So I am the god of basketball?

Meng Lang could feel Mashburn's fighting spirit.

He also knew that this guy had this ability.

In his three seasons with the Mavericks, starting from his second season, his average points per game was close to 25 points.

If he had not left the Mavericks and became the "third player" of the Heat, averaging 25 points per game for several consecutive seasons would definitely not be a difficult task for him.

When he left the Heat and joined the Hornets, he was still able to average more than 4 points per game for four consecutive seasons.

When it comes to scoring alone, he really is a model for Carmelo Anthony.

Scoring is a very easy thing for him.

Even facing Meng Lang's defense.

As long as he finds his touch, he can also provide stable output.

This has already been proven in the first game of the finals.

But Meng Lang was not obsessed with defending him.

Because, in terms of scoring endurance and continuity alone, in the current league, he doesn't even take Mashburn, let alone Jordan, seriously.

Sure enough, after a few rounds of attack, Meng Lang's defense caused Mashburn's offensive state to fluctuate. But Meng Lang's attack continued. Pat Riley had to replace Mashburn. - The ups and downs on the offensive end made Mashburn anxious. Under such circumstances, he was naturally not suitable to continue defending Meng Lang.

Seeing this, Chuck Daly continued to keep Meng Lang on the court and brought Barkley to the court. Taking advantage of the time when Shaquille O'Neal and Mashburn were not on the court, the Lakers played an "11 to 5" scoring spree.

The Heat are averaging 100 points per game this season.

Ranked in the top 5 of the league.

It is a team with abundant offensive firepower.

Pat Riley never imagined that their offense would experience a power outage in the finals.

But he couldn't trade Shaquille O'Neal back early.

He knew very well that the physically fit Shaquille O'Neal was the Heat's biggest nuclear weapon.

Now the only one he can rely on is Tim Hardaway.

“Little Bug” is also a tough guy who can score 26 points per game.

But there is a prerequisite, that is, the opponent's defensive configuration cannot be too "small ball".

Just like Irving in the 2024 Finals...

Can you say his offensive ability is bad?

He should be considered one of the top five scorers in the league at the time, but the Celtics had Brown and Holiday, and Tatum also had defensive ability. Irving's own problems were infinitely magnified in front of such a strong defensive lineup.

He had no chance to steal the chicken at all.

This led to his poor performance.

To put it bluntly, my physical talent is still a little lacking.

Scorers who can consistently produce consistent scores at any time generally have physical fitness at a historical level.

This sport of basketball requires skills, but it requires even more physical talent.

The problem with Tim Hardaway is that he's too short.

As long as the inside players can keep up with his rhythm of attacking the basket, they can form an overwhelming defense under the basket.

Tim Hardaway had no room to play.

When Shaquille O'Neal came back on the court, the Heat were already trailing by 10 points.

Although Mashburn was put back on the court by Pat Riley, the entire Heat team played the "pseudo OK combination" "triangle tactics". ——Otherwise, how can we say that Pat Riley is a genius? As the game went on, he found the most correct way to use O'Neal.

Just using Mashburn as the "second in command" Kobe is barely enough.

But the problem is that even if Mashburn keeps scoring, he can't change the Lakers' defense, and they still focus on guarding the "Big Shark". As for Mashburn, even if he plays like crazy, his scoring momentum is far behind Meng Lang.

This is the problem that the Heat need to solve most, but they can't solve it.

The result was that in the second game of the finals, after the Heat started with momentum, they were quickly overtaken by the Lakers and had to chase each other. In the end, they lost the game with a score of 98 to 110, a difference of 12 points.

Shaquille O'Neal scored 36 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocks, playing in the style of the "Big Shark".

But Meng Lang was even better, scoring 45 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists, helping the team defeat the Heat again with a big score of 2-0.
More importantly, the next three games are all at the Lakers' home court.

Given the current situation, it will be difficult for the Heat to return to their home court this season.

