In the second half, the Magic's state was average, not good, but not bad either.
But the Clippers' touch is recovering and back to average.
Then the Magic couldn't bear it. Their average firepower was only about 110 points per game, while the Clippers were around 125 points.
In the third quarter, the Magic lost by six points again, and the point difference reached double digits.
In the last quarter, the Magic did not show any tenacious fighting spirit. For them, by reaching the finals, they had completed their early-season mission, and even exceeded their quota.
They didn't expect to defeat the Celtics and Cavaliers in succession.
The task was overfulfilled, and the opponents in the finals were indeed ridiculously strong. The Magic no longer had the task or determination to win.
After falling behind by double digits, the Magic players lost their fighting spirit.
They were obviously far behind, but they played unhurriedly.
In the end, the game ended, 109 to 121, and the Clippers won the first game of the Finals.
Zhang Zhiyuan had 40 points, 4 rebounds and 12 assists, and Howard had 28 points and 12 rebounds, 12 points less.
Coincidentally, their team also lost by exactly 12 points.
The results of the game were as expected by the fans, but the fans at the scene were still very happy. They were one step closer to the championship.
On June 2, the second game of the finals begins.
Almost the same plot, almost the same outcome.
The Magic took a big lead at the beginning and were still ahead at the end of the first quarter.
However, as their touch returned to normal, they could not stop the Clippers' impact in the second quarter.
In the end, 111 to 119, the Magic lost the second game, falling behind 0 to 2.
They didn't lose much in both games, which gave people the impression that the Magic still had a chance.
At least some pseudo-fans will feel they still have a chance.
But for most experts and senior fans, they have already pronounced a death sentence for the Magic in advance.
Want to make a comeback? Unless the sun comes out from the west.
On June 5, the Clippers flew to Orlando to challenge the Magic away from home.
Compared with the previous game, the attention of this game has slightly increased.
After all, the Magic have home court advantage, and many people believe that this advantage may determine the outcome of the game.
When the game started, Zhang Zhiyuan received an offensive foul in the second round.
Zhang Zhiyuan smiled and did not argue with the referee.
After all, the definition of some rules is very rigid, and it all depends on the referee's standards.
If you really want to argue with them, they can really produce evidence.
The Magic team attacked, Lewis felt good and hit a three-pointer.
5-0, the Magic got off to a good start.
However, they also took the lead at the beginning of the first two games, which doesn't mean much unless they are so stable throughout the game.
After another two minutes of play, Zhang Zhiyuan got his second foul.
Dunleavy could no longer remain calm and yelled at the referee, earning a technical foul.
"The home whistle is too obvious, how can we call it?"
Sun Zhengping said with emotion.
Although everyone guessed before the game that the Magic would have a home buzzer, this was too outrageous. Zhang Zhiyuan committed two fouls after only three minutes of play.
At this rate, he won't be able to finish a quarter and will have to leave the game with six fouls.
After two fouls, Zhang Zhiyuan did not take a rest.
The Clippers cannot lack him. Without him, the Clippers will not be a match for the Magic.
Zhang Zhiyuan was more careful with his movements, which reduced his threat.
It just so happened that the Magic were in excellent form in the first quarter. The Magic led the Clippers by a full 9 points in the first quarter.
Of course, for the Clippers, being behind by 9 points is not a big deal.
Their real trouble is that Zhang Zhiyuan committed too many fouls.
Sure enough, in the second quarter, Zhang Zhiyuan knocked down Pietrus during a breakthrough and was called for an offensive foul.
Dunleavy protested, saying it was a blocking foul.
The referee did not change the decision, but Dunleavy refused to give up and continued to protest.
He went all out, forcing the referee to eject him, and then made the matter bigger.
Only by making the matter bigger and gaining enough attention will the referee not dare to act so recklessly in the next game.
As for this game, Dunleavy has chosen to give up.
It's best to win, it doesn't matter if you lose, the Clippers still have the advantage anyway.
Of course, the referee didn't want to blow the opponent's coach so early, but Dunleavy went even further and even interfered with the normal game.
The referee had no choice but to give Dunleavy a second technical foul and eject him directly.
Fortunately, this is the home court of the Magic. If the audience at the scene were Clippers fans, someone might have thrown drinks bottles.
It's really too much. You can have home whistles, but you can't be so partial.
Dunleavy was expelled and the assistant coach was replaced.
