The rest is just noise

Game 1 exposed the Pistons' lack of shooting threats except for Dumars and Craig Ilo.

This gives the Knicks greater confidence throughout their strategy and ensures they won't reveal too much before meeting the Celtics.

In the second game against the Pistons, the Knicks' strategy can be simply summarized as blocking the inside, shrinking the defense, and testing jump shots.

Louis suppressed the often lonely Ewing tonight, preventing him from attacking frequently to press the opponent's offensive players.

Moreover, every time a Pistons frontcourt player wanted to use their size advantage to attack with the ball and find some confrontation, the Knicks' sharply shrinking penalty area and Ewing's astonishing defensive power made them despair.

Throughout the first half, the Pistons' main attacker, James Worthy, failed to score a single point until the beginning of the second half, when he took advantage of the Knicks' attack to miss the basket and high-post dribbling errors to counterattack and steal two goals.

Throughout the game, the Knicks always used defenders to delay Worthy's advancement during counterattacks, and then wing players and inside players quickly came to the paint area to form a containment trend.

This is thanks to the Knicks' deepest lineup, which is ranked first in the league.

They have enough athletes, such as Wilson, Rodman, Cooper, Stevens, and Selley, who are all players with quick feet and can get back in place to guard the defensive zone.

The Pistons' fast break is constipated, and positional warfare is even more difficult.

The Knicks' defensive restriction on the Pistons is mainly to restrict Worthy.

In Game 1, Worthy's performance while holding the ball and facing the basket was very exciting. He was able to play well in misplaced situations. If it didn't cause him some trouble, it would not be Louis' style.

In order to deal with Worthy, Louis used the regular inside combination of Ewing and McHale as the rotation lineup. Selley, who was excellent at protecting the basket in the rotating lineup, got more playing time than usual like he did in the first game. He was able to play most of the time on the court.

Two big guys were present.

Louis did not let the faster small forwards defend Worthy like other teams, but directly let the mobile insiders who can match Worthy's height and confrontation use brute force and hard steel to test Worthy in two steps.

of shooting.

The advantage of this is that it prevents the small forward from being beaten by Worthy, and even if Worthy breaks through to the basket, the height of Ewing or Salley can still interfere with Worthy's layup.

Since McHale is a freak with a standing height reaching the level of a normal center, even if Worthy bursts to the basket and encounters two top inside defenders, even a genius cannot do more.

In order to completely silence Worthy, Louis worked hard.

He creatively set up a trinity of double-teams at the edge of the paint area and the center of the paint area under the basket.

Every time Worthy bursts in with the ball, there will be at least two people flanking him.

If a third person shows up, he's doomed.

The passing route will be completely blocked, and you can only try your luck with forced shots.

In this game, Worthy showed the quality that a star should have. Since his teammates couldn't make a three-pointer, he couldn't break the Knicks' trinity double-team. Therefore, he accepted the bait high mid-range shot thrown by Louis.

Worthy was an all-powerful striker during his time at North Carolina. During his seven years with the Pistons, he sometimes played power forward, sometimes small forward, and sometimes the second position. All skills improved, except for his shooting.

Degenerate.

Deterioration is degeneration, but he still has a certain accuracy in the mid-range. In this campaign, Worthy made 7 of 15 shots from the free throw line, which is not too bad, but for the Knicks, this is completely bearable.

All night long, the Pistons couldn't find a way to free Worthy.

Louis tortured Worthy while allowing the team to win the game.

Billy Cunningham, who knelt down and licked Daley while fooling Louis, really couldn't stand it this time.

He couldn't bear the people he valued being ravaged by Louis.

The failure of Game 2 was purely due to Louis' leadership in coaching.

He made Worthy extremely embarrassed. A 2.08-meter small forward was forced to shoot from the high post to make a living. This is simply a shame.

There was nothing the Pistons could do about it.

Cunningham was unable to continue commentating on this series and had to resign from CBS.

The New York Post called this incident: "Little Lu's victory in fighting against bad reviews."

Before leaving, Chuck Daly told reporters in New York: "We will not surrender at home. The Knicks still have to get past us first if they want to reach the Eastern Conference Finals."

