Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters-Chapter 1012 - 585 Another Curse_2

Chapter 1012: Chapter 585 Another Curse_2 Chapter 1012: Chapter 585 Another Curse_2 The Clippers are down by 24 points at halftime.

Then, every second seemed like paying off debts for the mistakes made in the first half.

After battling fiercely for 48 minutes, they only managed to reduce the deficit to 14 points.

“What’s more desperate than Frye underperforming causing the Clippers to lose is, despite Frye playing well in every game, the Clippers see no hope of winning.”

Yu Fei refused to give up and was still searching for the Spurs’ weaknesses.

But all he found was that the Spurs’ interior defense seemed somewhat powerless when facing targeted tactics.

However, the problem was the Spurs’ shooting percentage was too high in these two games.

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With such a shooting rate, no matter how you target the opponent, it would be no help. The only solution would be to shoot more accurately than them. But the Clippers had ignited the audience’s passion with their dunks throughout the season. Their fondness for dunking indicated that they did not fully align with the mainstream style of the era.

The Clippers’ average three-point shooting percentage and number of hits were among the lowest in the league, and no one else was to blame.

Griffin didn’t attempt many three-pointers and had a mediocre shooting rate. Players like Pachulia and Brown don’t shoot threes at all. Hoyes joined the team midway through the season and only played as a substitute. They also needed to develop Antetokounmpo. Despite Antetokounmpo bringing a pleasant surprise in shooting, he couldn’t enhance his output in the short term.

The main outside firepower for the Clippers came from Yu Fei and Chauncey Billups.

Billups was more like a guide for Antetokounmpo, his role was like a pseudo-starter, so Yu Fei was the real explosive perimeter presence for the Clippers — this was quite the perverse alignment. Because the Greatest of All Time was always a beneficiary of the spacing system, he used to draw blood from the shooters to feed the entire offense, but now the roles reversed with Griffin and Antetokounmpo drawing blood from him to get space for their dunks.

But the line-up was so distorted, it couldn’t be changed this season, all Yu Fei could do was adjust his style of play.

The issues brought by the lineup hadn’t been exposed in front of teams like Houston Rockets and the imploding Warriors, but in face of a quintessential team-basketball entity like the Spurs, they were glaringly obvious.

Heading into the fifth game in Saint City, Rivers and Yu Fei had a discussion.

They both agreed that without changing the lineup, they had no chance of winning.

Ever since Rivers enjoyed let the Greatest of All Time play in the interior, whenever the situation got tough, he thought of using this tactic.

But could the Spurs’ interior be compared to the Warriors Team?

Yu Fei was concerned, “If I play in the interior, who will spread the floor on the perimeter?”

“Trust Paul Pierce.” Rivers said, “The truth will prevail.”

Well, he just purely loves the truth.

But Yu Fei admitted, they had to change formations, to make the Spurs uncomfortable with their pace, and moreover, they had to block Duncan from continuously scoring when he was full of energy.

Watching Duncan take from them like a father playing against his son was a major blow to the Clippers’ morale.

In essence, the move shifted the pressure that Griffin should have borne onto the Greatest of All Time.

What if the Greatest of All Time got destroyed by Duncan in the interior? This was something Rivers had not considered.

No, even Griffin himself hadn’t thought about what to do if the Greatest of All Time were to be destroyed.

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Griffin couldn’t stop Duncan, Yu Fei had stronger core strength, but the offensive logic of the Spurs’ number 21 wasn’t about overpowering his opponents with strength, it was just that Griffin’s lower body was too soft, making the opponent’s strength appear formidable.

Duncan’s strength still lay in the basic skills of the interior etched into his bones.

Yu Fei managed to hold his position, but Duncan had reached his hot zone, so holding off interference, he shot and still scored.

Being passively beaten was not the style of the Greatest of All Time.

He never thought of just stopping Duncan.

As long as Duncan scored on him, he vowed to retaliate even harder.

Yu Fei held the ball in the low post, instantly pivoted facing the basket, Duncan’s defense instantly collapsed, the interior dynamics began to change, and outside, Pierce seized the starting opportunity.

For a veteran like him, his nightly form was like rolling dice, tonight, Pierce rolled a six.

The game dragged into the second half, Duncan’s energy started to wane, he gradually couldn’t maintain his offense, forced to defend passively, and Pau Gasol also began failing to cover Griffin.

The wavering of their interior pillars caused the Spurs’ shooting rate to plummet. Yu Fei, like a rebound-obsessed madman in the defensive field, consecutively grabbed rebounds amidst the crowd, and then passed straight to Antetokounmpo. Following that, there was a dunk that made Spurs’ fans’ scalps tingle, as if a bizarre species starting beyond the three-point line.

“No matter what the issue is, Doug Rivers seems to always have one move—’We are helpless; let the Greatest of All Time play the interior, and then pray for a miracle!’ And somehow, that move works every time. Is this the advantage of coaching the Greatest of All Time?”

The fifth game was considered the Clippers’ “homecoming game”, and once again, Rivers turned the situation around by letting Yu Fei play in the interior.

This was undoubtedly a stroke of luck, but could this kind of luck last forever?

Tonight’s loss imposed a strong sense of urgency on the Spurs.

Because unlike the game in G2 where they relied purely on individual star abilities, the Clippers cleverly utilized the Greatest of All Time’s unrivaled all-around swingman advantage, placing him in the interior and wore out Duncan. After gaining an advantage under the basket in the second half, this advantage also reflected back to the perimeter.

This was a strategy that could be sustained. The Spurs must find a countermeasure by the sixth game. Otherwise, if the game were dragged into a seventh game, Popovich dreaded to imagine what kind of drive the “underdog Clippers pushing to the finals amidst global disbelief” would give to the Greatest of All Time.