When pride still matters

Chapter 521 Back to the starting point
Using refereeing advantages to develop game strategies should be a plan, not inertia.

Yu Fei will not pin his hopes on the referee. When the penalty is in his favor, he will tend to create damage. But tonight, Dick Bavetta obviously came with a mission. Since the league wants to give the Lakers a fair explanation, the way the Supersonics play will naturally change accordingly.

However, Durant failed to commit a foul and was counterattacked. Then the Sonics' tactics failed. Yu Fei missed a three-pointer and the Lakers counterattacked again.

Yu Fei forced out the Lakers' double-team on the offensive end and passed the ball to Bosh, but Bosh missed the mid-range shot.

This time, the Supersonics retreated quickly enough and the Lakers had no chance to counterattack, but Kobe, who was trapped in a positional battle, made a back-to-the-basket shot and still scored.

The Lakers went on a 6-0 run in less than a minute and a half.

Tyronn Lue called for defense on the sidelines, as if doing so could change anything.

But the Sonics' three unfavorable attacks at the beginning of the game truly reflected the players' discomfort with the changes in the referee's penalties.

Yu Fei will not expect the coaching staff to solve this problem.

He waved his hand and called out DeAndre Jordan. The two of them set a pick-and-roll. Jordan cut in and Yu Fei made an alley-oop.

Before the Lakers could react, Jordan Jr. was already hanging on the basket.

The Sonics' scoring drought was broken.

This is the kind of start that fans like, it is not only entertaining but also interesting.

Whenever the commentators of major TV stations say "Frye connects with Jordan", the fans will smile knowingly.

This is a beautiful sight in the Supersonics game and it is a must-see.

The Supersonics scored in the running game, and the Lakers entered a positional battle. Coach Lu emphasized defense, but when his players went hard against the Lakers like in the previous game, the referee did not show the same tolerance.

Dick Bavetta, a famous contributor to OK's three consecutive championships and the uncrowned best sixth man who has never been awarded an honor at the official level, first whistled Alonzo Gee for a defensive foul⑴, and then whistled Durant for a blocking foul.

Moreover, these two fouls occurred in the same round.

Bavetta used his swift and decisive style to make one fact clear to the Supersonics: Don't even think about playing with the same intensity as in the last game tonight.

Once the penalties become tighter, it will be bad news for the Supersonics.

Because people like Alonzo Gee and DeAndre Jordan who have poor defensive skills and rely mainly on strength and talent are easily targeted for sting enforcement.

As expected, Jordan Jr. committed two fouls six minutes into the first quarter, and Coach Lu had to replace him with his previous center Kwame Brown.

But Brown himself is also a man who doesn't care about his hands.

After following Yu Fei for so many years, his average number of fouls per game remained high. After he came on the court, he quickly committed fouls.

Since the Sonics had counted their fouls, the Lakers started going to the free throw line.

The boos in KeyArena fell like thunder.

Fans wondered why they were being treated like this in their own home ground.

Four minutes before the end of the first quarter, the Supersonics trailed the Lakers by 9 points.

The situation looked extremely bad, so Coach Lu requested a timeout.

But what can we do after the pause?

These days, Coach Lu and the coaching staff have put all their energy into defensive arrangements. Now the league has waved its hand and stopped you from doing it. What should you do? Are you just waiting to die?
"The old way, I'll play power forward." Yu Fei said, "Let Chris play center and Nick (Collison) be the substitute."

Coach Lu had no better idea and could only do as he was told.

"What about defense, do we still need to give intensity?"

Coach Lu was a little panicked by the hype.

"Give it to me." Yu Fei said, "Dick Bavetta won't take care of the Lakers for the entire game, and no referee will deliberately blow a biased whistle all night, so we have at least two quarters to get our intensity up. Since this is our game plan, we must stick to it, otherwise all our efforts over the past few days will be in vain."

