Chapter 349 The Third Battle
No one would have thought that the Lakers could win the Heat in Game 2 on the road.
No one even thought that the person who sent the lore in the end was not Kobe, Nash, Li Liang, but Ci Shiping.
Ci Shiping has degraded too much on the offensive end this season, and his three-pointers are still not accurate after losing weight.
More than 30% of his three-pointers this season, his low-post offense at the basket, occasional outstanding breakthroughs, and his slow counterattack with the ball.
In short, after Li Liang's rise and Gasol found a new position, Ci Shiping's role and role have been weakened a lot.
But Mike Brown still trusts Metta Shiping very much, and his playing time has not been reduced, and he often makes him torture the Lakers fans on the court.
As an experienced veteran who has made great contributions to the Lakers' championship, Ci Shiping is trustworthy in the playoffs.
That trust has paid off.
After the lore was successful, the referee watched the video replay and confirmed that the game time was up after the shot, and the goal was valid!
After the Lakers players hugged on the sidelines, they frantically ran back to the locker room to celebrate.
The last time Metta World Peace made a similar lore dates back to the 2010 championship season. In the battle against the Suns at Tianwangshan, he grabbed an offensive rebound for the last goal, lore the Suns, and helped the Lakers win a crucial game. Point war wins.
Ci Shiping did not grab the rebound tonight, it was Li Liang who picked it up, and Ci Shiping was undoubtedly prepared.
In the locker room, Ci Shiping hugged Li Liang and yelled and cheered. After winning this game, the Lakers took a 2-0 lead in the away game. In a sense, 90% of the championship has been won by them up.
Subsequently, the Heat and the Lakers will play three games at Staples, and the Lakers will win the O'Brien Cup if they win two of them.
Things are looking good for the Lakers.
Li Liang's performance in the two games is the greatest contribution.
He scored 30 points in the first game and shot the Heat with a three-pointer.
In the second game, he made 4 of 5 three-pointers and scored another 18 points. At the last moment, he rebounded and assisted Ci Shiping to win the game.
After the game, social media went into a frenzy again.
Among them, in the discussion about the MVP of the finals, the voice of supporting Li Liang to win the FMVP is getting louder and louder.
After the game, a large number of reporters poured into the Lakers locker room for interviews, and Li Liang had the most people in front of him.
Under normal circumstances, this kind of treatment tends to belong to Kobe, and the situation is different tonight.
Facing the reporter's question, Li Liang's answer is very concise, as long as there is no task, he is so plain and elegant.
After the press conference was over, everyone took the bus to the airport together, and Li Liangcai danced happily on the bus.
At this time, the emotions of the others had calmed down, and they looked at Li Liang as excited as a fool.
Mike Brown reminded: "Two wins to go, boy, two more. In the playoffs, it doesn't make much difference whether it's home or away."
Li Liang said: "Mike, I hope you don't call a timeout when the team is leading in the future, and leave the game to us, okay, okay!"
Mike Brown scratched his head and fell silent.
The whole team flew back to Los Angeles overnight. When the team practiced the next day, the gate of the Toyota Sports Center was crowded with Lakers fans. They came to welcome the team back with two victories.
Before the start of the finals, judging from the comparison of the strengths of the two sides, many people are still more optimistic about the Heat.
After the first game, many people believed that the Heat would definitely win the second game.
Who knew that the Lakers were 2-0 away. This huge advantage puts the championship within reach.
The last team to win the first two away games in the series was the 1993 Chicago Bulls.
They played against the Suns, won both away games, and won the final series 4:2.
There is only one day between the second and third games. On June 11, US time, the third game of the finals will be held at Staples.
After a day of repairing, this night at Staples, Lakers fans are looking forward to another victory for the Lakers.
If the big score becomes 3:0, there will be no suspense for the championship.
The game was played at 7 p.m. Pacific time, and 16 championship flags hung from the ceiling of the Staples Center, calling for a 17th.
The faces of the Miami Heat players are all calm, and James has not shown any expression on his face since he entered the court.
Losing two games in a row at home was a huge blow to the defending champion.
What they think now is to try to bring the series back to Miami.
The game started on time, and Howard was still the first to win the ball at the beginning, and the Lakers attacked.
In the third game of the series, the two sides still have room for adjustment.
Mike Brown was right when he said that in the playoffs, there is not much difference between home and road.
The NBA is truly a strong team. The players have experienced many battles. They have played many games, both home and away, and they are well prepared mentally.
Moreover, the more away games some players are, the more focused and stronger they become.
For example, Kobe, in the Western Conference playoffs, his away score was higher than his home score.
And Michael Jordan also said that he prefers to play away games and fight against adversity.
Many players' career masterpieces in the playoffs were played on the road.
For example, Michael Jordan's 63 points are at the Boston Garden, 56 points are at the Miami Stadium, Charles Barkley's 56 points are at the Oakland Stadium, Nash's 48 points are at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, and so on.
The more adversity is, the more these superstars can burst out with huge energy.
The Heat really came to a desperate situation. If they lose another game, the series will end early.
So from the beginning of the game, the Heat were extremely aggressive.
In the first two games, Wade scored 6 points in the opening game.
