Chapter 371: Dead Taoist Friends Don’t Die Poor Taoist
In fact, Nowitzki's mentality was much better against the Golden State Warriors, but without two generals, Shawn Marion and Tyson Chandler, the Mavericks' tactical system has long been incomplete.
Moreover, Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis played at home and broke out again. The two scored 63 points in this game.
The Mavericks' four-game losing streak and the Knicks' four-game losing streak made both teams pay a heavy price for on-court brawls.
The Knicks had hoped to challenge the Bulls' 72-win season this season, but unfortunately, these four consecutive losses have completely given up any hope for the Knicks.
On March 21, this was the last game of Lian Dao's suspension. It was also the strongest team among the opponents that the Knicks faced during Lian Dao's six-game suspension: the Boston Celtics!
Lian Dao went to Madison Square Garden with $500 for this game. This was the first time Lian Dao came to watch his team's game at home since his suspension.
Before the game started, reporters at the scene also interviewed Lian Dao.
Lian Dao also said: "No matter who leads the team, it is impossible to win forever. It is normal for the game to be lost and won. I don't think we have any problem. In competitive sports, there will never be one hundred percent success.
Victory, even if I am here, the result will not change much. Of course, if we can win, we can also afford to lose!"
In this game, Lian Dao was purely a spectator. He had an internal Knicks ticket and sat in the seat behind the Knicks bench.
It can be said that this is one of the best seats in the game, especially since Knicks tickets are hard to come by this season.
Although what Lian Dao said during the interview was very official, this was the best answer.
No matter where he is, there will be people and sophistication. Why do so many players want to cooperate with James in later generations? In addition to his strength, James has one thing that some black players do not have. James is a good person.
James' reputation among players is basically the best. This is because he is tactful enough in dealing with people and has a high enough emotional intelligence.
Although Lian Dao hates this kind of tact in his heart, high emotional intelligence can sometimes bring twice the result with half the effort.
When he is interviewed by the media, he can never say: "Yes, my teammates are rubbish. They are rubbish. Without me, they can't even beat the Pistons!" If he says that, then he really has a brain problem.
Although the Celtics have suffered from constant injuries this season, their current record is still very good. So far they have won 49 wins and 19 losses, and are currently ranked second in the Eastern Conference.
Just yesterday the Celtics defeated the visiting New Orleans Hornets at home.
So this game is a back-to-back away game for the Celtics, and the form is not very good; but it is a good opportunity for the Knicks.
One is waiting for work, and the other is tired. No matter how you look at it, the Knicks have a great chance of winning this game.
Even Knicks fans are more optimistic about the Knicks ending their losing streak.
In fact, Lian Dao's coming to watch the game was not very helpful to the team, especially when the Knicks only won 1 game in 5 games.
Lian Dao's arrival will even put some invisible pressure on his teammates. After all, as soon as Lian Dao was suspended, they started to cheat. Those who didn't know better thought they were playing Lian Dao. Knicks players really didn't want to be embarrassed.
To cheap rice.
Although they let themselves go on the defensive end in the past few games, at least they played smoothly on the offensive end. However, Lian Dao came to watch the game today, which will put a lot of pressure on them, which will affect the players on the field.
It's possible that playing out isn't a good thing.
Of course Lian Dao knows that it will put pressure on the players, but he is the boss of the team, suspended for six games, and does not go to watch any game. What does this mean?
Even some unscrupulous media will directly take the lead, saying that he has no leadership temperament, does not have leadership skills, does not care about the team's record, and may even blame the reason for the loss on himself.
This is a routine operation of the media, and Lian Dao has to take this into account.
Lian Dao came with the idea that a dead Taoist friend is not a poor Taoist. Anyway, Xiaosi and the others have already received the infamy from the media, so it doesn't matter if they do it a few more times.
At the same time, we should take advantage of this game to exercise the Knicks' overall ability to withstand pressure.