As a coach who was a player himself, Coach Lu naturally knows that it is a common practice for referees not to be black all night.

But even with the game starting like this, Dafei still dared to let everyone increase their intensity, which made Coach Lu admire him.

"Frye, you really know a lot about football."

"Not as well as you."

The plan was set. Coach Lu replaced Brown with Bosh as center, Yu Fei as power forward, and then replaced him with Larry Hughes as point guard to control the game.

These changes are not new to the Lakers.

These are all tactics the Lakers have used before.

Phil Jackson even predicted that Lu would let Yu Fei play the power forward position.

Therefore, the Lakers' response was very targeted. They let Artest play at the power forward position and then used the traditional big center Big Z to force Bosh, who had a body type that was not suitable for the power forward position, to play at the power forward position.

Back to the game, the Sonics' adjustments caused some players to feel uncomfortable.

Bosh only occasionally played the five position for the Supersonics. Most of the time, he played the four position in his comfort zone.

Now that there is a shortage of manpower, he can accept playing the five position, but if the team still expects him to perform like a four, it is a pipe dream.

Fortunately, his teammates did not intend to let him break through the opponent's defense.

Durant is covered by James, Hughes doesn't have much one-on-one ability, and Alonzo Key and his ilk are a burden on the offensive end and are not worth designing tactics for.

The ball came into Yu Fei's hands.

Artest believed that Yu Fei would not try to attack the basket because the penalty tonight clearly favored the Lakers, and it was very likely that Yu Fei would lose both the ball and the player if he went to the basket.

After the opening penalty, does Yu Fei still have any expectations of the referee?

Artest's self-righteous mentality made him unprepared for Fei's back-to-the-basket breakthrough.

Yu Fei easily broke through him, rushed into the basket, forced his way through Big Z's assist defense and scored a layup.

Yu Fei turned to Bavetta and pointed at his arm, wondering why the whistle didn't sound.

Bavetta responded coldly.

Then the audience booed angrily.

Bavetta is accustomed to the boos from the audience, but that doesn't mean the pressure doesn't exist.

They did miss one obvious foul.

The referee team, who seemed to be reckless, called a foul on Artest for off-ball blocking just as the Lakers were about to launch an attack.

Artest acted more confused than ever before, with a look of surprise that said "Aren't we on the same side?"

Only Bavetta's stinky face, which seemed to be the same to everyone, gave the answer: Who are you and us?
Afterwards, the Lakers lost in the positional battle. Yu Fei grabbed the rebound and quickly launched a counterattack. Without waiting for his opponents or teammates to get into position, he raised his hand and made a three-pointer, narrowing the gap to 3 points.

The cheers in the KeyArena became louder and louder.

As long as Yu Fei can continue to perform, the Supersonics will not be a team that will be easily defeated.

The two teams were deadlocked until the last minute of the first quarter. James, who had not been able to perform well in individual offense and focused mainly on defense, suddenly made a tank breakthrough into the basket and dunked 2+1. He then assisted in blocking Hughes and succeeded in a one-stop defensive counterattack.

James scored five points in a row with his personal ability.

At the end of the first quarter, the Lakers took an 8-point lead thanks to James' outburst in the last minute.

This gap made Coach Lu dare not let Yu Fei rest at the beginning of the second quarter like he did in the previous game.

On the contrary, the Lakers had the upper hand on the field, so the Zen Master could safely rotate Kobe out of the game.

In the second quarter, the Lakers made some substitutions and James led the team, while the Supersonics retained their main lineup as much as possible.

The only change Coach Lu made was to replace Bosh with Jordan.

Due to the center's foul problem, Bosh played the five position for half a quarter, which was very tiring.

Thankfully, he had no foul trouble.

Coach Lue expects Jordan to help Bosh for five or six minutes.

After all, in terms of physical talent and rim protection ability, Jordan is more like a power forward than Bosh.

