Chapter 997 Evenly Matched, the Developed Yamato Nagasaki!

At the beginning of the second quarter, both the novice fans and real NBA fans in Key Arena could tell that the Heat's main offensive point was Pierce.

The player Pierce mainly attacks is James Harden.

In fact, many experts and media had anticipated the Heat's routine before the game.

Pierce's post-up ability, coupled with his comprehensive offensive skills, would not look too bad when placed in front of Kobe.

Not to mention in front of rotation players like James Harden.

Even if James Harden really has All-Star ability, is Pierce an ordinary All-Star?

Does James Harden have All-Star-level defensive post-up ability?

Therefore, before the game started, the whole world was not very optimistic about the SuperSonics. Even Arenas felt that the world was in despair. It was difficult for the SuperSonics to stop the Heat for this reason.

When the Heat's lineup plays an eight-man rotation, it's really strong!

James, Wade, Garnett, Pierce...

These four are really no ordinary All-Stars now, they are still superstars!

Although Garnett and Pierce are no longer able to become superstars in the game, they have no problem maintaining their superstar strength within 25 to 30 minutes.

If you add the special-function superstar Ray Allen, when the Heat rotate eight players, they can maintain two superstars on the court at all times with the All-Star lineup.

Even if the Sonics really have ten All-Stars, the only superstar is Yes, and Durant is barely a superstar.

Others are all-stars at best.

In the NBA, there is still a big difference between superstars and all-stars.

The gap between James Harden and Pierce will be even greater.

However, what shocked the entire Key Arena was.

When Pierce came up, he focused on attacking James Harden. This offensive option that seemed to be within his grasp actually encountered difficulties from the beginning!

"Pierce can't beat James Harden?!"

This result really surprised all the media reporters at the scene.

Three minutes into the second quarter, the entire KeyArena dugout was murmuring with commentators from all over the world.

Pierce now has the strength of a superstar in 2530 minutes of playing time. This is not their speculation. It is the fact that the Heat defeated the Mavericks, Grizzlies, Nuggets and Timberwolves before. Pierce successively fought Afflalo, McGrady, and Anthony. It’s an overall evaluation that even the fierce battle with Guy doesn’t fall short.

Pierce has constantly faced strong opponents and accepted challenges in the past, but almost every game can be 50-50 against these powerful opponents.

Forget about one or two games. If every game is like this, then you can only admit that Pierce still has the ability to be a superstar.

At least, he has such strength when he is full of energy.

But now, Pierce, who seemed to be on a 50-50 basis with Afflalo, Tracy McGrady, Anthony, and Gay, is now on a 50-50 basis with James Harden on the court!

In the first three minutes of the second quarter, Pierce was the main attacker and could not hit Anthony from behind. He could only use his height advantage to attack frontally.

Moreover, the frontal attack is not that easy to attack. Pierce's skills are excellent, but he no longer has such excellent physical fitness, and there is no way to use pure skills to get rid of James Harden.

James Harden can always feel the danger caused by Pierce's fake moves, and can always block the danger caused by Pierce's fake moves.

You know, although Pierce's physical talent is not that outstanding now, his skills are getting better and better.

Even some NBA veterans, even James on the same team, will feel uncomfortable when facing his increasingly weird fake moves.

But when he faced James Harden, he couldn't play from behind, nor could he break through with the ball from the front. In the end, he could only force Pierce to use his height to make a pull-up shot in front of James Harden!

Although dry pull is also his special skill,

But he is an offensive kaleidoscope, not a shooter!

As an offensive kaleidoscope, it is simply a shame to be forced by a young man like James Harden to use his height to pull up.

On the court, Pierce is very uncomfortable now.

On the sidelines, when the whole world was marveling at James Harden's post-up defense, the SuperSonics players were not too surprised.

"James' back-up defensive ability is still so great!"

"After all, even Mark would find it difficult to beat James from behind, haha."

"It's really hard to imagine that James has so much energy in his body."

Listening to his teammates' comments about James Harden, Ye Si nodded silently in his heart.

James Harden's post-up defensive ability may be second only to his full strength among the entire Seattle SuperSonics perimeter.

Maybe it's a 50-50 split with Tucker.

When Ye Si knew about James Harden's talent of predicting danger, he knew that this kid could make a difference on the defensive end.

Especially guarding players like Ginobili or Pierce who use their IQ or chicken thieves to play with defensive players, it has a great effect.

Ginobili has indeed been made very uncomfortable by James Harden in the past two years.

In this game, Pierce also felt the same discomfort that Ginobili felt when facing James Harden.

James Harden's talent for predicting danger is not invincible.

On defense, this talent allows James Harden to sensitively know where he is in danger, so that he can instinctively make up for the danger.

However, if this danger exceeds the limit of James Harden's physical talent, his body will instinctively want to make up for it, but it cannot make up for it, and it cannot be prevented.

Therefore, James Harden's talent is very suitable for guarding players who are not as athletic as him.

For example, inside players, such as Pierce, a veteran who plays tricks.

James Harden's athletic ability is actually not bad, but the main test of defense is his lateral speed. James Harden's body shape makes him really not that good in lateral speed.

Therefore, when James Harden is defending Durant, even if his talent is fully utilized, he will be beaten by Durant. Durant's drastic change of direction can only make James Harden's talent only There is no way to make up for the danger beeping there.

At the same time, Durant's pull-up also only made James' talent buzz there, and there was no way to jump up and block Durant's shot.

James Harden's talent and his special physical talent make his defensive capabilities somewhat polarizing.

When it's strong, it's really strong. Like now, the Heat's super rotation lineup can only change the team's offensive method after three minutes of play.

