defend! Or the overwhelming Spurs defended the Mavericks to death.

And the hell in the east actually turned into a confrontational battle, and the big score was tied 2-2! It looks intense and exciting!

Some fans who bought the right to watch the live broadcast of the two Western Conference finals in Dallas feel that this year's conference finals are poisonous!

There will be a meeting tomorrow morning, so just like today, update before 4 pm! I don't go to work the day after tomorrow, so tomorrow night I can have a wave of early morning updates.