He took Zhang Zhiyuan off to rest. After all, he had committed three offenses.
By the time Zhang Zhiyuan came on the court again, the Clippers were already 16 points behind.
Subsequently, the scale of penalties on the court became much more normal, because the Magic had a huge advantage and there was no need to continue to take sides.
Although the scale was normal, the Clippers failed to counterattack.
On the one hand, the Magic team has high morale and is in good shape.
On the other hand, the Clippers players were timid, unable to use their hands and feet, and failed to exert their full strength.
After the first three quarters, the Clippers were still 17 points behind.
Zhang Zhiyuan hesitated and did not use the props.
If we win, the impact of this matter will probably be relatively small and it will not be able to arouse the anger of fans to the greatest extent.
Only if they lose will the fans be angry and then attack the league and put pressure on the league.
Besides, it doesn’t matter if you lose a game, you can still make some money by playing one more home game.
It can only be said that the Magic are too stupid. Even if they don't use their home court advantage, Zhang Zhiyuan might give up a game and earn more tickets.
Unfortunately, the Magic were too impulsive.
In the last quarter, Zhang Zhiyuan played normally for a few minutes, and then all the Clippers' main players were replaced and gave up the game.
In the end, the Magic won the game.
99 to 118, the Magic won by 19 points.
99 points in a single game is very abnormal for the Clippers. They have only scored less than 100 points in two games throughout the season.
And now, in such an important game as the finals, their score has not exceeded 100.
This scoring data is hilarious.
In the post-match interview, Dunleavy was full of fire, directly criticizing the referee for interfering with the game, and doubting whether the referee was involved in gambling.
This attitude was very firm. At other times, Dunleavy might have been more subtle and questioned the scale of the penalty.
And now, he simply questioned whether the referee violated the law or committed a crime.
What he said was tantamount to not giving any face to the alliance, directly offending the alliance and damaging the image of the alliance.
No wonder Dunleavy is so excited and single.
In such a great situation, if he loses the championship due to the referee's intervention, he would not be able to accept it at all.
After the game, not many people paid attention to the outcome of the game. What everyone focused on was whether the referee broke the law and whether he received any benefits.
The matter got too big and the Alliance had to step in.
First, they fined Dunleavy $50,000 for inappropriate remarks.
Subsequently, the league launched an investigation into the referee involved.
The result is unknown for now, but he will definitely not be able to enforce the law in the next game.
At the same time, this can also be regarded as a warning to other referees.
The league's actions have somewhat calmed the fans' anger, but this is only temporary.
If the Clippers lose the championship because of this, Clippers fans will definitely not give up.
However, the league has never thought about hacking Zhang Zhiyuan's championship this season. The difficulty is too high.
Xiao Hua's original intention was just to let the referees add some difficulty to the Clippers and make the game more suspenseful.
It turned out that the referee had poor understanding and was too harsh.
At this moment, Xiao Hua was also angry.
He has experienced what it feels like to meet a pig teammate.
So far, he can only arrange for a few highly respected referees to enforce the law fairly in an attempt to restore his image.
On June 7th, the fourth game of the finals begins.
Because of the refereeing controversy, the attention of this game has increased a lot.
Of course, this is not a good thing for the league, and their image has suffered a lot.
"I hope the penalties in this game can be normal."
Sun Zhengping said.
"It should be so. The Alliance's vision is not so short-sighted."
Zhang Lili analyzed.
How much benefit will it bring to the league to force the championship to the Magic? Even if they play three more games, the league will earn an extra one to two hundred million at most.
This amount of money is nothing compared to the league's image.
The game begins.
The Clippers are their regular season starters, and so are the Magic.
Howard won the jump ball and the Magic took the lead.
The old tactic, Howard attracts defense to the basket, and outside players look for opportunities to shoot three-pointers.
The Clippers knew they were going to play like this, but there was nothing they could do.
But Dunleavy doesn't care, the Clippers' offense is more efficient than the Magic anyway.
Lewis took the shot and hit.
The Magic maintained their good start.
The Clippers counterattacked, Zhang Zhiyuan passed the ball to Lowry, but Lowry missed the jumper.
After the Magic got back a game, their morale was much higher, and they even fantasized about a comeback.
Although this is very difficult, no one dares to say that it is definitely hopeless.
The Magic counterattacked and Turkoglu hit a jumper.
