Mountain Peak System: a Path to NBA-Chapter 406 - 136: 3 matches remain... (5,000-word Chapter, begging for subscriptions and monthly votes!) _2
At the scene, amidst the already rolling golden waves at Oracle Arena, the starting lineup for both teams was immediately announced after the introduction ceremony.
Knight: Big Z, Gooden, James, Xiaomo, Snow.
Warriors: Brown, Qin Yue, Ah Tai, Richardson, Davis.
The fact that many players can play is indeed the biggest characteristic of this Knight team.
During the previous Eastern Conference Finals, Brown used two different lineups each night to maneuver against the Pistons.
And before the Finals began, the only winning scenario Brown could envision was this: using the allowed physical confrontations and defensive scale of this year’s playoffs to lower the Warriors’ outside shooting percentage and maintaining this defense through frequent rotations, finally praying for James to lead his King’s Guard to repeatedly conquer the Warriors’ battlefield...
On the court, after the jump ball, the game officially started.
The Warriors’ first offensive possession.
Standing at the top of the key to break the Knight’s one-on-four defense, Qin Yue immediately penetrated the opposing team’s ironclad defense.
James, who was tasked with matching up against Qin Yue, defended diligently and seriously.
However, while trying to put pressure on Qin Yue, his over-aggressive attacking gave Qin Yue the chance to use his body size to block James slightly behind and to the side.
Then, Qin Yue took three big steps into the Knight restricted area and scored a reverse lay-up over Big Z.
Right at the start, Qin Yue’s unreasonable personal ball handling breakthrough left James frowning deeply.
This was not the vision James wanted.
Although James knew better than anyone how difficult it was to defend against Qin Yue, he thought he should have the advantage, at least on the outside.
After all, "Young James" is really fast.
Obviously, James still needed more time to figure out what kind of magic Qin Yue had used on him just now.
But on the side, Artest already saw through the strategy.
What a perfect timing choice to release the ball! 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
What a smooth flow of acceleration and rhythm in controlling the ball!
And that awe-inspiring body control during the finish!
Just one possession, and Artest confirmed that Qin Yue was in his best condition tonight.
Coming back, the Knight’s offensive possession.
The Warriors set up a 2-3 zone defense to respond.
The weakness of the 2-3 zone is in the corners.
When Qin Yue noticed that Snow and Xiaomo were the players positioned at the corners for the Knight, he immediately used his eyes to signal Brown, asking him to quickly move towards Xiaomo’s side.
At the top of the key, as the "king" word pattern appeared on James’ forehead, even through the screen, you could feel just how difficult it was for the Knight to break the zone defense.
Gooden and Big Z had already set at least three screens for James, but he still hadn’t initiated the attack while holding the ball.
CCTV, finally able to lean entirely towards Qin Yue and the Warriors in commentary after that grueling Western Conference Finals, Zhang Weiping said, "James is a bit too hesitant on this one!"
Hesitant?
From James’ perspective, since there were always players in the Warriors’ restricted area no matter which side, coupled with three players standing on both wings and the top of the key...
So how could he, always so cautious by nature, not hesitate?
About the time when the Knight had around 7 seconds left on their shot clock, James used a screen from Gooden to initiate an attack and showed his decisively side.
Soon after, Xiaomo, not entirely left open by the Warriors, received James’ pass from the drive.
Then...
Facing Brown’s massive figure, Xiaomo forced a fadeaway three from the corner.
Bang!
Warrior Forbidden Area, Qin Yue easily took the rebound and quickly launched a transition offense.
The previously high-positioned Big Z and Gooden, who were responsible for screening James, frantically retreated to the Knight restricted area.
Then, they saw...
Qin Yue suddenly stopped dribbling at the three-point line.
Qin Yue knew very well that this was a Finals with a very high margin of error for the Warriors.
So, he played much more aggressively tonight compared to usual.
From the right 45-degree angle, Qin Yue drew his bow and shot a three-pointer.
Swish!
In the first quarter of the game, amidst the never-ending golden waves at Oracle Arena, such scenes would be replayed repeatedly.
Each time spending more than ten seconds attacking to break through the Warriors’ zone defense, the Knight might be able to seize a few scoring opportunities, but more often, they were just gifting the Warriors transition offense chances.
The return of Qin Yue indeed gave the Warriors the capital to speed up in the game.
But more importantly...
Because the entire Warriors team understood through that "big fire retraction" rematch in the regular season just how high the margin of error for this Finals was, so...
Mike Brown, who tried to drag the Warriors into a half-court battle, quickly realized that the Warriors simply didn’t intend to play into such a role during the game.
The Knight could certainly respond to the Warriors’ relentless fast breaks on the court with quicker retreat defense.
But who told the Knight...
That once you retreat adequately, the Warriors would halt their fast-break pace?
In the game, Qin Yue’s second three-point attempt was about a step away from the three-point line.
Although the hoop then rejected this reckless attempt by the Golden State Warriors’ number 30...
He snatched his offensive long rebound and, after a jump step into the Knight paint area, slammed in two points and a board!
An annoyed Mike Brown made major adjustments in the second half of the second quarter to the Knight’s lineup on the court.
He successively subbed in Vallejo, Marshall, and Pavlovic to assist the increasingly struggling King His Majesty at that time.
