"Baron Davis, Mike Dunleavy and even Monta Ellis are all breaking out, but we only have Lin and Tony's defense still on the line. How should we play in the next game?"
In the locker room at halftime, the Celtics' coaching staff gathered in the corner, and Doc Rivers asked the assistants in front of him.
"Change to Tony and block the flanks with Lin, right?"
"What about the offense?"
"Can't we just let Tony play point guard?"
"Delonte has outside shooting, Tony does not. Although Lin has a certain three-point ability, it is only a long-range three-point shot when he is completely open. Without Delonte, we would have no outside firepower."
This is the problem with the Celtics now. On the one hand, their defense is terrible. Fortunately, Lin Yu’s explosion, coupled with the original Tony Allen, the Celtics’ wing defense is still online, which makes up for it to a certain extent.
Solve the problem of poor internal assistance and defense.
On the other hand, they lack peripheral firepower. The team's most reliable three-point shooter is actually the 6-foot-11 Reeve LaFrentz. LaFrentz cannot play for a long time because of his defense.
Delonte West, who averages 1.2 three-pointers per game, has become extremely important.
Three-pointers and defense are the Celtics' biggest problems. With Lin Yu's explosion, they have only temporarily solved these two problems.
In this game against the Warriors, after Lin Yu was pinned down by one of his opponent's singles players, the rest of the defense was like a bubble that was suddenly burst, leaving only air.
After Doc Rivers rejected the first suggestion from the coaching staff, everything fell silent in this small corner.
Lex Kalamian hesitated and spoke: "Doug, how about letting Lin become a free agent on the defensive end?"
"A free man on the defensive end? His help defense is not very good?"
Seeing Rivers shaking his head, Kalamian immediately added: "No, Doug, that's not what I meant. What I meant was that Lin always only defends the ball. In other words, if the opponent is holding the ball, Byron
-Davis, then Lin will defend Baron Davis, and if the opponent has the ball with Mike Dunleavy, then he will defend Mike Dunleavy."
"What if the opponent passes the ball? If another single player plays in singles, Lin will not be able to catch up."
"Then there is no other way. My solution is to maximize the use of Lin's defense and let him always face the opponent's ball carrier. If the opponent passes the ball, we can only play like the first half."
Doc Rivers fell into thinking, and after a moment, he decided: "Then let's adjust according to Lex's method first. If it doesn't work, we will have to go to Tony."
The Celtics made adjustments and Lin Yu continued to play in the second half.
The Warriors entered a half-main and half-substitute lineup, with Baron Davis and Monta Ellis in the backcourt, Mike Dunleave and Troy Murphy at the forward, and Andris Bedlin at the center.
S.
At the beginning, the Warriors had the ball, and the bearded Davis was holding the ball.
Lin Yu rushed forward and faced the bearded man directly.
Bearded Davis was deeply impressed by Lin Yu. In the first half, it was Lin Yu's defense that prevented Jason Richardson from making 3 of 9 shots. The offensive efficiency was very poor.
Now, Lin Yu came to guard him, and he immediately became serious.
In singles in the first half, he always broke through directly without observing the defense. In the first round of singles in the second half, Baron Davis first took a look at the help and supplementary defense behind Lin Yu.
Perkins is far away in the penalty area, and other players are spreading around. This is a very pure one-on-one defense.
Lin Yu in front of him also showed his seriousness, his eyes fixed on the basketball in the bearded hand.
The bearded man has no redundant movements. His singles play has always been straightforward. He either breaks through directly or shoots directly. He just relies on his body to crush his opponent.
The bearded man stepped out with his right foot, accelerated, swept his left arm, and rushed in directly against Lin Yu.
With his eyes fixed on the basketball, Lin Yu felt a strong force coming from him, and then he was pushed to the side. He wanted to fall down directly, and he estimated that the referee would call him an offensive foul.
But if you think about it more carefully, because of the star whistle, the referee is more likely to call him a blocking foul.
Lin Yu managed to keep him from falling, and pressed the bearded man tightly from the side. He once again played his best defense.
"Help in defense, help in defense!"
Lin Yu didn't give Big Beard any space to shoot. Seeing that he was about to run into Perkins' help, Big Beard could only stand on the spot.
Fortunately, the Warriors' offense has never been very structured. No one will have any objections to the bearded man's attack.
Standing still, Lin Yu turned around and pounced back, causing a solid disturbance.
With a bang, the basketball popped out of the frame.
"China Lin's tenacious defense prevented Baron Davis, who was in hot form, from scoring in the first half."
At the beginning of the second half, Lin Yu's defense made great achievements. Doc Rivers applauded with satisfaction. At least in the beginning, his adjustments worked.
The Celtics' offense, which maintained their offensive combination, was quickly defended by Pierce, and Reeve LaFrentz on the wing hit a long two-pointer.
The score difference was suddenly reduced to less than 10 points.
On the defensive end, the ball-handler was replaced by Monta Ellis. Ellis is this year's rookie with a strong offensive ability but very poor defense.