Why did Spoelstra use Pierce as the core of the offensive rotation in this game?

That's because only Pierce seems to have an absolute advantage against Harden.

Garnett plays Garnett, Chris Bosh plays Ibaka, and Rasheed Wallace plays Tucker. There is no absolute advantage.

When Pierce didn't have the absolute advantage he imagined when he beat James Harden, the look on Spoelstra's face was very solemn.

In his design, this game is a draw, with the substitutes winning the game. His substitutes have an absolute advantage. Naturally, the Heat are absolutely sure of winning this game.

But now, the certainty is constantly declining.

After the first six minutes of the second quarter, the score on the court was 44 to 42!

The Heat lead the Seattle SuperSonics by 2 points on the road.

Although the Heat lead, the Seattle SuperSonics lag behind.

But when the official timeout came in the second quarter, there was no joy on the faces of the Heat players.

The SuperSonics fans at the scene were extremely excited.

"During the rotation in the second quarter, the Heat failed to achieve their strategic goals, and the SuperSonics players became shocking, especially James Harden. Like Millsap, his big PP was also Yes has been developed!”

Barkley was even so excited that he was a little incoherent at this time.

What do you mean his big PP has also been developed?

TNT is a very serious TV channel, isn’t it?

Kenny Smith kept complaining in his heart.

However, I have to say that Barkley's statement is indeed reasonable.

Yes likes big and long, this is a well-known thing.

Some players who were nothing but big and tall were trained by Yes to become very distinctive players.

Among them, the long representatives are Durant, Rondo and Ibaka.

The big representatives are Millsap and James Harden.

The existence of Yes is too friendly to these two types of players.

So much so that Barkley and Scottie Pippen, representatives of these two types of players, are quite friendly to Yes.

Pippen has said more than once that if his partner was Yes instead of Jordan, he would be able to enter the top ten in NBA history.

Although Barkley didn't say that, everyone knew what it meant.

Under the guidance of Yes, these players who once seemed like useless players are now really shining with dazzling light.

Looking at the SuperSonics No. 9 on the edge of the court who was greeting his teammates off the court, Kenny Smith was sighing. Kenny Smith also knew that many people were also sighing and admiring at this time.

"James, you did a great job. I didn't expect you to have sex with Pierce!"

"Mark is actually pretty good, and Garnett didn't take much advantage in his hands."

"Serge, you're just a little bit off. Is it that hard not to fake moves or jump? It's okay to be deceived by Nowitzki, but you can still be deceived by Bosh!"

When the SuperSonics substitute players came down, although the others looked like you trash had actually lost the score, the joy and excitement in their voices was still difficult to conceal.

Every Sonics person is very satisfied with the performance of the Sonics rotation players on the court.

Seattle's rotation has exceeded everyone's expectations, including Leafs.

The Heat's eight-man rotation bench lineup is indeed very strong.

Although James Harden broke the Heat's substitute lineup to kill the SuperSonics substitutes and broke the SuperSonics rotation strategy.

But even if the two teams are strangled together, the Heat are the one with the advantage.

Just being two points behind is already a very, very good result.

After all, the SuperSonics' rotation is truly a rotation of all substitutes.

Whether they were on the bench or on the bench, they all had the advantage, but the score on the field was only two points ahead, which made everyone in the Heat feel extremely uncomfortable.

"The game has only lasted a quarter and a half. We have plenty of time. The victory in this game must belong to us!"

"And don't forget, Yes still hasn't scored a single point!"

Yes, this game is still scoreless!

This sentence made the Heat locker room, which was already a little unhappy, once again become full of fighting spirit.

"While winning this game, we were able to limit Yes' score to less than 20 points. Then we can score 100 points in this game even if we don't achieve the set goal!"

Garnett suppressed the anger in his heart that Gasol made him very uncomfortable, and his eyes flickered.

I have to say that the defense of James and Wade is really good.

The sight of that flanking attack made people feel chills all over!

At the same time, Spoelstra, a coach he has always looked down upon, is also quite courageous.

Even though Yes has already proven that he is the number one organizer in history, he is still so crazy about using his two strongest defensive players to attack Yes!

The official timeout ended and the game between the two teams continued.

Although in the previous quarter and a half, the Heat's pre-game strategy failed to be realized, and was broken one by one by the SuperSonics.

But after the game restarted, Spoelstra still had no intention of changing his tactics.

For Durant and Rondo, who performed very well in this game for the Sonics, Spoelstra still did not put Wade and James, the team's two strongest perimeter defenders, in front of these two players. .

James and Wade were still frantically flanking Yes.

"This may be the most terrifying outside attack I have ever seen!"

"The Heat's tactics in this game were far more decisive than they were in last season's finals!"

When the second quarter of the game was about to come to an end, many reporters and commentators were already whispering in the media box and commentary box on the sidelines.

And Old Nelson also looked at Spoelstra on the side with some surprise.

This young man would be very surprised every time he saw him.

He has never seen such a decisive temperament in such a young head coach.

Yes is the strongest scorer in the NBA.

Yes is also the strongest organizer in the NBA.

Therefore, when defending Yes, many people will hesitate whether to pinch the organization or his scoring. Even Popovich will hesitate, even several times in a game.

But Spoelstra...

"Yes, this game won't really have to score less than 20 points, right?!"

In the Chicago Bulls locker room, Noah looked surprised.

In the first half, Yes still scored zero points!

He didn't even get a single shot from being flanked by James and Wade!

Next to Noah, Rose's hands were clenched into fists.

He is one of the few players in the league who has been flanked by James and Wade.

That feeling...

Rose's clenched fists seemed to bleed from the palms of her hands.