The rest is just noise

The Pistons' preparation for this game has many highlights.

Other teams will find ways to compete with the Celtics to slow down the pace of the game, but the Pistons themselves are a team that likes to attack, and defense is not their strong point, so they choose to attack with offense.

For the Celtics, who ranked second in points per game, the Pistons made this choice as if they didn't want to win.

However, it's not that simple.

Daley made relevant arrangements for two of the Celtics' Big Three.

Everyone knows that Bird and Thomas are the key reasons why the Celtics' tactics can run smoothly, so the Pistons' offensive focus is also here.

Daly demanded that Thomas and Bird be exhausted on the offensive end.

That is to say, no matter who gets the ball, as long as they are facing these two players, they will boldly attack.

This method is the same as in the Universe Warriors era, all teams that want to beat the Warriors will try their best to manipulate Curry's mentality.

It's not because Curry is easy to work with, but because he is the most cost-effective.

Bird and Thomas are the core of the Celtics' offense. The four offensive systems are all designed around them. If they fail, even if someone in the Celtics can improvise, the effect will definitely be greatly reduced.

.

However, Daly's calculation was wrong.

First of all, the Pistons do not have an indiscriminate super one-on-one player, and Worthy can only count as half.

Then there is the gap in the configuration of the two teams.

Louis can let people protect Bird, and Thomas is a killer who licks blood at the tip of his knife. He has the mentality to always face challenges and the determination to obliterate all opponents who try to defeat him.

Therefore, Daley's approach had some effects, but it did not meet his expectations.

This expectation was to at least reverse the score in the first half.

54 to 44

At halftime, the Celtics led by 10 points.

The MVP of the first half was Thomas. His presence made it impossible for the Pistons to focus on Bird.

Bird did many inconspicuous little things, which led to Thomas' 16 points and 7 assists in the half.

In the locker room, Louis said to Thomas: "Isiah, I won't let you in the second half."

Except for Bird and Sampson, almost everyone was temporarily taken off the roster by Louis.

The Celtics players are all used to it, and they all agree on the indispensability of Bird and Sampson.

If it was early in the season, Thomas would have thought wrongly, but now he has confirmed that Louis is a person who only wants to win and is not interested in skin color or locker room politics.

"I have no objection." Thomas smiled.

"It's useless." Louis snorted and said to Bird, "Larry, you spent the entire first half paddling, you should play hard in the second half, right?"

"What do you mean I paddled for half the time?"

"You only scored 4 points and 7 rebounds in the first half. Do you want to tell me that this is the result of your good performance?"

The well-founded data left Bird speechless: "The second half was John Paxson, Long, Larry, Cedric and Bill."

Louie surprisingly also took Sampson off the list.

Bird has become a player whose position has never been changed so far this season.

Moreover, judging from this lineup, there are three players who are not regular, which means Bird is required to bring a substitute lineup to compete with the Pistons' full lineup.

Louis watched half of the game. He wanted to know whether the Pistons were going to kill Bird and Thomas as he thought, so he had to give the opponent a stage.

"From now on, we only have one style of play. Larry is in the high post. Everyone gets the ball and passes it to him as long as there is no chance."

"Let him decide, let him create."

What Louis is talking about is a strategy and a concept, which requires a lot of understanding from the players.

The others were fine. They all heard Louis' instructions to pass the ball to Bird. Bird needs to realize the true meaning of "decision" and "creation".

Bird asked: "Can I do anything I want?"

"If your 'anything' includes fighting, my answer is no."

Louis doesn't want to see fighting, and he doesn't want anyone to think of the Celtics as a fighting team.

This stereotype is as outrageous as Jordan can't three-point, Kobe can only hit the iron, James can only rely on his body, and Carter can only dunk.

The above labels all belong to individuals, and if the Celtics are really labeled as "likes to fight", then Louis's sin will be greater.

The honor of "likes to fight" should belong to their opponent tonight. How dare the Celtics take it?

When the Pistons saw Louis putting three main players off the court, they couldn't help but believe that this was contempt from their opponents.

On the one hand, the Celtics have a criminal record. It is no longer rumored that Louis likes to insult his opponents. The blood of Washington, Philadelphia, and Dallas has not yet dried.

On the other hand, tonight's game has not yet decided the winner. If it is not a sign of contempt for the opponent's strength, they really can't think of anything to explain why Louis benched three main players.

