With 5 minutes and 57 seconds left in the second quarter, the Lakers came back on the court on the 29th. At this time, the Lakers were already trailing by 19 points, 30-49, which was quite miserable. With the cheers of the AT&T Center Arena
and boos, the morale of the Purple and Gold Army is low.
This is the difference between a pseudo-strong team and a truly strong team. Sometimes a team that has won 50+ or even 60+ games in the regular season will be revealed as soon as it enters the playoffs and will be harvested easily. The most important point is,
There is a huge flaw in the team's overall resilience and will. Take the Spurs as an example. No matter where it is, at what stage it is, leading or lagging, there will generally be no collapse or even collapse. Even if it happens.
It only happened a few times occasionally, and the frequency was relatively "short".
And they were behind by more than ten points, and there was still not much sense of decadence on their faces.
The situation is different for a pseudo-strong team. When it reaches the real intensity of the playoffs, it is easy to collapse inexplicably, collapse inexplicably, and be taken away by a "wave". What's more, the Lakers are not even at the level of a pseudo-strong team.
, at most it is a second-rate team or a third-rate team.
It’s really not an exaggeration. Without Kobe, Nash, and Ci Shiping, there is internal chaos and low morale. Most of the team members are “self-satisfied” and “lack of fighting spirit.” Under such circumstances, it would be unfair to say that it is a second-rate team.
It was vaguely promoted. Looking at the combat power of the original time and space, after all, there were two big inside stars, Gasol and Howard, but they were swept cleanly in 4 games, 79-91, 91-102, 89-120, 103 respectively.
The total net loss of -82 was 75 points, and the average net loss was 18.15. The game ended in a disastrous defeat. What's the concept? Almost every game was a big win of close to 20 points, and almost every game entered garbage time.
So good times are fine, but if there is a little bit of adverse trend, the bubble will collapse in an instant, and the flocculation will fly, and it will return to its original shape.
The current lineup of the Lakers is unimaginably weak in will. With the fall of No. 24, it is understandable to say that they are the worst among the 16 playoff teams in the league. After all, the Spurs entered the finals this year.
It would be a big joke if a team of ours was killed in just a few clicks.
Do you really think entering the finals is so easy?
Any team that can reach the finals every year is strong and should not be underestimated.
In the first two games, the Spurs somewhat underestimated their opponents, so the Lakers took advantage of the opportunity. Now they returned to the home court and prepared a little, and immediately showed the true strength of the Holy City. With tacit cooperation and smooth offense,
With a near-perfect defensive rotation, the Los Angeles Lakers were suddenly dried out and turned into "dried fish."
Tang Qian is very powerful when he activates "Demigod", but unfortunately, "Demigod" only focuses on defense and rebounding. As for offense, he can't do much. Besides, in this game, "Inner Demon" weakened 15% of his abilities.
In the competitive state, it is even more difficult to attack. If Steve Nash was still there, there might be some way. Now, on the offensive end, Tang Qian can only stare.
But who said that offense is necessary for the Lakers to improve? Do you really think that your "demigod" is in vain?
Tang Qian also became completely serious, he wanted to use the full power of "demigod descending to earth".
The Lakers missed an outside shot, Tang Qian grabbed the offensive rebound, and then continued to shoot again. If he missed again, he would grab it again!
Brush~
Finally Duhong scored a three-pointer.
33-49, the Lakers are still 16 points behind their opponents.
When the Spurs attacked, they still used the pick-and-roll. Leonard slipped and shot, and the basketball... was slapped by Lakers No. 29!
Then Gasol scored a 2-point goal on the offensive end, 35-49.
Duncan of the Spurs took a low shot and was interfered by Tang Qian who was assisting him on defense. Then he slipped out of the basket and the Lakers got the rebound.
Meeks missed a three-pointer. In fact, his opponent was Danny Green. This is an absolutely first-class 3D player. He is very defensive. Moreover, he is taller than Meeks and has a wingspan.
He is also longer than Meeks. As long as he doesn't take fake moves, it is difficult for Meeks to successfully attack. Moreover, Meeks basically has no ability to combine sudden shots and only needs to strangle the outside shot.
Popovich only assigned one task to Danny Green in this game, which was to keep an eye on the Lakers' No. 20, Yody Meeks. He couldn't let the latter appear in the first two games with "big shots".
situation. This is a very smart approach. The Lakers currently lack a stable 3-point fort. After Nashkobe Ci Shiping was injured one after another, they are even more stretched. Although Darius Morris is young, he really does not have an outside basket.
He is extremely unstable beyond the 3-point line and cannot be trusted. Chris Duhon needs a wide open space to shoot, and with the fierce competition in the playoffs, he has very few opportunities to shoot. He is currently averaging 36.4% of his shots in the series.