Pat Riley understood one thing after this game:
There was indeed a reason why he pursued Meng Lang first, but when that failed, he pursued Shaquille O'Neal.

Meng Lang is carrying this Magic team!

Shaq really can't beat Meng Lang...

The people of Los Angeles have been eagerly waiting for the return of the Lakers, who have won two consecutive games.

Meng Lang's name resounded throughout the airport.

Everyone knows that the Lakers' two consecutive championships are just around the corner.

It is worth mentioning that even though "Magic" brought 6 championships to the Lakers, he never brought a "three consecutive championships" to the city, but only a "two consecutive championships" once. The coincidence is that the "two consecutive championships" that Johnson brought to the Lakers happened to be the 87-88 season ten years ago.

In the 89 season, they made it to the finals again, but the league structure changed from that time on to "strong in the East and weak in the West", and they were swept very easily.

At that time, everyone knew that Johnson would never be able to complete the "three consecutive championships".

But no one expected that ten years later, Meng Lang from Orlando would quickly win his first championship and would soon win his second championship...

Such a rapid pace has made Los Angeles residents imagine the possibility of the Lakers winning three consecutive championships. In ancient times, the Lakers once won three consecutive championships. But that was at least 30 or 40 years ago. Many Lakers fans have never experienced that era in person.

Therefore, they are eager to see new legends being born under their witness.

Meng Lang became that hope.

This is also the reason why his reputation has risen again.

Chuck Daly did not prepare any new tactics for the first game back at home, because the Lakers' existing tactics were sufficient to deal with the Heat. Compared with them, the Heat were the team that needed to change their formation more.

Pat Riley chose to change the formation and started to double-team Meng Lang.

He also didn't know what results this change would bring.

But he knew that if they continued to let Meng Lang fight like this, they would definitely lose.

In this case, it is better to give it a try. This is the first time for the Lakers to return to the championship stage after n years.

He was greeted with wild boos.

After seeing the old man double-teaming Meng Lang tonight, the boos from the audience became even louder.

The game began amidst a flood of boos.

Meng Lang also felt the opponent's strong determination to double-team him at all costs. After trying to catch the ball and shoot a few times, the limited-time version of "Magician Meng Lang" came online, taking advantage of the opponent's constant desire to double-team him, and he kept sending assists.

For him, it was not a big problem that he could not get back into shape temporarily. He could find his shape and pulse back at any time.

But if they could get their teammates into better form at the start, the game would be much easier for them.

Pat Riley is actually very clear about this.

But standing on the edge of the cliff, for the Heat, this is a gamble.

As long as Meng Lang's pass cannot be converted into an assist, the pressure on the Lakers will increase sharply. And when his teammates are not up, Meng Lang's scoring pressure will also increase. At least from the Heat's side, their double-teaming will be more resolute.

No matter how strong Meng Lang is, his offensive efficiency will definitely decline when facing such a strong double-team.

In short, the first two games have proved that it is basically impossible to expect Meng Lang's state to fluctuate. Now they can only hope that the state of other Lakers players will fluctuate.

But judging from the fact that Meng Lang's two consecutive passes at the beginning were both successfully converted into assists, the other Lakers players seemed to be in good shape tonight.

Pat Riley sighed, his movement was so slight that almost no one noticed the helplessness that flashed across his eyes.

Shaquille O'Neal continued his outstanding form in the previous game, but there was still a problem. Even if he could create a stalemate with the Lakers in a short period of time, as long as the Lakers formed a "scoring tide", the score difference would immediately make the 2-point chase seem particularly powerless.

In fact, Shaquille O'Neal's ability is enough to attract double-teaming in the interior, which has been proven in the previous games. However, this team, which mainly relies on interior offense and supplemented by outside singles, does not pay enough attention to the three-point shooting tactic.

Tim Hardaway averaged 5.5 three-pointers per game, with a shooting percentage of 35.5%, making him the team's best player from beyond the three-point line. Mashburn only took 2.5 shots per game, hitting 0.8, with a shooting percentage of just over 30%!