However, there is a reason why Jordan was not promoted to the starting lineup until the Western Conference Finals because of his better talent.

He is a player who is immature in many aspects.

At this moment when he needed to grit his teeth, Jordan Jr. was like fresh beef dripping with blood dangling on the nose of a mastiff. He made continuous positioning errors on the defensive end, and on the offensive end his downward route was blocked and he had no shooting ability, so he couldn't get to the basket to score like he did in the first quarter.

DeAndre Jordan made mistakes on defense and became a black hole on offense, which hindered the Sonics' offense and defense.

Yu Fei wanted to cooperate, but the idea was a good idea, but the person was not a good person.

Jordan made a series of mistakes and fouls, and the Supersonics fell behind by 12 points in less than three minutes.

Coach Lu then replaced Nick Collison.

Jordan was sidelined tonight.

His talent is extremely valuable and he is an outstanding athlete no matter how you look at it, but an outstanding athlete cannot become an outstanding basketball player at the wrong time.

This was the Sonics' most dangerous moment.

There was no one in the inside, the outside shooting was inaccurate, and Durant on the wing was suppressed by James, and all the pressure fell on Yu Fei.

Yu Fei did not let this pessimistic mood continue to spread on the court.

He first caused Artest to foul, then passed Collison's screen and made a three-pointer from the outside.

The difference between the two sides returned to 9 points. As long as the Lakers gave him a chance
However, the Lakers' offensive performance tonight was impeccable.

James publicly stated after the Game 3 loss that he can score on anyone, which remains to be proven, but the Lakers really look like they can score at will.

With just one pick-and-roll, James found Hamilton's position and assisted him to score a shot.

James' face showed no emotion, and he seemed very satisfied with his position.

"Just do your defense, and leave the rest to me."

Yu Fei only said this sentence, and then he scored 2+1 over Artest's head.

He was the only Sonics player who wasn't pressured by his opponent.

"Seattle is lucky to have Frye, but the problem is that they can't take this luck as a normal state. If Frye's state declines in the game and they can't find another outlet quickly, the game is over."

Doug Collins was very harsh on the SuperSonics, but his concerns about Fei's possible decline in form were unfounded as far as the first half was concerned.

The offensive ability that Yu Fei showed in the next five minutes was just to convey a fact to the outside world - LeBron's choice to join forces with Kobe made sense, because he could not defeat Frye alone. In the first half of the second quarter, Yu Fei scored 17 of the Sonics' 15 points, leading the team from a maximum deficit of 12 points to a deficit of 5 points.

During this period, in addition to passing the ball, James attempted two outside shots and a breakthrough. He missed all his shots, but successfully scored on the breakthrough.

Even though his offensive performance was crushed by Yu Fei, James did not show any unhappiness. He still played the kind of basketball that the Zen Master wanted to see, as if he had really become the modern-day Scottie Pippen.

How many times will James appear, who has no desires or demands?
Before traveling back in time, Yu Fei's understanding of James was mainly from his time with the Lakers. That was already his twilight years, and although he still seemed to have the strength to be in the top 15 in the league, it was far from his peak. He needed to make some moves on the court, including but not limited to eye defense, early fast breaks, and staggered rotations, to barely maintain data comparable to his peak period.

James has a strong desire to control the game and is eager for data. Can a man who has called himself a king since high school really be free of desire in order to win the championship?
Yu Fei was very unfamiliar with this James.

After the timeout, the Lakers replaced Kobe and James went off the court to rest.

On the Supersonics side, Coach Lu didn't have the courage to replace Yu Fei, he could only beg Yu Fei to hold on.

And Yu Fei just said: "I have no problem."

But Yu Fei himself knows best whether there is a problem or not.

If the team's offense and defense are all on the shoulders of one person, and this person is not only the entire offensive system, but also faces the situation where teammates have lost their shooting touch, then more energy must be invested in personal offense.

How long can this full-load consumption be sustained?