The shooting percentage is unreliable no matter how you look at it. Jamison is an outside shooting point that does not require too many open spaces, but since the disagreement with No. 29, he has become more and more chaotic, making Mike D'Antoni almost angry.
Press it on the bench.
So now the most reliable outside shooter for the Lakers is Jordy Meeks. He has a certain ability to shoot hard, and his open shots are also accurate. In the first two games, he averaged more than 20 points per game.
prove.
However, he is only a role player after all. Once he is targeted or deliberately taken care of, his firepower will immediately drop, that is, his combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced. And his extremely poor breakthrough ability also prevents Meeks from breaking through Danny Green's defense.
So far in this game, only 3 points have been scored, which is the best evidence.
The data of 1-for-7 shooting is really hard to come by. It was completely different from his performance in the first two games at home.
But he is just a person with an annual salary of 1.5 million US dollars, what else do you want? To have two extraordinary performances, the Lakers have made a lot of money.
At this time, Tang Qian took the initiative to stand up and relied on his terrifying rebounding ability to once again squeeze out his opponent and get the offensive rebound. Then he made a second attack under the basket, hoping to catch the San Antonio people off guard. Unfortunately this time
Different from the previous two games, Tim Duncan's competitive state has improved a lot, so a big block was slapped on Tang Qian's basketball.
Damn it! His shot was blocked! Does this old guy still have such quick reactions?
Tang Qian didn't know that in the gradually escalating confrontation, the Spurs' No. 21 broke out quietly, which made the Lakers' interior offense floundering. Until now, the whole game has not made a few inside shots.
Goal.
Including Tang Qian's shots this time, they were all blocked by Duncan. So even though No. 21 is two years older than Kobe, his average of 2.7+ blocks per game in the regular season is not fake. After the outbreak, his ability is not bad. At least against the average.
The Lakers No. 29, with 4.9 points and a weakened "Inner Demon", has no problem at all.
However, the Spurs failed to score. Danny Green's three-pointer was too powerful and hit the neck of the basket hard.
Tang Qian jumped high and protected the defensive rebound, and then the Lakers got another opportunity to attack.
To be on the safe side, Duhong allowed Gasol to attack inside. Gasol played in singles inside, but failed. His shooting touch tonight was really bad. It was the worst shot in the entire series.
It was a game. But...the rebound was once again obtained by the Lakers on the 29th, and then the basket was strong. Tim Duncan made a timely defense and almost blocked the former's ball.
The basketball failed to score and the Spurs got the rebound.
It can be seen that now we have entered a tug-of-war period, and both sides are fighting to see who can't hold on first and be broken.
"Boy Dongfang, your rebounding is really domineering, but attacking inside, hey, that's another thing." Although Duncan looked dull, he was definitely not the kind of person who didn't talk trash. Kobe once blew himself up.
Dao, often exchanged trash talk with the Spurs No. 21. Therefore, "people should not be judged by their appearance." As a master of psychology, Duncan's trash talk skills are definitely up to par.
Tang Qian knew that this was Duncan's trash talk, so he said to him: "Are your rebounding skills not as good as the rumors say? Is it because you are old that you are no longer useful?" When Duncan heard this, he still had a dull face.
Said: "Hey, Dongfang boy, who do you think is in the lead now? As laggards, shouldn't you be in awe of the leaders?"
"It won't be anymore soon!" Tang Qian said and threw himself into a new round of offense. However, the Spurs' overall defense was so tacit and powerful that the Lakers had no good way to score points. Until
At the end of the second quarter, the Lakers only raised the score to 38 points, but the Spurs were not much better. They only scored 2 points in five minutes, 38-51.
The Lakers trailed by 13 points entering the second half.
In the locker room, Mike D'Antoni constantly emphasized the need to be more decisive and confident in offense. Unfortunately, his authority with the Lakers is really limited, and he lacks the support of an excellent No. 1 position. The Lakers have not implemented his "run and gun" at all.
"Tactics". Expecting Duhong to achieve "7 seconds or less" is simply more difficult than meeting aliens.
What kind of basketball are the Lakers playing now?
"Amateur basketball", "talented basketball" and "instinct basketball" all rely on years of basketball experience to play. You can talk about tactics and coordination, but they are the most basic and simple. In other words, amateur players
All the tactics and coordination are done.
Relying on this kind of cooperation and tactics, the Lakers can equalize the series score. From the outside, it is a miracle in itself. It’s just that a “miracle” is just a “miracle” after all. Problems with hard power will not
There have been significant changes.
Without Kobe Nash Metta World Peace, the Lakers' stable scoring points suddenly dropped by nearly 52 points. See clearly, this is a full 52 points! Not 15 points or 25 points! Why do the outside world think the Lakers are in the playoffs?