At the beginning of the second half, Bird faced Worthy in the high post.

He held the ball in his hand and sneered: "I'm going to do a fake move with my left hand later, and then use my right hand to pass you for a layup!"

Five seconds later, he kept what he said. Worthy's defense is not strong. His strength lies in speed. He can catch up even if Bird passes him.

Offensive players with poor physical fitness will often seek physical confrontation before taking action to avoid being beaten by the opponent.

Bird did the same. He knocked away Worthy's defense with his elbow and scored with a right-hand throw.

After he was done, he left with a wild and uninhibited look like "What did I say?"

56 to 44

"He got it again!" Louis said regretfully.

K.C. Jones asked: "Isn't this bad?"

"The country bumpkin has never experienced the beatings of society, and he doesn't know that doing so is very insulting." Louis explained why he didn't like Bird always pretending to be more successful.

When Worthy ran past them, he said in a pleading tone: "James, show Larry some color. Look at his arrogance, I can't stand it anymore!"

Worthy responded indifferently: "Coach Lu, your tricks are of no use to me."

"What trick?"

"You know it yourself."

Not long after, Bird expressed his dissatisfaction: "You actually helped outsiders."

"Can't you see that I'm helping you anger Worthy?" Louis' casual words were a powerful excuse.

Bird was dubious, and the Pistons took advantage of the window when half of the Celtics' main players were away to strengthen their offensive output.

The profits brought by Bird's success in pretending to be better were beaten back by them again.

"Do you fucking know what defense is?" Laimbeer jumped to his feet and yelled, "Don't fucking embarrass our University of Notre Dame!"

This man didn't know that Notre Dame University had been completely disgraced by him.

Louis only thought it was magical and had no involvement in their affairs.

On the other side, Daly was very curious about Louis's intentions in putting together this lineup.

He believed that Louis didn't mean to show contempt for the piston. If he looked down on the piston, he would have done it as casually as shooting a bullet.

However, Daly saw that the Celtics, who played with this lineup, seemed to be running more smoothly on offense.

Bird served as the power forward in this lineup. When he faced off against the Pistons' interior line, although his body could not withstand it, he did not let the Chiefs take too much advantage.

I think back then, when he was in second grade, he was outrebounding against the peak Moses Malone in the Finals (losing only 0.X rebounds).

Then, Bird showed disdain for breaking Worthy's defense and moved up to the high post to cover Long and Maxwell respectively.

The Pistons' defense suddenly fell into chaos.

They did not have a clear division of labor, who would follow Long and who would pursue Maxwell.

They only know that Bird must prevent death, and the rest is optional.

If we use this idea to deal with the Celtics, we would be totally wrong.

Bird is an opportunity creator who never misses his teammates' opportunities. He greedily passed the ball to Long, who shot 40% from three-point range on the left wing, instead of Maxwell, who had a 64% finishing rate in the penalty area.

Long connected with Bird's three-pointer and made a hollow hit.

This is neither System No. 1 nor System No. 2, nor System No. 3 nor System No. 4.

Bird holds the ball alone in the high post, and as an inside man, drives the team's offense like Jokic. This is the offensive system envisioned by Louis in the early days. Later, with the addition of monsters like Thomas who can serve as the core of the ball, he

, this idea was abandoned by him.

Although it is wonderful for one person to be the only C player, historically, the upper limit of a team that relied on a single C player was to reach the finals and complete a round of "defeat is still glorious" series.

Now that the Pistons have to concentrate on dealing with Bird, Louis just happened to replace Thomas and Sampson, the "obstructive" guys, to watch the show.

Next, Louis saw the Pistons play a beautiful mismatch of small and large.

Worthy was caught up by Maxwell, who passed the ball to Vinyl Johnson.

Vinier is a sure shot against Paxson, but he insists on calling a pick-and-roll to force Bird to switch defenses.

Bird still didn't switch defense, and it was Laimbeer who came out.

Vinier stepped past his defense, got to the basket and challenged Bird's help defense, then switched hands and scored with a throw.

The Celtics used the flexibility of their lineup to protect Bird's defense very well, but if the opponent insists on attacking you, there is no way to avoid it.

Otherwise, Curry wouldn't have suffered in those years, and maybe he could even get an FMVP.