The Golden Age of Basketball

The Celtics are not a team to be taken lightly, especially after losing the Finals last year and poised to make a comeback this year.

However, the first three rounds were too easy, the rest of the week before the finals, the opponent was the Blazers, a young team who had fought hard for seven games, and the outside world has always been optimistic, the players will still show some slack.

Especially after the start of the game, the clumsy performance of some nervous Blazers players and the loud cheers of the fans made the Celtics more and more relaxed.

Therefore, when Vandeweghe hit a jumper from the left baseline after receiving a pass from Gan Guoyang, the Celtics players realized that the Blazers had narrowed the point difference to only one point.

"Vandeweghe's jumper is as stable as ever, but more importantly, Gan's pass. After receiving a pass from Drexler, he splits the ball in a timely manner. The Celtics' defense is a bit overwhelmed."

After a timeout, the Celtics still failed to bring up the tone at the end of the second quarter. The double guards Dennis Johnson and Danny Angie, who played an important role in the first quarter, faced the Blazers' rearranged defense. Without power, they would always be forced to the baseline, then had to stop and pass the ball, and would no longer be able to move unimpeded through the middle.

Larry Bird was still undefensible, but Kevin McHale was closely guarded by Gan Guoyang.

Gan Guoyang suddenly became enlightened in support, and together with Drexler, they greatly drove the Blazers' offense. Ramsey also decisively deployed the two-shooter combination of Paxson and Vandeweghe. All eight of the Blazers' last four possessions in the second quarter.

"Gan's at the basket, grabs the offensive rebound, he throws the ball back to Vandeweghe, Vandeweghe passes to Paxson, Paxson drives down the middle, throws it! Goal! End of the first half , Paxson made a two-pointer at the buzzer, and the Blazers overtook the score at the end of the game! 61:60, the two sides took a break."

In this way, the Blazers unknowingly pulled the score back. In the first half, both sides scored high enough. Larry Bird scored 21 points in the half, and he shot the Blazers' backcourt alone.

But the Blazers' backcourt also blossomed. Vandeweghe, Paxson, and Drexler all had extremely high shooting percentages, but the Blazers' inside line, except for Sampson's consecutive scoring in the first quarter, Not too many outstanding performances in scoring.

Gan Guoyang made 5 of 3 shots and 2 of 2 free throws in the first half, and only scored 8 points. However, he unexpectedly sent out 9 assists. You must know that in the last round of the Western Conference Finals, he sent a total of [-] assists in seven games. Assists, averaging a little more than one per game.

Gan Guoyang's change caught the Celtics by surprise. They were all thinking about blocking Gan Guoyang's scoring, but they didn't expect Gan Guoyang to suddenly become a master of support.

What makes the Celtics even more worried is that Gan Guoyang, who only took 5 shots in the first half, must have plenty of physical strength. Gan Guoyang's terrifying scoring ability in the third quarter, after the Western Conference finals, has been well known in the league, not to mention He is the scoring record in a single quarter created at the Garden Square this year.

"We played too loose, where is our defense? The Blazers had six turnovers in the first quarter, but in the second quarter, there were only two. Our defense lacked movement, lacked urgency, yes, our offense played well. It's great, but the offense is also very good. Also, in the third quarter, I don't want to see No. 6 scoring consecutively on us. We need to control him on the defensive end and put him on the offensive end. , don't be led by the nose by him."

In the Celtics locker room at halftime, Casey Jones expressed his dissatisfaction to the players. The Celtics fell into the rhythm of playing against the Blazers and did not show any playoff defense at all. The demeanor of the first strong team allowed the opponent to score 60 points in the half.

Before the finals, Jones made a serious summary of Gan Guoyang's performance in the third quarter. He believed that there were two prerequisites for Gan Guoyang's scoring rampage in the third quarter. One was his feeling during the first three offenses. Once Gan Guoyang opened the scoring mode, It must be continuous scoring with excellent hand feeling, and the first three tricks are Gan Guoyang's attempt to find an offensive feeling.

The second is that if Gan Guoyang is not put enough pressure on the offensive end, then Gan Guoyang's scoring will be even more unscrupulous, and the Rockets in the last round were the victims.

In the third quarter of the fifth game, when Gan Guoyang scored consecutively, the Rockets lost their position and began to rely on outside shots to deal with it, instead of insisting on letting Olajuwon or Sampson attack the inside guarded by Gan Guoyang. More physical strength was put on the offensive end, and the Rockets were beaten to the ground as a result.