However, a player of Ellis's type just matched the Warriors' style, so Ellis was reused.
In another round of singles, Lin Yu clung to Monta Ellis who was holding the ball.
Monta Ellis's singles play was not so direct. He added a lot of fake moves to try to shake Lin Yu away, but what Lin Yu's defense was least afraid of was fake moves.
After dangling for a while, there was still no chance. Ellis made a pull-up from the outside and took action directly.
"The ball was played too casually. Monta Ellis actually shot it like that?!"
Lin Yu rushed out from the front, stretched out his right arm, and made another solid interference. With a bang, Monta Ellis's shot was also struck.
"After guarding Byron Davis and Monta Ellis, China Lin guarded the Warriors with two consecutive irons. On the defensive end, he made an All-Star level contribution!"
On the offensive end, Pierce made a breakthrough layup, further narrowing the point difference to 7 points.
It seemed that everything went smoothly after the adjustment. Lin Yu's infinite defense changes seemed to have worked, but then the Warriors' offense began to avoid Lin Yu.
Baron Davis controlled the ball into the frontcourt and faced Lin Yu's defense.
Then, he passed the ball to Mike Dunleavy who came out from the other side, and then Mike Dunleavy started to play singles. Lin Yu could only guard in front of the bearded man without the ball.
Facing Mike Dunleavy's single, Pierce tried his best to defend, but Dunleavy still broke the defense with a precise mid-range shot.
"The Warriors scored again. They learned well and avoided China Lin's defense, and scoring became easy."
There were constant boos in the North Shore Garden Arena. This game was filled with all kinds of singles on both sides. The game was so fragmented that it was not enjoyable to watch at all.
The Celtics were lagging behind again, and the fans in the arena were naturally dissatisfied.
After avoiding Lin Yu's defense, the Warriors fought back in singles, and the point difference, which had been reduced to 7 points, was maintained.
The game lasted until the last moment of the fourth quarter, during which Lin Yu went down to rest for half a quarter. After re-entering the game, the Celtics were still 6 points behind.
Time is running out, Doc Rivers can only call a timeout and find ways to adjust.
Rivers made a pause gesture towards the sidelines, and with a beep, the referee blew the whistle, timeout, and the main players on both sides left the field.
The coaching staff on the sidelines had already discussed it, and it was Lex Kalamian who gave the suggestion: "Doug, we can let Lin target one, and then use most of the defensive power to target the second, leaving no room for him.
When the third one comes out, we will let him play first, wait for him to develop his touch, and then let Lin defend him."
Rivers didn't want to weaken his offense by replacing Tony Allen, so he once again adopted Kalamian's suggestion.
"Lin, next you have to mark Baron Davis. Also, if Mike Dunleavy catches the ball, we will implement a flanking tactic against him to force him to be unable to score..."
The one-minute timeout passed in a flash, there was another beep, the referee blew the whistle again, and the game started again.
Lin Yu came on the stage and faced Baron Davis again.
The bearded man frowned. He knew that his game experience would not be very good next. Facing Lin Yu's defense, he still tried to play a single round.
He controlled the ball and walked to the right, then suddenly turned his back, advanced two steps, twisted away from the defense, stepped back, and shot directly.
Lin Yu also jumped up, stretched his right arm and directly pushed it against the bearded man's face, and slapped him head-on.
Of course, the shot was missed, but it forced the bearded man to lean back significantly to avoid Lin Yu's interference. The arc of the ball became abnormal from the moment it was released.
With a bang, the basketball hit the edge of the basket hard. After spinning around, it still fell down.
Pierce picked up the rebound and turned back to advance.
This was an opportunity for the Celtics to narrow the point difference. Pierce seemed to work very hard, but after rushing to the frontcourt, he was quickly surrounded by many people.
Forced into helplessness, Pierce could only pass the ball.
Delonte West received the ball, and the bearded Davis in the middle made up for it, but in the bottom corner, a large space was left in front of Lin Yu.
Lin Yu reached out for the ball, but Delonte West didn't seem to see it at all.
"Ball, give me the ball!"
Lin Yu could only shout twice before West reacted and passed the ball over.
But Lin Yu's best chance to take action was gone. Dunleavy's defense was already in place. Lin Yu hesitated for a moment and chose to take action.
"Facing the defensive three-pointer, the ball is gone!"
There was a bang, and the sound of heavy hammering was indeed heard.
"The moment Lin made the three-pointer in China, I knew the ball was going to be gone. There was no other reason. I had never seen Lin make a three-pointer against the defense..."
The rebound was grabbed by the Warriors, and the key opportunity to chase points was gone.
Returning to the defensive end, Baron Davis began to focus on passing the ball.
In the next game, Baron Davis never scored again, but his role was fully demonstrated because he contained Lin Yu's defense.
Then, other Warriors players erupted.
The game was controlled by the Warriors, and the score difference was not big, only about 5 points.
The Warriors relied on this 5-point difference to win this game.