Yu Fei gradually realized that he made some unnecessary mistakes in the first half. When he realized that the referee was unfavorable to his team, he should have given up unnecessary fantasies and focused his main energy on personal offense. As for the performance of his teammates, he should have instigated them if he could, and given up if not.

Yes, basketball is not a one-man sport, but on an extraordinary night like this, extraordinary things must be done to change the situation.

Just before taking over the game, he had wasted too much energy on breaking through, passing the ball, launching tactics, and instigating positional warfare, and the feedback from his teammates was negative.

Now it was clear that he had to do it all on his own.

After Kobe came on the court, Yu Fei's offensive never stopped.

Even though Kobe was more aggressive than James on offense, it was difficult to widen the score.

The difference between the two sides was fluctuating around 5 points.

Kobe wanted to widen the score, but Yu Fei refused with a tough attack.

During this period, the Sonics players, including Kevin Durant, could not feel their presence.

They seemed unable to bring any help and could only defend. However, due to the restrictions of the referee, even if they wanted to increase the intensity, they could not put pressure on the team as easily as in the previous game.

Therefore, their contribution on the defensive end was minimal.

Durant didn't want to disappear in such a confrontation, but he knew from the bottom of his heart that only Frye could save the team tonight.

Two minutes before the end of the first half, Durant blocked Kobe, Yu Fei picked up the ball and rushed to the frontcourt, hitting a three-pointer, and the Supersonics narrowed the gap to only 2 points.

In the remaining two minutes, the Lakers tried repeatedly to widen the score, but they just couldn't do it.

The two teams fought back and forth, and finally kept the score difference to 2 points before the end of the first half.

Yu Fei played the entire first half and scored 37 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists.

He looked like he had a chance to get another 59 points tonight, thus achieving back-to-back -point games in the playoffs.

But if we can't win, all this means nothing.

Coach Lu thought of countless words to praise Yu Fei, but in the end, he only said one sentence: "Our top priority is to get other people involved in the game."

And Phil Jackson's comments were harsh: "Frye tonight was like MJ in the 80s. I think he should understand that it is impossible for one person to do it."

The half-time break can allow Yu Fei to catch his breath, but the question is whether he can continue his performance in the first half in the second half.

At the beginning of the second half, as the score difference between the two sides was not big, Yu Fei decided to give up his plan of going it alone to the end and began to look for opportunities with his teammates.

The Lakers' fierce double-team played right into his hands.

Durant got the opportunity at this time, and he didn't want to be a burden to Yu Fei.

He scored the first goal of the second half.

The Supersonics tied the game.

Is this the beginning of a reversal?

No, this was the last time Sonics fans would smile tonight.

Then, James broke through and made a three-pointer.

Yu Fei missed the jump shot in the positional battle. Although he retreated quickly, Kobe made a three-pointer directly from the outside.

Durant held the ball and played one-on-one. He didn't know how important this shot was, he just knew he had to play well.

To be fair, he did nothing wrong, and neither did Yu Fei who passed the ball to him. Facing the Lakers who were all firing on all cylinders, if no second person stepped up, even if Yu Fei scored 80 points it would be of no avail.

Durant stepped up.

He scored a shot over James.

Then, Kobe responded with another single.

Yu Fei retaliated with a low-post attack.

Just when everyone thought that the star players' singles would become the focus of the game, Richard Hamilton pointed the way to victory for the Lakers with his deadly outside shooting.

Yu Fei and Durant can score, they are stars with excellent one-on-one ability, but the situation where the stars compete in one-on-one ability to decide the winner often happens when the role players of the two teams other than the stars have lost their scoring ability.

If one side only relies on single players while the other side relies on everyone, the result is not difficult to imagine.

Besides, Durant's singles success rate cannot be compared with Yu Fei, and Yu Fei's touch is not as good as in the first half.

