unfinished glory

Chapter 138 Victory
Before the first half was over, the Spurs opened the point difference to 15, and the next game would not be easy.

D'Antoni knew that it was difficult for the team to defend against the Spurs' offense, so he could only work hard from the offensive direction and strive to score more points than the Spurs.

The Suns replaced Ginobili with the "Brazilian Lightning" Barbosa who became the best sixth man of the season. At the same time, the Suns adjusted the focus of the offense, focused on the perimeter, and prepared to use the player's individual singles ability to open up the situation.

This lineup has been used many times in the regular season, and it is also the main lineup of the Suns in the playoffs. The Spurs have long been prepared.

Popovich rarely fights unprepared battles. Before the game, he studied the Suns lineup and told the players how to deal with it.

Now that the Suns put their hopes on Barbosa, the Spurs also replaced Ginobili.But Ginobili did not match up with Barbosa in defense, but left him to Li Chongxiao.

Barbosa, who had just played, was a little caught off guard. Li Chongxiao defended several shots in a row, either making mistakes or missing shots.

There is no way around this, Li Chongxiao is stronger than him no matter in terms of height, strength or flexibility.His only advantage lies in his speed, but facing the Spurs' iron barrel formation, it is difficult to start.

Ginobili has become the protagonist of the Spurs' offense during this period. He is also a little unhappy that Barbosa has taken away his best sixth man. These emotions were vented on the court.

According to Popovich's tactical requirements, this period of time belongs to Ginobili leading the team and leading the team's offense.Although he doesn't dare to go against the coach's intentions and start a personal offensive mode indiscriminately, he can still make a lot of difference by using his teammates' tactical pick-and-roll and passing.

Facing Barbosa's defense, he first made a three-pointer, then tricked the opponent, broke through and made a layup, and the Eurostep made Stoudemire dizzy.In the end, he played a fake move and made Barbosa get a foul abruptly outside the three-point line.

Ginobili personally played a wave of 8:0 offensive spurts, allowing the Spurs to widen the point difference to 23 points, and this is only the end of the first half.

At the beginning of the second half, the Spurs began to play step by step again, which is to kill time and hit the success rate.In each offensive round, five shots are required, and the offensive time is delayed to 20 seconds, and then the shot is made.

For outside players, if the opportunity is good, they will shoot, and if the opportunity is not good, they will wait until the last ball is handed over to Duncan.And regardless of whether a goal is scored or not, after the ball is shot, he does not want to grab an offensive rebound, and immediately retreats to the defense, leaving no chance for a fast break to the opponent.

This slow style of play makes fans hate it, but it is undoubtedly very effective when leading.

The Suns organized wave after wave of offenses, all of which were consumed by the Spurs' tactics.

Although Li Chongxiao didn't like this style of play, he was quite comfortable with it.This season, he has grown into a ball-handling point that can effectively help the team control the situation.

His excellent personal offensive ability made the players of the Suns very afraid. They did not dare to relax their defense against him.

This style of play that considers defense while attacking is really not suitable for the Suns, which makes them exhausted on both ends of the offense and defense, without taking care of one end.

The energy on the offensive end was restrained by the defensive end, and the defensive end couldn't take care of the head and the tail. Li Chongxiao caught their mentality, broke through and scored consecutively, and assisted his teammates to score.

When Bowen made two three-pointers, the Suns knew that the general trend was over, and if they didn't withdraw their main players, the game might have an exaggerated point difference.

The Spurs led by 31 points and entered the fourth quarter. Both sides were on the bench, and the fans at the scene were celebrating in advance that the team had made a good start in the Western Conference Finals.

……

The loss in the first game hurt the Suns very much. They were not unaffected by the loss, but they had a 30-point difference and surrendered after three quarters, which was really unacceptable for them.

After the press conference, the Suns players didn't even accept any interviews, but focused on preparing for the second game.

The Spurs' tactics are very ordinary, nothing more than overall offense and defense, teamwork, but the Suns just can't deal with it.

Nash proposed to play offense in the style of the Suns during training, but was rejected by the coaching staff because they really did not have the confidence to defeat the Spurs with offense alone.

Not to mention on the defensive end, the opponent has three first-defense players. Even on the offensive end, the combination of Duncan + Li Chongxiao + Parker + Ginobili is not something the Suns can compete with head-on.

The Suns can only pray that the opponent's players suddenly become depressed, but this idea is unrealistic.Both Duncan and Li Chongxiao are notoriously stable, and the latter can burst out suddenly on a stable basis.

The Suns, who entered the battle with a mentality of worrying about gains and losses, naturally did not play very well.

In the opening stage, they briefly formed a stalemate with the Spurs, but it soon became a hard catch.

Popovich drew a line for the team, requiring the players to float up and down the line, the defense is not allowed to advance aggressively, and the offense cannot be too turbulent.

This just restrains the Suns in their current state, because as long as the Spurs maintain a normal level, they can watch the Suns play indecisive tactics, toss back and forth, and then abolish their martial arts.

Faced with Raja Bell's small moves, Li Chongxiao actually wanted to play a round of offense happily, but Popovich was staring at him off the court, so he could only give up this plan and cooperate according to the established tactics.

In the first quarter, Li Chongxiao scored 8 points, and all three goals were assisted.

In the second quarter, Li Chongxiao scored another 8 points, 4 free throws and 1 second rebound.

In the third quarter of the game, the Suns saw the point difference widen and fought hard. Li Chongxiao shifted his focus to defense. Relying on free throws and three-pointers, he still scored 5 points.

In the last quarter of the game, the Suns were unwilling to surrender and struggled for 8 minutes, but the 20+ point difference forced them to face reality.

Li Chongxiao scored 6 points in this quarter and 27 points in the whole game, which is a pretty good statistic.

But he felt that his playing was average, and he didn't have a single highlight shot in the whole game.These points were obtained by the cooperation of the team. If a player with a good offense is in his position, it is very likely to get the same points.

But no matter what, the Spurs won after all. Since the personal value was not reflected, Li Chongxiao was very happy with the team's victory as the background.

The victory of this game allowed the Spurs to lead the Suns 2:0 on a big score, and the situation for qualifying is very good.

(End of this chapter)