Therefore, Casey Jones asked, first of all, to resist Gan Guoyang's first three waves of tentative attacks, and defended. It is best to cause Gan Guoyang's defensive foul, so that he can consume energy on the defensive end and have no time to play on offense.

"That's right, give this 'Kung Fu Boy' some color. This is Boston Garden Plaza. It is enough to be captured once. It is a shame to be captured twice in a row. Although in order to win the championship, we There should be no shame."

The one who spoke was the cardinal, Auerbach, who appeared at the door of the locker room. He once again came to the team locker room to wind up the players.

After all, from the regular season to the playoffs throughout the season, so far, the only team the Celtics have lost to at home is the Trail Blazers team led by Gan Guoyang.

The players all laughed after hearing Auerbach's words, and they were still very confident in their own strength.

………………

"How about it, Gan, show them some color in the third quarter?" Vandeweghe said to Gan Guoyang when the two sides returned to the field in the second half.

"I don't know, I don't think my hands are hot yet." Gan Guoyang responded.

Before the game, Gan Guoyang even fed him food from Shui Miao in order to keep his touch. He didn't touch anything except basketball.

However, such a "superstitious" method does not seem to be of much use. In the first half, Gan Guoyang's shooting percentage was high enough, 60.00%, but he only took five shots, which was too few.

Vandeweghe's touch in the first half was surprisingly good. His outside jumper was the most stable fire output point for the Blazers outside.

Gan Guoyang is now facing not only the problem of touch, but also the problem of receiving the ball. The Celtics are much better than the Rockets in receiving the ball and blocking the passing line. This is their perennial struggle against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Moses Malone. Such a super center was trained.

Sure enough, when the game continued in the third quarter, the Celtics returned to their defensive characteristics at the beginning of the first quarter. The double guards used their precise positioning to form a good defensive formation with other frontcourt players. The defender always maintains a threat to Gan Guoyang to catch the ball, and at the same time, there is another player who distracts part of his attention from Gan Guoyang, ready to double-team at any time.

This kind of defense is different from the Rockets' high-pressure defense. It tests the player's experience more. It is not very oppressive, but it has hidden murderous intentions.

"Cort hesitated and passed the ball back to Vandeweghe. Vandeweghe broke through with the ball and forced a layup! Foul! McHale caused Vandeweghe's dribble!"

Gan Guoyang requested from the low post on the left, but Danny Ainge gave Colter three steps away and retreated to Gan Guoyang's side. Colter wanted to shoot casually, but he just didn't give him a chance to pass the ball.

Colter hesitated, did not make a decision to attack on his own, and gave the ball to Vandeweghe who ran from the right to meet.

Unexpectedly, McHale suddenly stood up from the side and blocked the breakthrough road. Vandeweghe couldn't hold his feet anymore, the two collided, and the referee called Vandeweghe for an offensive foul.

One mistake, but it was the beginning of the Blazers' mistakes.

In the next few offenses, the Blazers made all mistakes. Either the pass was interrupted, or the pass line was not good, and the receiver had to jump up to catch the ball.

"The Blazers offense was in disarray, Drexler missed a pass, the ball went out of bounds, it was their fourth turnover in the third quarter, and they only had two points so far on Drexler's free throws .”

"I thought you were going to cut in, you gotta go faster."

"I'm already fast, you have a problem with the angle of the pass."

Gan Guoyang and Drexler had a small dispute. After the pick and roll, Drexler thought that Gan Guoyang should cut deeper, but Gan Guoyang felt that Drexler was too anxious to pass the ball and the angle was too small.

In fact, the crux of the problem is that the Celtics players blocked the passing line very well, and the Blazers basically couldn't find the passing space for all the inside passes, and the mistakes were taken for granted.

Immediately afterwards, McHale turned over and hit a jumper at the basket, 63:72. The Celtics not only overtook, but also widened the point difference.

Ramsey called a timeout.

The Celtics' defense made the Blazers at a loss again. Their original exquisite cooperation was cut by the opponent's ingenious defensive formation.

"We need to be more determined! More decisive!" Ramsey repeatedly emphasized determination and decisiveness during the timeout. For the first goal before, if Colter was more decisive and capable at the same time, he could hit a few consecutive shots from the outside. The Walters' defense will be self-defeating.

All exquisite defensive formations are often ineffective in the face of super personal abilities, but it seems that the Blazers lack such perimeter players.

In the second half, the Celtics began to use McHale as the main player for Fundwich, which greatly limited his offense, and Drexler also began to be subject to Dennis Johnson.

"Our coordination is simpler, we need all the unexpected factors."