Chapter 690 Miss No. 23

After Li Liang's arrival, the Pacers have become the most suitable shape.

In the 82 games of the regular season, they found the most suitable tactical system, a relatively simple but very effective tactical system.

Everything revolves around Li Liang, his passing, his three-pointers, his defensive tension, and his close-range pull-up jumpers.

You can pass the ball, but you are not as good as James and Nash, then give you some three-pointers with autonomous offensive capabilities.

JR-Smith, Granger, and Stephenson are all players who can catch and throw the ball, and can attack by themselves when the catch is not good.

You have the strongest three-point history, and you have enough space for the team, so you increase your singles tactically and reduce all kinds of bells and whistles.

You can do a lot of things on the defensive end, but the protection of the basket is relatively average. You can get McGee, who has no advantages other than protecting the basket, and then get Garnett, who was once historical in protecting the basket.

Then you have to do everything except protect the basket.

What, you also learned how to protect the basket?

Alright, I'll call number five for you.

You also have a beautiful retro pull-up jumper after the break.

No problem, David West came off the bench, and Scola was traded away, clearing the left and right rib positions, giving Li Liang room to play his jumper.

It is no longer the Pacers' mainstream tactics to be strong in the low position and to cooperate with the high and low positions.

It can be said that the Pacers' lineup and tactics are all set up around Li Liang.

Li Liang is Indiana's single-core CPU. This CPU works well, with a very low failure rate, and sometimes the peak value of calculation will exceed your imagination.

From this point of view, Bird's vision is really unique.

Perhaps as a coach, he is inferior to some excellent coaches in the league in terms of tactical richness and detail professionalism.

But in terms of strategic selection and control, he is first-rate.

As a manager, as a coach, he has no lack of honor, no lack of ability, what he lacks is an opportunity.

Li Liang is his opportunity.

In the third game of the semifinals, the game progressed to the second quarter, and the first half of the game was almost over.

The score on the field has come to 43:35, and the Pacers lead the Bulls by 8 points.

The Bulls' score is simply horrible, but the Pacers are not much better.

In the middle and late part of the second quarter, Li Liang did exactly as Bird expected. When his shots started to increase, so did his strikes.

But the Pacers still maintain their advantage, because the Bulls are also hitting iron, and their offense is even more sluggish than the Pacers.

Rose didn't feel anything in the first half. When this sharp knife didn't work, the Bulls had no real explosive point. Since Butler played against Li Liang, his offense has been helpless.

The Bulls can only rely on the tactics of positional warfare and the Pacers, as well as the basket, Noah desperately grabs offensive rebounds to keep the Bulls alive.

Noah grabbed 4 offensive rebounds in the second quarter.

After arriving at the home court, the entire Bulls team had a morale bonus and played extremely hard.

It's a pity that sometimes the Bulls struggled for a long time, and Li Liang turned around and succeeded with a jumper, which hit the team very hard.

Moreover, the Bulls have to guard against Li Liang's three-pointer, his three-pointer is terrible.

In the last minute or so of the second quarter, Bird replaced Li Liang to take a rest.

It stands to reason that Li Liang would play the full second quarter in a normal rotation.

He ended the first quarter early today, but Bird still replaced Li Liang in advance to protect their core.

In the second quarter, Li Liang made 6 of 13 shots. He took 20 shots in the first half and scored 29 points.

His scoring alone is almost catching up with the Bulls' scoring.

At the end of the second quarter, the Bulls barely pushed the score to 40 points.

At 48:40, the Pacers still maintained an 8-point advantage, and the two sides entered the intermission.

Li Liang alone scored half of the Pacers' points in the first half.

This is how single-core teams are relatively unstable.

Even if your core performance is very stable, the state of role players will fluctuate greatly.

Especially like the few nerve knives of the Pacers. JR-Smith hit 5 three-pointers in the last game.

Not to mention, Stephenson scored 2 points and contributed 3 turnovers by the way.

None of the outside three-pointers were scored.

It’s just that the Pacers’ defense is biting. No matter how fierce the Bulls are in fighting for the offensive rebounds, after losing the rebounds, the Pacers still maintain their defensive formation and bite very tenaciously at the basket, without giving the Bulls an easy score. Chance.

The second half of the game is destined to be more difficult.

This will be a huge test of the physical fitness and willpower of both parties.

After the short break, the players from both sides reappeared, and Li Liang could feel the air in the United Center becoming hot.

At the beginning of the third quarter, the Pacers made a mistake in defense, and it was Li Liang's mistake.

He was careless when defending Noah. Noah seized the opportunity, found a gap in the middle, caught the ball and broke through the basket for a layup.

This is Noah's first sports goal of the game.

Li Liang was careless and started in the second half, but Li Liang returned to the fourth position.

He was still a little unaccustomed to it for a while.

Subsequently, Li Liang was surrounded by three people.

The bull is also at a showdown, I don't care about it, three or four people just want to surround you.

What kind of defensive trap, what kind of messy defensive strategy, is just a pile of people.

Anyway, Lao Tzu rotates fast.

The three surrounded each other, but Li Liang still had to split the ball.

To Granger, Granger then pass to McGee under the basket.