The starting lineup sent by the Knicks is: Holiday, Tony Allen, Gallinari, Stoudemire, Cousins.
The Celtics' starting lineup has also changed. The center position has been replaced by Nenad Krstic, who was traded from the Thunder with Perkins. There are no changes in other positions. Point guard Rondo,
Shooting guard Ray Allen, small forward Paul Pierce, power forward Garnett.
Although Nenad Krstic is not very good, fortunately he is healthy at the moment, and as a regular season player, he is actually in the best shape.
As for the playoffs, unless the Celtics are crazy, there is absolutely no way they will let Nenad Krstic start.
Nenad Krstic is a technical inside player. In layman's terms, defensive confrontation is very difficult. In addition, Nenad Krstic suffered a ligament tear in 2006, which caused a serious decline in his athletic ability, and even more so after that.
Constantly suffering from injuries, it can be said that Nenad Krstic's upper limit is very low.
Moreover, the Celtics' main purpose in trading Perkins was Jeff Green, an all-around forward who was one of the Thunder's three young players in the early days.
However, the Celtics have Garnett, and Jeff Green can only serve as a substitute.
In the first quarter of the game, without Lian Dao's strict defense, Pierce showed off his skills in front of Lian Dao. Facing Gallinari in the first quarter, Pierce scored 12 points and 1 rebound.
However, Pierce made a lonely score. After the first quarter, the Celtics trailed the Knicks by 3 points at 22:25.
The Knicks did a very good job on the defensive end in the first quarter. Except for Gallinari who failed to restrict Paul Pierce, the other Celtics players were well restricted, especially Stoudemire's performance against Garnett.
Extremely tough.
It may be that Lian Dao was at the scene because all the Knicks players wanted to prove that they were not useless.
Stoudemire and the others did exactly that in the first quarter. Stoudemire scored 9 points and 4 rebounds in the first quarter. At the same time, Garnett, whom he guarded, only scored 2 points and 4 rebounds.
In addition, Cousins scored 7 points and 3 rebounds. Nenad Krstic faced Cousins and once again proved that his confrontation ability is really not that good.
In the first quarter of the game, the camera frequently showed Lian Dao, especially when Pierce was blocking Gallinari's goal, the camera always unconsciously pulled towards Lian Dao.
Lian Dao suspected that the technical staff of Madison Square Garden had infiltrated the Celtics' moles. Good guy, would you like to see the home team's jokes?
Lian Dao was expressionless about this. He was neither smiling nor angry. He could only watch the game calmly. However, when Stoudemire and Cousins scored, Lian Dao would still stand up and cheer loudly.
Teammates applauded.
In the second quarter, the Knicks pursued the victory, especially Cousins, who exploded in the second quarter, leading the bench to score 10 points and 3 rebounds.
Not only that, the Knicks once again strengthened their defense in the second quarter and caught the Celtics off guard.
D'Antoni, a head coach who doesn't like defense very much, had to repeatedly emphasize defense in this game under the pressure of the media and fans. The performance of Tony Allen, Holiday and Danny Green also failed.
Disappoint D'Antoni.
Under their restrictions, the Celtics' outsiders Ray Allen and Paul Pierce misfired one after another. The Celtics once again put the offensive pressure on Garnett. After all, Garnett was not the Wolf King in his youth. Although he continued to
He moved around in the paint, but the effect was not very good.
In the second quarter, the two sides scored 15:26, and the Knicks beat the Celtics by 11 points in a single quarter.
At the end of the half, the score reached 37:51.
The Knicks led the Celtics by 14 points at halftime.
Although the Knicks firmly held the initiative in the first half, Lian Dao was not very happy. Of course, it was not because "winning is not terrible, and whoever is not there will be embarrassed!"
However, Lian Dao knew that the reason why the Celtics' offensive efficiency was low in the first half was that, in addition to D'Antoni starting to pay attention to defense, another reason was that the Celtics were playing back-to-back away games and they were gradually recovering in the first half.