In 11 years, Wade was still the sharpest knife on the Heat.
Then it went down a little bit for 12 years, and it's down a little bit this year.
After all, his knee had already removed the meniscus in college. He used this knee without a meniscus to fight in the league for ten years, winning two championships and an FMVP.
Now the water in his knees bothers him, and he wears thick knee pads on his legs.
But when needed, Wade will still stand up and use his mid-range and air cuts to score for the Heat.
Wade's continuous attack inspired Kobe's fighting spirit, and the two started fighting each other in the first quarter.
The first quarter of the two sides battle became a 25:25 tie, Wade scored 11 points, Kobe Bryant scored 12 points.
But in the second quarter, the situation began to gradually deflect to the Heat, and the Heat's defensive strategy had a major adjustment compared with the previous two games.
The Heat began to not double-team, one-on-one, appropriately relax the oppression and stickiness, and enhance the continuity and toughness of the defense.
Obviously, although the oppressive defense in the first two games is still effective, the large number of rotations still allows the Lakers to find a gap, allowing the Lakers to play more and more alive, and the team's offense is running.
So Spoelstra learned his lesson and decided to increase one-on-one defense. Even if one-on-one was killed by the Lakers, it was better than letting their team's offense play out.
Meanwhile, Spoelstra narrowed the rotation, DNPed Joel Anthony, increased Anderson's playing time, and reused Rashard Lewis.
The Heat are going to play against each other, and they have to allocate some of the energy invested on the defensive end to the offense.
Neither side scored more than 100 points in the first two games. The first game was 90:86, and the second game was 93:91. It stands to reason that such a game score and game rhythm should be liked by the Heat.
As a result, the Heat lost.
Spoelstra realized that the Heat were using too much force on defense, and they still played according to the rhythm of the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Lakers' offense and defense are more balanced. By the fourth quarter, the team's offensive cooperation is completely out of touch. The critical moment is to score. The Lakers can score through cooperation, but the Heat can't.
After all, the defensive side is the passive side, and the Heat were completely led by the nose.
So in this game, the Heat will use offense to regain the initiative.
In the second quarter, the Heat James began to score consecutive breakthroughs.
James' breakthroughs in the first two games were always reserved for the third quarter or even the fourth quarter. He can no longer keep them in this game, and he can score points by himself.
After the Heat took the lead in the second quarter, they have maintained an advantage of about 5 points.
Same as Game 2, but in Game 2 the Heat lead on defense, this one on offense.
Whenever the Lakers have the momentum to chase points, Wade or James will score one-on-one.
After all, Kobe was weak on the defensive end, and it was even more impossible for Nash to come to help. The outside defense could only be supplemented by Li Liang and Ci Shiping.
But James, can you let it go? It's okay to let him shoot, but not to let him break through.
At halftime, the Heat led the Lakers by 3 points at 61:58.
If Li Liang hadn't scored a three-pointer in the last attack of the second quarter, the point difference would have been even greater.
The Lakers' offense did not score less, and Kobe scored 20 points in the half.
But it is still behind, because Wade and James cannot be guarded.
The Lakers are not as aggressive as the Heat on the defensive end. They mainly use one-on-one marking, with Howard guarding the inside and Li Liang checking for omissions. The strategy is relatively simple, but it is also more consistent and tenacious.
The Lakers seldom have a counterattack climax against the opponent, and the defensive formation is not easy to collapse because there is no formation.
Occasionally zone defense is used, but the number of rounds does not exceed three rounds.
This is the most suitable defensive plan for an older team like the Lakers designed by Mike Brown after fumbling for a season.
There are many details in it, such as the protection of backcourt rebounds, the protection of Nash's point, the differentiated treatment of the center and flanks, etc. Brown has done a lot of work to ensure the stability and toughness of the defense.
But in this game, the Lakers' defense did not actually have a major problem. The problem was that the Heat changed their thinking and fought against the Lakers.
In the third quarter, the Heat's offensive momentum remained. Rashard Lewis and Ray Allen, the former supersonic twin stars, hit consecutive three-pointers.
The Lakers are also scoring goals, but they have to chase points, and two points are not enough.
Li Liang stood up and made a three-pointer at this time, narrowing the gap.
But Li Liang hit two three-pointers, turned around and Wade hit the basket and made a layup for a three-pointer, and then James made an emergency stop and made a three-pointer.
James made this three-pointer in the audience, but it just rightly suppressed the Lakers' momentum of chasing points.
In the fourth quarter, the Lakers struggled to catch up. Driven by Wade and James, Bosh also played the best performance in the playoffs.
Scored 20 points and 14 rebounds. From the beginning of this game, Spoelstra let Bosh stare at Li Liang, and Haslem misplaced to guard Howard.
Bosh did not allow Li Liang to grab the offensive rebounds and protected the back rebounds very well.
The Heat lost on the offensive rebounds in the first two games.
In the end, the Heat suppressed the Lakers 108:103 from beginning to end, won a difficult victory in the away game, and pulled back a game.
I had something to do yesterday, so I didn't update it in the morning. There will be another update after 6:00 in the evening, and it will be updated as usual at 8:00 tomorrow, trying to restore the third update.