The game is just a spectator, and there is a direct relationship with the lack of scoring points.
If the Lakers could score 52 more points stably, then maybe the situation would be completely different.
At least the scoring won't be as ugly as it is now.
The Lakers' current perimeter defense is poor and their scoring ability is extremely lacking. Compared with the regular season, they are actually more vulnerable on paper. Therefore, it is almost impossible to win the series.
The authoritative American media, led by ESPN, are not completely making things up. The data they quoted does make some sense.
At the beginning of the third quarter, although Tang Qian fought hard on the defensive and rebounding ends and had a great advantage, basketball is ultimately owned by five people. No matter how good your interior defense is, if you can't score, it's all in vain. They all say "offense"
"Buy tickets, defend to win", but you also need to score points. Complete defense, even at an abnormal level, will not win the ball.
Basketball is essentially a competitive sport that involves scoring points.
Halfway through the third quarter, Tang Qian scored 3 points, 17 rebounds, 6 blocks and 2 assists. Still, he could not stop the Lakers' decline. Gradually, gradually, the score gap was widened by the San Antonio people.
. This was really an annoying and helpless scene. When the score reached 42-58, the 16-point score difference forced the Lakers into a timeout again.
You say how good the Spurs score and how high their shooting percentage is, it’s not necessarily true. They only scored 7 points in half a quarter. This is already a very poor shooting percentage. But it is even worse if they can’t hold up the Lakers’ offense.
It's even worse.
In more than 6 minutes, only 4 points were recorded, which is extremely ugly.
On the one hand, this shows that both sides have strong defenses. On the other hand, it also shows that the Lakers have too few stable offensive points.
Just relying on Gasol will not last long.
And tonight, he was not in good condition and felt bad.
Even though Popovich is not satisfied with the Spurs' offensive efficiency, he still quite approves of the defensive efficiency. Anyway, it's okay to have a defensive battle and win in the end. The Spurs can be better offensively than the Lakers, even if they are better.
Limited, but enough.
After winning Tianwang Mountain, Popovich concluded that the Los Angeles Lakers' "stragglers" would definitely be demoralized or even collapse, and then they could easily win the next game. Although it took a little more effort than expected, 6
Solving the problem on the spot is not a bad ending. You can still have 2 to 3 extra days of rest to recover your physical strength.
At the AT&T Center, the sounds of "must win" and "advance" slowly rang out. It could be seen that the Spurs fans at the scene were also full of confidence in the home team's victory over Tianwang Mountain.
Because fans who have watched the game for a little while know that in a defensive battle, a 16-point advantage is equivalent to declaring victory in advance.
In the live broadcast room of ESPN 2, Jay Williams and Jerry Lucas were discussing the game situation and said:
"The Lakers are basically done. The 16-point score difference, in the defensive battle, is equivalent to determining the outcome in advance."
"Yes, the Spurs are still the third seed in the league after all. Coupled with the team structure that has long been mature and tacit understanding, it is only a matter of time before they want to defeat Los Angeles, which is fighting on its own and approaching disorganization." Jerry Lucas
Said: "Facts have proved that the outbreak of a small person is only temporary. If you want to completely overturn the situation, you still think too much."
"If the Lakers still have No. 24, there might be a glimmer of hope, but right now...99% of it is a dead end."
"The Purple Gold Army has failed in its battle for Tianwang Mountain!"
Including many on-site reporters, they were brewing the first draft in their minds. Congratulations to the people of San Antonio for capturing Tianwang Mountain.
There was silence in the Lakers bench area. Some people didn't speak because they were in a low mood, some didn't speak because they "should have done it a long time ago", and some didn't speak because they "felt secretly happy". In short, the atmosphere of the Lakers team is now depressing, and there is no one.
A person's face is still burning with hope.
Once again, the mentality of "I tried my best, and it's enough just to get here" appeared. This is also the point where Mike D'Antoni feels most powerless.
The players have given up. What else can I do as a head coach who is "yelling" from the sidelines?
In a basketball game, the players are still on the court.
But just before Mike D'Antoni was about to speak, someone took the lead and said, "Is this your courage? Is this your will? Well, even so." No. 29 suddenly stood up from his seat.
He said loudly: "Just follow me, because..."
"I will lead the Lakers to win the top of Tianwang Mountain!"
As soon as the words fell to the ground, the Lakers bench fell into silence again, but unlike the previous time, this time they were surprised and shocked.
He... still has such great confidence in winning? Such great desire to win?
He...is really fake!
Everyone in the Zijin Army unanimously said in their hearts at the same time.
PS: Thank you Cam Angby for the big reward~ Xiao Zi is not feeling well during this period, but she will adjust soon~ In these two days, I will definitely give more to Hong Fen for the big reward~ I will never break my promise