Washan Leonard's three-point performance is outstanding. Although his number of shots is not as good as Tim Hardaway, his average shooting percentage is over 40%.

But in this series he is facing Kobe, and on the defensive end he also has to defend Meng Lang.

Under the double blow, his three-point performance in the finals so far has been very poor, with only 7 of 2 shots in total, and 1 three-pointer in each game.

As an important role player of the Heat, Leonard's performance at this time is undoubtedly a blow to the Heat.

But this is the finals, where role players perform poorly and core players are tested even more.

It can't be that the reason we can't win the championship is because the role players didn't perform like MVPs, right?

Are they still role players?

The Heat also have a three-point shooting expert on the bench, Dan Majerle.

But he also has his own problems, the biggest of which is that he can't defend.

At this point in the game, Pat Riley was certain that if this team wanted to go further, it was still missing an important "championship puzzle", someone who could defend on the wing and hit open three-pointers.

The Heat lack such people, but the Lakers have two...

This made him extremely envious.

The good news is that Eddie Jones' rookie contract will expire this summer, and it is certain that the Lakers will not be able to renew his contract because they still have Ben Wallace to renew his contract, and Kobe is about to renew his contract in advance.

It’s time for this “youth army” to disband.

As long as he can get Eddie Jones, the Heat will have the last piece of the "championship puzzle" and become the favorite to win the championship.

Well, yes, Pat Riley is already thinking about next season!

This was the reality he had to accept in the third quarter of the game:

62 to 49, the Lakers unknowingly established a 13-point advantage.

Shaquille O'Neal's performance was not bad, he had 20 points and 8 rebounds, and it was no problem for him to get 30 and 15 in the end. But apart from him, the performance of others could not keep up with the Lakers' scoring speed.

The tactic of double-teaming Meng Lang completely failed.

Under Meng Lang's passing and organization, Eddie Jones, Kobe, Divac, and of course Barkley all scored in double digits.

Before the end of the third quarter, five Lakers players had scored more than double digits, and seven players had scored more than seven points.

The Heat developed a tactic of double-teaming Meng Lang, but there was no detailed and clear defensive strategy to restrict other players after double-teaming Meng Lang. This led to them constantly leaving Lakers players open during the defensive process.

111 to 95, this was the Heat's worst loss in the finals.

Meng Lang scored 22 points, 12 rebounds and 15 assists, getting a triple-double, which made everyone remember the "No. Meng Lang" of last season.

But this does not mean that the Lakers will definitely win if they return to playing at the No. 1 position.

The Heat didn't study the other players in this game, which gave them so many easy shooting opportunities. But they can't shoot like this in every game.

Of course, at this point, there is no need to be so wary of the Heat.

Because the Lakers already have a 3-0 advantage.

In the history of the NBA, only one team has accomplished such a miracle.

That was the Magic team back then.

But the final MVP of that Magic team is on the Lakers.

Although the Heat also had Shaquille O'Neal, one of the parties involved at the time.

but……

At this point in the series, is there anyone who still thinks that the Magic were able to make a comeback because of Shaquille O'Neal?

As to who will lead whom to win the championship on the Magic team, the conclusion has actually been made at this point.

Shaquille O'Neal's ability to lead a team to win the championship is obviously not as good as Meng Lang's.

"I just hope we can win the next game as soon as possible. I can't wait to lift the championship trophy again. I miss that feeling!" Barkley felt extremely anxious after the game.

And this is the attitude of the entire Lakers team:

They didn't plan to let the Finals go to Game 5, even if they were still at home.

However, the Heat used all the tricks they could and still couldn't win, and they had no reason to allow a fifth game in the series to happen.

The Lakers, in high spirits, easily won the next game and won Game 4 of the Finals.

4-0, they eliminated the Heat! (End of this chapter)