McGee caught the ball and turned around to dunk, but was capped by Gasol!

But Gasol obviously had a thug action on this ball, and the referee didn't blow it.

McGee didn't say anything, and Bird couldn't help it on the sidelines, and made a thug gesture towards the referee.

It didn't work, the Bulls' counterattack had already started, Rose rushed to the basket one by one, and gave the ball to Dunleavy on the wing.

Dunleavy catches the ball and makes a three-pointer, hit!

This ball was really terrible, and the Bulls chased for 5 points in a row.

The key is that these 5 points are chased too fast, and the Pacers' 8-point advantage is only 3 points left.

In the first half, the two sides often failed to score in three or four rounds.

Bird's face sank like water, and Li Liang gave Bird a wink, telling him not to call a timeout in a hurry.

Sure enough, Li Liang immediately responded offensively. He and McGee rushed to the basket after a pick-and-roll and leaned on Gasol.

This time the referee blew a foul, and if he doesn't blow it again, it means that the referee's business is not good.

You can favor the home team, but when it's time to balance, you must balance.

Besides, this is Bruce Lee, aren't you looking for scolding if you don't brag.

Li Liang made two steady free throws from the free throw line, stabilizing the situation.

Then, the Pacers successfully prevented the Bulls from a 24-second offensive violation on the defensive end.

This time they still played a very clever cooperation. Noah caught the ball deep under the basket and could go straight to the basket.

As a result, Noah did not dare to take a shot under Li Liang's defense, and passed back to Gasol who was in the middle. As a result, the ball was not passed well, and Gasol failed to catch it.

By the time Gasol got the ball back, 24 seconds had come.

It can only be said that Li Liang's ability to adjust is really very strong.

Then, he seized the opportunity again, received Granger's breakthrough ball in the bottom corner, and forced a three-pointer!

This ball is really heart-pounding. Seeing that they have caught up to 3 points, after a lot of messing around, it turned into an 8-point difference.

The Bulls were persevering. Rose, who was in a bad state in the first half, made two breakthroughs to kill the basket and succeeded.

At this time, Li Liang called a timeout.

Back on the bench, Li Liang asked Bird, "Isn't it good to let me play the third position in the first half? Why did you change it again? You won't change the formation? Is there no continuity in the formation?"

Bird spread his hands, "I just wanted to call a timeout for a substitution, but you refused."

"My head coach or your head coach? Besides, I didn't make fouls and free throws, so I gave you a chance to change?"

"If you say it again, I'll replace you."

"proceed if you can!"

There was some argument between the two, but there was no response from everyone.

It's normal. It's normal for Li Liang and Bird to quarrel when the game is not going well.

At first everyone was worried whether the two would fight.

I got used to it slowly, it's purely because my mouth smells bad, I use this to vent my pressure.

Bird still made a substitution, replacing Granger with Garnett.

The Pacers used the twin towers inside to enhance inside defense and rebound protection.

But it turns out that the effect of this configuration is not as good as expected.

After the timeout ended, Li Liang began to be double-teamed by the Bulls unscrupulously during the offense.

Thibodeau has already figured it out, I can't control how other people play, I just want to kill you Li Liang.

Li Liang's scoring needs to use screens and tactics. He can't be like Kobe, he can make strong shots with six people in front of him (add a referee).

In the case of three people double-teaming, Li Liang will definitely pass the ball.

As a result, for Garnett and McGee, if you pass the ball to them, the offense basically stagnates.

McGee doesn't have the ability to attack independently, and Garnett is really old.

The result is that Li Liang points the ball to Hill or JR-Smith, that is, the meat bun hits the dog, and there is no return.

Hill's performance in the series was mediocre, and he was useless against the Bulls.

His defense against Rose is equivalent to a dislocation, and his offense is not stable enough, and he is a little lost in the face of the Bulls' strong defense.

Needless to say, Smith will get lost if he should get lost, and he will get lost if he shouldn't get lost. You think he will get lost and he will explode again.

Relying on these two points, the Pacers' offense is very difficult to operate.

Of course, the defensive effect is indeed good, but basketball is an offensive game after all, you have to score.

In the third quarter, Rose launched a death charge against the Pacers' inside line. No matter what happened to his knee injury, he rushed in desperately, either scoring, or causing a foul on the Pacers' inside line and going to the free throw line.

Rose's hard work moved the fans.

The atmosphere in the United Center is getting warmer, and the voices of fans cheering for the Bulls are getting louder.

Although the Bulls have never reached the level of a championship-level team in recent years, they have always been tenacious, and no one dares to underestimate them.

They really worked hard tonight.

But that's it, at the end of the third quarter, the Pacers still led the Bulls by 5 points.

5 points, not much, maybe you can get it back in a few rounds.

But not a lot, because it is basically impossible to recover in one round.

The Pacers have always saved this small advantage.

Because of Li Liang, he can always use his jumper to pour cold water on the audience when the Bulls are about to rise.

"Chicago's performance is good enough, but they always have someone over their heads. At this time, they must think, if that number 23 is here."

Of course, Chicagoans have missed the number 23 countless times, but this time it seems to be particularly strong.