Healthy basketball, starting from eating the old Lakers F4

After talking tough, Durant continued to attack with the ball and had no intention of letting Irving get the ball.

Seeing this, the Bulls continued to follow the pre-game arrangement, with Durant "touching all over" and Curry looking for opportunities to double-team him.

But this time Shamet knew how to play and ran directly to the bottom corner to smoke.

This way, Curry wouldn't be able to run half a circle to double-team Durant.

Having said that, the Bulls players on the court, in addition to Duane and Curry, include Murray, Siakam and Jokic.

Curry can't double-team Durant, so he can substitute someone else.

Siakam found the right opportunity and double-teamed the opponent without hesitation.

Durant's passing vision is average to begin with, and he was closely guarded by Durant face to face, which made it impossible for him to even look towards the basket.

There was clearly an opening under the Clippers' basket, and they had a chance to easily score two-on-one, but Durant had no way of passing the ball.

But this time, Durant also has experience, and the Bulls will look for opportunities to double-team him and force him to make mistakes.

With the previous lesson in mind, Durant passed the ball in advance this time to Irving who was receiving the ball on the outside.

It's just that Durant's pass was a little crooked, and Irving had to move sideways to reach out and catch the ball, but at this time Murray reached out to interfere.

Although Irving eventually caught the ball, he did not pick it up and start the attack immediately.

In other words, Irving failed to catch the ball and was instead in an awkward situation where he was closely guarded by Murray and could not move.

As we all know, Murray has a pair of long arms, which will be more effective in interfering with the ball handler who fails to catch the ball.

Although Irving has strong ball-handling skills, he can't play a game without making any mistakes.

This time, it was because Durant's pass was not good, which led to Murray taking advantage of the opportunity and eventually causing him to fail.

Murray just stretched out his hand and poked the ball out in a flash.

However, Irving reacted quickly and grabbed the ball before Murray could pass him.

As a result of this delay on the Clippers' side, by the time Irving dribbled the ball outside the three-point line again, the offensive time had taken up nearly 10 seconds.

At this time, the Bulls' defense under the basket was already ready, and Irving couldn't pass the ball to the basket immediately.

Davis did have the intention of playing one-on-one, but Jokic was behind him. Irving considered the past record of their confrontations, so he did not choose to pass the ball to Davis, but did it himself.

However, facing Murray's long arms, even if Irving used his crotch dribble, quickly jumped up and down, turned to the left to break through and changed to a left-handed shot, he was still blocked by Murray.

The covered area was not large, just the finger poked the bottom of the basketball, but it still changed the original flight trajectory of the basketball.

When Irving reacted and wanted to rush forward to grab the rebound, Curry, who was behind Murray, rushed over first, controlled the ball in advance, and immediately started a transition.

At the same time, Murray and Duane followed Curry and played a three-line fast break.

Perhaps it was because in the previous round, Curry made a fast break to help Duane dunk.

This time, the Clippers didn't dare to use all their backcourt players to surround Curry together, but only Irving chased after Curry.

That's why Curry ran to the basket without hesitation and made a cool high-back layup.

Curry's high rebounds are usually not blocked by the inside players, not to mention that there is only Irving who is less than 1 meters tall behind him.

Moreover, Irving chased Curry but did not pose any effective physical threat or interfere with his layup, so the result of this shot was obvious.

The basketball fell into the basket as Curry expected, and the score became 0-4.

Although there is no obvious home and away advantage in the park finals, the Bulls, who have the best record in the league, are still the home team in Game 1 of the finals as in the past, and will be counted last.

That being said, this game was quite interesting.

Clearly, the Clippers, as the visiting team, got the ball first and both attacks were initiated by the Clippers, but they were unable to score inside the three-point line once, failed to execute tactics effectively, and even the stars had a hard time playing one-on-one.

Although the Bulls did not play their regular offensive tactics, they easily scored 4 points by relying on the most basic double-teaming of the ball handler and then taking advantage of the opponent's mistakes to launch a transition offense.

In two consecutive rounds, the Bulls clearly had the upper hand.

After the Bulls completed their attack, the Clippers regained possession of the ball but did not pass it out immediately.

Obviously, the Clippers players on the field were also a little confused, even disoriented.

"How should we fight next?"

Shamet picked up the ball and walked to the baseline. Although he didn't say anything, he looked at Durant and Irving with confused eyes.

Irving took the initiative to step forward and ask for the ball: "Give me the ball!"

Durant didn't say anything else, but after seeing Irving get the ball, he immediately turned and walked towards the frontcourt.

But at this time, someone went against him.

Murray immediately rushed to Irving and used all his strength to tangle with Irving.

Irving dribbled the ball in a fancy way, but because of his lack of explosiveness, he was unable to get rid of Murray.