At the end of the third quarter, the Supersonics were trailing by 14 points.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Yu Fei's personal ability broke out again, helping the team to catch up to 9 points, but soon, the Lakers' three-point rain annihilated Seattle's hopes of achieving a 3-1 lead at home.

Four minutes before the end of the game, James passed the ball to Kobe, who made a strong pull-up shot and made another three-pointer, extending the score difference to 19 points.

The Sonics' chances of victory evaporated.

They requested a timeout, and Coach Lu asked Yu Fei if he wanted to stay on the court and get 60 points.

At that time, Yu Fei had already scored 59 points.

Yu Fei smiled meaningfully: "I want to rest."

So Coach Lu replaced Yu Fei and the game entered garbage time.

Durant also left the court. Although his performance was not as regrettable as Yu Fei's, he still scored 24 points and 8 rebounds.

That's pretty good for a third-year star.

It just wasn't enough to help the team win.

This will bother him.

He wanted to know why he tried his best but still felt like he had punched the sofa.

There was no moment when Durant felt that he was dragging the team forward like Yu Fei did in the first half. Instead, the disastrous defeat in the second half made him feel that he had messed up Yu Fei's game rhythm, causing him to fall into the double burden of attacking and organizing the offense, resulting in the second half's offense being far less powerful than the first half.

At this moment, Durant realized how much impact the lack of a strong ball handler to help Yu Fei share the ball had on them.

If only Brandon was still here.

Durant never thought he would miss Roy.

But now, he missed that person terribly.

Then he glanced at Yu Fei.

The opponent looked calm and didn't show any frustration even though he was about to lose 59 points in vain.

Durant understood Yu Fei's feelings in his own way.

As a man who lost with a perfect performance, he can’t be blamed.

Durant could already foresee the tone the media would use to criticize these useless people who were holding Yu Fei back.

Maybe they will be dissatisfied, but seriously, who would not feel sorry for Yu Fei after watching this game?

They have no excuses.

In the last four minutes of garbage time, the Lakers still crushed the Supersonics.

In the end, the 19-point gap turned into 26 points in four minutes.

After being beaten by the Supersonics in the previous game, the Lakers retaliated by beating the Supersonics 4- on the road and took the initiative of the series into their own hands.

They once again had home-field advantage.

"Beep!!!"

Dick Bavetta blew the final whistle. Eight years later, the invisible guardian of the OK dynasty is still the lucky star of the Purple and Gold Army.

"I think the worst thing for the SuperSonics tonight is not the big loss, but the Lakers finally found the best way to play for them." Jeff Van Gundy, who has always stood on the side of the SuperSonics, said worriedly, "Leave the offensive opportunities to Kobe, LeBron only needs to break through, pass the ball, activate the shooters, and then defend with all his strength. Such a Lakers team looks invincible!"

"Yes, as long as LeBron can suppress the desire to be the protagonist of the game." Mark Jackson echoed, "I think the Lakers are invincible."

The game ended with the score 2-2.

The Lakers are back to the starting point from the brink of despair.

They are in high spirits, have the home advantage, are well-equipped and in amazing form, and it seems that no one can beat them.

LeBron James looked at his own stats. Tonight, he had 14 points, 7 rebounds and 13 assists.

Kobe had 39 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists.

They defeated the Supersonics and put the initiative back in their hands.

Is this enough?

The doubts in James' heart are getting bigger and bigger. He walked to the sidelines. When reporters asked him how he felt about his career-low scoring average in the Western Conference Finals, he looked like a selfless team basketball player and replied: "I am not a person who plays for data. Winning is the most important thing."

But a victory with statistics should be sweeter.

⑴在巴维塔2002年导演出西部决赛第六场之前，早在2000年的西部决赛第七场他就已经干了。那年抢七战湖人和开拓者的罚球数对比是37比16，只是不像两年后对国王的G6末节给湖人罚27球保送抢七那么夸张。

(End of this chapter)