It was another 5-0 start, and the fans cheered loudly.
Even though most fans are questioning the penalty in the previous game, they insist that there is nothing wrong with the penalty.
They even listed a lot of evidence to refute other fans.
For example, Zhang Zhiyuan was only called for 4 fouls in the end. Is this a lot? Not much at all. Howard also had four fouls. In fact, Howard even left the game with 6 fouls in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Furthermore, the overall number of fouls committed by both teams is similar, with the Clippers not much higher than the Magic.
For those who have not watched the game, at first glance at this data, they really think that the game is fair.
In fact, Zhang Zhiyuan didn't commit many fouls in the end. That's because the Clippers collapsed later and the referee didn't need to call anymore. If the Clippers had tried to get more energy to make the game more anxious, Zhang Zhiyuan would have been called off.
Another point is that Zhang Zhiyuan usually has few fouls, but four fouls is very abnormal.
However, these are all ignored by Magic fans. The butt determines the head. Once you have a position, it is impossible to be fair.
The Clippers attacked, and Zhang Zhiyuan broke through and scored two points steadily.
Although there was a confrontation with Lewis, the referee did not call it a blow.
The Chinese fans breathed a sigh of relief. It doesn't matter if the team is temporarily behind, as long as the referee doesn't mess around.
Everyone is absolutely assured of Zhang Zhiyuan's strength.
The Magic attacked and Howard scored.
After several rounds of both sides, the Magic still took the lead, and they played very efficiently.
The referees didn't favor the Magic too much, but Clippers fans didn't think so.
They feel that the Clippers should take the lead because they are stronger, but now that they are lagging behind, they are naturally being treated unfairly.
It's a good thing they weren't there, otherwise the alliance would have lost face just by booing.
After the first quarter, the Magic led by 4 points.
At the end of the first half, the Magic led by 11 points.
Faced with this situation, Xiao Hua was dumbfounded.
In order to minimize the major issue and eliminate the impact, he hoped in his heart that the Clippers would win this game and calm the anger of the fans.
Therefore, he ordered the referee to enforce the law fairly.
What I never expected was that all members of the Magic team broke out and performed wonderfully.
Xiao Hua immediately regretted it. If he had known that the Magic team had this ability, why would he have intervened blindly? This time, he really suffered a loss.
If the Magic continue to win this game, then the league really can't explain it, let alone they haven't yet.
However, now that the matter has come to this, Xiao Hua has no choice but to make the referee favor the Clippers again.
In that case, the home fans would be unhappy again.
Fair law enforcement is often dissatisfied by the home fans. If it continues to favor the visiting team, the home fans may have to throw things.
If something like that really happens, it will be another big blow to the image of the alliance.
"You should be more angry, you're not usually very powerful."
Xiao Hua complained about Zhang Zhiyuan and prayed for the Clippers to win.
At the same time, Zhang Zhiyuan was also hesitating whether to cheat or not.
If he didn't cheat, the Clippers would have had a chance to win this game. He really didn't believe that the Magic could maintain their previous excellent state in the second half.
However, he is not afraid of ten thousand, but afraid of the eventuality. If they lose this game again, he will have to play two more games.
But he wanted to take a vacation early.
Considering this, Zhang Zhiyuan finally chose to cheat.
Anyway, with his current strength, those hatred points wouldn't be of much use.
Unless it's the World Championships, Olympics, or finals, he doesn't need props for other less important games.
The second half is about to begin, and Dunleavy is arranging his play.
He is very anxious.
What was originally a huge 2-0 advantage was about to become 2-2.
He is not Zhang Zhiyuan, and he does not have that kind of confidence. 2 to 2 is enough to make him nervous and panicked.
Therefore, he was more devoted than usual in arranging tactics.
"No need to say any more Mike, just leave the ball to me. I want to take a vacation early. They are finished."
Zhang Zhiyuan interrupted Dunleavy, but Dunleavy showed no sign of being angry.
Zhang Zhiyuan's statement made him instantly relieved a hundred times.
He didn't know why, but when he saw Zhang Zhiyuan's attitude, he knew that the Clippers would win this game, absolutely, definitely, without a doubt.
"Did you hear that? Give the ball to Zhang."
Dunleavy said, and everyone suppressed their laughter. After all, Dunleavy is the coach. Others can laugh and ridicule, but they absolutely cannot.
