Pirates: I am Six Eyes Sukuna, the strongest one

Yes, this is the challenge that Larry Bird had to face at the beginning of tonight. The Indiana Pacers, who were unstoppable in the first two rounds, showed their old age in front of the Boston Celtics led by Han Yi.

They certainly know that their Pacers are old, but not all teams can take advantage of the old age of the Pacers to play. Let alone catching the Pacers, even if the Pacers took the initiative to catch the opponent, they could have already pinned the opponents in the first two rounds to the ground!

But why did it suddenly not work against this Boston Celtics?

You know, this Pacers team ranks second in the league in offensive efficiency and thirteenth in defensive efficiency. In terms of defense, this Pacers team is quite average. The reason why they can move forward courageously is because of offense!

And this Pacers team can be said to be the only team in the NBA built around off-ball shooters. Compared with the outside offensive core represented by Iverson and Jordan, off-ball shooters like Reggie Miller have the problem of difficulty in consuming a lot of ball rights.

Especially in the playoffs where the defensive intensity has increased dramatically, as of 1999, Reggie Miller's highest score in the playoffs was only 39 points, and he had never scored more than 40 points.

Although it's hard to hear, I still have to say, in the Eastern Conference playoffs, why did Reggie Miller fail every year? Being bad is his original sin!

But this bad must be aimed at the championship. It's not enough to say that Reggie Miller's strength level is not enough. If we only talk about the playoffs, Miller is still quite strong.

If the team is built around Reggie Miller with the goal of impacting the playoffs, then the playoffs can be guaranteed every year.

Because Reggie Miller has a weakened version of "Curry's gravity". Although he can't always attract double-teaming on the offensive end like Curry, with his top-level off-ball running ability, he can always attract the opponent's best defender to follow him and run around the court, and in order to prevent him from receiving the ball, Reggie Miller can always easily tear off the original opponent's defensive formation during his running!

This gives the Pacers better shooting space for other players, and no team relies on shooting space more than the Pacers, because not only is the team leader Reggie Miller a pure shooter, but the elderly Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson also relies on shooting now, and more than 70% of the young Jalen Rose's offense comes from outside shooting...

Except for the twin towers in the interior, which are more traditional blue-collar interiors that focus on defense, the other main offensive points of the Pacers rely on accurate shooting to support the Pacers' offense!

Even Rick Schmitz, a blue-collar center, actually has a mid-range shot that was considered quite good in the interior at that time.

Shooting is originally unstable, but when all players are shooters and all players can shoot, multiple instabilities are superimposed on each other, and everyone opens up space for each other, the unstable shooting becomes more stable!

Because of this, although the Pacers' number of rounds is only at the middle level in the league, their offensive efficiency, average points per game, and even hit rate are firmly in the forefront of the league.

But what happened today?

The shooters couldn't make a single shot? Isn't this too ironic?

Is it because the Pacers' collective touch was not good today? It was indeed not good, but the reason for the bad feeling was that the Pacers encountered an unexpected strong defense from the Celtics!

McGrady took the lead and relied on his young legs to chase Reggie Miller on the defensive end without anyone else's help.

Joe Dumars and Dell Curry, the two old men, hugged the other shooters of the Pacers one by one on the outside.

If it were another team, they would definitely not be able to hug one by one, because they have long legs and can run!

But Chris Mullin at 36 and Mark Jackson at 34 really couldn't run anymore. If they wanted to get open, they could only hope that Reggie Miller would pull the formation to provide them with an open shot opportunity.

But Mark Jackson, the master of assists, couldn't help but feel a little desperate when he looked at the Pacers today!

The Celtics' defense was impenetrable!

It's easy to say that one person can defend the Pacers, but there are very few NBA teams that can do it, because the Pacers' shooting is not only good because they can shoot, but also because they are one of the few starting three-point shooting teams that can't be ignored!

Reggie Miller's three-point shooting percentage is 38.5%, Chris Mullin's three-point shooting percentage is 46.5%, and Mark Jackson's three-point shooting percentage is 33%!

At this level of shooting percentage, the Pacers can be in the 90s when most teams have space.It goes without saying that the Pacers provide high-quality space-opening capabilities in an era of extremely crowded situations.

When facing other teams, the Pacers only need a pick-and-roll to find an open three-pointer opportunity, and Dale Davis, the only pure blue-collar player in the Pacers' starting lineup who has no shooting ability at all, is one of the best pick-and-roll players of this era.

But in front of the Pacers, all this no longer works!

Because other teams don't have a monster like Han Yi who is 7 feet tall but can move at the speed of a guard!

When Mullin and Reggie Miller's cross screen forced the Celtics to change their defensive matchup, Reggie Miller had already run out to an open position, but when the ball just came into his hands, Han Yi had already covered himself like an impenetrable wall.

Similarly, as long as the Pacers players find an open position, when the ball is passed to them, the open position will inevitably be blocked by the omnipresent Han Yi.

It's no problem for the No. 4 to participate in the defense on a large scale. In the NBA in the 1990s, although such inside players who can widely assist in defense are absolutely scarce resources, they are not unavailable, such as Kevin Garnett, who just got the highest salary in the league!

One of the selling points of this guy is his exaggerated mobility. Although his single defense ability is just so-so, his defense ability is full. However, Garnett's defense can only interfere with the outside players to a considerable extent in the mid-range position, while Han Yi actually directly assists on the three-point line!

Although the Pacers' continuous iron situation at the beginning of the game improved after Larry Bird's timeout, the problem of the Pacers' continuous offensive problems still exists!

For the aging Pacers, it will be difficult to win this game if the offense is not smooth!

Looking at Han Yi who is still saving and defending everywhere, Mark Jackson feels a toothache:

"Such a monster can actually exist in the real NBA world. Is this really reasonable?"