Although Murray failed to steal the ball from Irving, he did manage to consume Irving's energy.

Irving's physical strength level is actually okay, but if it is constantly consumed, then the key killer in the fourth quarter will disappear from the court.

The Clippers' lineup worked in previous playoffs because Durant and Davis could ensure efficient scoring in the first three quarters and then leave the fourth quarter to Irving.

In this Game 1 of the Finals, Irving has been under pressure to hold the ball and score since the first quarter, which is undoubtedly a huge drain on Irving.

However, judging from the situation in the first half, Irving's physical problems were not immediately exposed.

With Irving controlling the game, the Clippers were a bit tired, but they had no problem dribbling across half court and playing normal tactics.

And Irving himself knows that he will not be able to sustain his physical strength if he keeps swinging the ball, so he passes the ball to Davis more often and lets him finish.

In this way, Durant seems to be a hero without a place to use his talents.

But because defeating Durant and the Bulls is Durant's obsession.

Therefore, Durant did not give up on himself on the court, but instead worked harder to put his energy into the defensive end.

It was precisely because of this rational use of the abilities of the three core players that the Clippers played well in the first half and did not look as embarrassed as they did at the beginning of the first quarter.

47 to 52, although the Clippers were still 5 points behind, but considering that they were beaten 0 to 4 by the Bulls at the beginning of the first quarter, now after halftime, they only lost one point.

Besides, a 5-point gap is not that big. If converted into ball possession, it is only two or three ball possessions behind.

Normally, if we play well in the third quarter, we can easily turn defeat into victory.

However, before the Clippers could catch up in the third quarter, the Bulls' main players, who had already warmed up thoroughly, went all out and opened fire at full force at the start of the third quarter.

The Bulls didn't use Jokic much in the first half, and even when Davis was giving it his all, the Bulls took the initiative to replace Howard to take the beating.

Howard certainly can't defend against Davis now, but he can cause a lot of physical energy consumption to him.

After the halftime break, although Davis' physical strength recovered a little, he still hadn't returned to his best condition. And what about Jokic? He had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

As the saying goes, if you plan unintentionally, how can you guard against it?
The Bulls focused on Jokic right from the start of the third quarter, and Davis was negligent. He looked at Jokic, who only took five shots in the first half, and didn't think there was anything wrong.

Who knew that in the third quarter, his true colors of playing the pig to eat the tiger were revealed, and he just opened fire on Thick Eyebrow's not-so-heavy body and chased him relentlessly.

Davis is not as tall or heavy as Jokic. On the defensive end, Davis prefers to defend the four position rather than the five position.

But now is the small ball era, the five positions in the league are relatively small, and Davis' physique for a four position can only follow the trend of the times and be forced to play the five position.

But now facing Jokic, he can only suffer in silence.

Not only was he unable to defend himself, but the huge amount of pain caused by the physical confrontation also made Davis feel uncomfortable all over.

To begin with, Thick Eyebrows' body is not particularly healthy or tough.

The sudden interruption of this season's regular season, coupled with the fact that there is no need to travel around for the playoffs in the park, has made up for Davis's lack of physical endurance.

Now that he is under the pressure of the huge mountain of Jokic, Davis just wants to find someone to withstand Jokic's crushing.

However, the Clippers' bench lineup is limited. If other centers come on, they will not be able to stop Jokic's offensive firepower. At that time, they will definitely become Jokic's ATMs.

Davis was on a bad team like the Pelicans before and had no chance to pursue the championship.

Now that he is at the peak of his career and his teammates are all top stars in the league, he naturally has ideas about winning the championship.

Therefore, in order to win the game tonight, Davis can only force himself to be Jokic's sparring sandbag and endure Jokic's almost violent attacks again and again.

He also said that Jokic could have scored in a simpler and more efficient way.

But in order to cooperate with the Bulls' overall tactics and strategy, and to ensure the advantage in this round of the finals series.

Jokic must start from G1. From now on, he must severely exhaust Davis and teach him a lesson. It would be best if he could create a psychological trauma on Davis, which would then affect his performance in subsequent games.

Therefore, Jokic did not spare his energy and attacked Davis for six consecutive rounds.

The fourth and sixth balls were even blocked by Davis, but a very dramatic scene occurred on the court.

After successfully defending, Anthony Davis looked confused and didn't even dare to grab the rebound, just standing there in a daze.

Jokic failed to score but became more and more courageous. He grabbed the offensive rebound over Davis' head and then continued to attack him aggressively.

But playing like this is indeed very tiring. Before Anthony Davis left the court, the Bulls replaced Jokic first.

However, before Davis could breathe a sigh of relief on the court, the Bulls took the initiative to reduce their lineup. Duane switched to the power forward position, but they took the initiative to look for Davis on the offensive end.

What is the situation on the court at this time? Davis is facing Howard on offense, but he is facing Durant on defense.

Being targeted by the Bulls like this, it was naturally difficult for Davis to have a chance to perform in the third quarter.

After more than 7 minutes of the third quarter, Davis only scored 1 point from free throws, then went off the court to rest and never returned.

The Bulls relied on beating up Anthony Davis, turning the Clippers' inside line into an ATM, establishing a 10-point advantage in a single quarter and successfully widening the gap to 15 points.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the almost recovered Davis took advantage of Jokic's absence to help the Clippers score some points, but they failed to narrow the gap to single digits as they wished.

This is mainly because in the fourth quarter, the Clippers didn't know who else could score stably besides Davis!
Irving encountered very strong physical confrontation in the first three quarters, but Irving was the only one on the Clippers who could safely carry the ball across half court.

Therefore, Irving did not score many points in this game, with only 11 points before the start of the fourth quarter.

In previous games, Irving would have fully unleashed his energy in the fourth quarter, but tonight he seemed a little weak in the hands and feet, but his body was relatively stiff.

The large amount of physical confrontation in the first three quarters made Irving feel uncomfortable and his hands felt cold.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, in addition to breaking through and passing the ball to Davis to get two assists, Irving himself took three shots but failed to make any of them.

Irving urgently needs to stand on the free throw line and find his touch through free throws.

But Irving plays basketball in a very traditional, classical and principled way. He will not take the initiative to buy meals or cause harm.

Even if the opponent gives him the opportunity to bump into him, Irving can dodge flexibly and then rush to the basket as much as possible.

This also creates the impression that Irving is playing the game in an extremely graceful manner, as he walks through a field of flowers without getting hurt.

However, both Irving's coach and his teammates hope that Irving can be more pragmatic.

Although the frequent collisions by other guards are ugly, they do help the team score.

No matter how beautiful Irving's breakthrough is, his shooting percentage at the basket is only around 60%.

Although the guard's finishing percentage at the basket is already very high, how does it compare to the free throw percentage of over 80% of other guards?
Sit down!

Besides, Irving can’t get to the basket and finish every time he breaks through. What about those mistakes and those times when he breaks through and passes the ball to his teammates but fails to finish?

With this calculation, Irving's serious playing is actually not conducive to the team's victory.

Therefore, Irving has always given fans a strong impression, but when you look at his team's results, you find that he is not that strong.

In this game, Irving played too honestly.

If it was another smart guard, he could have driven to the basket and caused one or two fouls in the fourth quarter, and regained his touch through free throws, then the game would still be viable.

As for the strict whistle in the finals, the referee usually won't whistle, it depends on the situation.

At this time, the Bulls were in a relatively clear lead. In this case, the referee would generally give the Clippers a few star whistles at his discretion to narrow the score between the two teams and increase the suspense and highlights of the game.

Unfortunately, Irving didn't play in many finals and has no experience in this area.

At the same time, Irving is also a pure basketball player and will not pay attention to such off-court factors.

Therefore, Irving, who played based on his own skills in this game, was unable to help the Clippers turn defeat into victory.

Irving was in poor form in the fourth quarter, scoring only 6 points in 2 shots, and even became the culprit for the team's loss.

As the team's leader, Durant had to take the lead in offense in the fourth quarter when other teammates were unable to step up.

Then it was similar to Irving's situation. In the fourth quarter, he made 8 of 2 shots and 2 of 1 free throws, scoring only 5 points.

Although it is now the small ball era, the game pace is faster and the number of rounds is more.

But tonight the Bulls started targeting the Clippers' dribbling early, which slowed down the pace of the game a lot. The two teams had only about 20 offensive rounds in a single quarter.

The two core players of the Clippers took a combined 14 shots in the fourth quarter, almost two-thirds of the team's total, but their combined score was less than 10 points.

This situation naturally cannot narrow the score, let alone help the team turn defeat into victory.

83 to 109, no one expected that the two teams, which seemed evenly matched in the first half, would become one-sided in the second half.

After all, the Clippers are the Western Conference champions with a Big Three configuration and are one of the favorites to win the championship.

Facing the Bulls who entered the nursing home mode, they were simply unable to withstand it and lost by a full 1 points in Game 26 of the finals!
All I can say is that the Bulls are worthy of being the championship team that has dominated the NBA in the past decade or so. For them, defeating other championship contenders is as easy as eating and drinking.

This battle also completely brought out the confidence of the veterans on the Bulls bench who were there to get rings!

"There are three more games left. If I win three more, I will also be the champion!" (End of this chapter)