Back in the Motor City, Daley and his assistants held meetings for several days to discuss how to relieve Worthy.

The results were disappointing.

The Knicks' focus on Worthy is to control the penalty area.

Why can they control the penalty area? Because the Pistons have no long-range shooting threat.

If Parish goes to shoot, they welcome it. Malone has no basket and Worthy has some baskets, but a little basket is not enough. He must have an abnormally accurate basket to attract the opponent's attention.

If you just have a basket and you want to shoot, the Knicks really welcome you to shoot with open hands.

The inside position is the most competitive position on the court. To shoot from the high post is to give up the fight for rebounds. If you can ignore the fluctuations in touch caused by confrontation and make the ball, you will naturally be considered good.

However, most insiders do not have such a feel.

Game3

The Pistons have set their own general direction and still have to use the traditional skills of Eastern Conference teams, physical combat.

Apart from hand-to-hand combat, it took them several days to come up with a solution to the siege.

Parrish didn't have enough baskets, Malone didn't have baskets, and Worthy had baskets but didn't kill anyone.

Daly's brain turned to the outside players. Why can't the outside players pick and roll for the wing players?

When Dumars and Ilo set up Worthy's pick-and-roll, Louis admitted he was scared.

A small man sets a pick-and-roll for the wing. This is the way of playing in the small ball era.

The purpose is to create dislocation.

Because in the small ball era, the average shooting skills of players are too terrible, and there are too many pick-and-rolls, so switching is the main defensive method. If a smaller player is allowed to pick-and-roll, the smaller player will naturally switch to the ball holder, thus creating a mismatch.

Daley can think this through clearly, which shows that he is a person who really uses his brain to coach.

He will try anything to turn his team's defeat into victory.

If he has achieved this step, Louis will surely regard him as one of the coaches with the highest level of coaching in the league.

However, it is impossible to use this set of tricks to save Worthy, and then invigorate the Pistons' positional warfare, or even break the game through mismatch.

After a few rounds, Louis called a timeout.

The timeout ended and Daley saw Louis' wrist again.

Louis' attitude was that he would rather be penetrated by the Pistons' outside shot than resolutely flank Worthy.

As a result, the consequence of Worthy calling the pick-and-roll was to attract a double-team from two Knicks players.

He has enough vision to pass the ball.

The Knicks' defense rotated quickly, but Dumars got enough space to take the shot.

Missed.

As one of the Pistons' biggest three-point threats, Dumars' three-point shooting percentage in the regular season was 23%.

When Louis lets people double attack, he is prepared to be shot through, but this is something that only perimeter players in the small ball era can do.

Dumars couldn't do it at this stage. He tried to shoot a ball. If it didn't work, he replaced it with Craig Ilo.

Ilo is much better than Dumars. His three-point shooting percentage in the regular season was 34%, which increased to 38% in the playoffs. He made the first opportunity that Worthy created.

The Knicks are determined to limit Worthy, and the Pistons are determined to use Worthy to their advantage.

After Ilo hit a three-pointer, the Pistons found their feeling.

Start implementing real strategic intentions and initiate physical confrontation like a beast.

Chuck Daly is furious. The man who created the Jordan Rules has now created something called the Knicks Rules.

This rule is very simple. To summarize, in the game against the Knicks, someone must fall in every round to show the team's determination to fight.

The Pistons' approach is effective for dealing with weak teams.

But the Knicks themselves are a team based on defense. Doing this will arouse their blood and adapt to the game with the Celtics in advance.

Although the Knicks showed more confrontation than the Pistons coaching staff expected, they still achieved their goals.

Regardless of whether the Knicks are afraid of confrontation, the Pistons will not suffer.

The Knicks are afraid, and they can use this to gain an advantage; the Knicks are not afraid, and if they dare to confront them, it will backfire on their own feel.

In the second half of the game, the Knicks' shooting touch plummeted, and the Pistons successfully turned the game ugly. The two sides began to act like a penalty shootout in a football game, with every goal touching people's hearts.

At the critical moment, Joe Dumars showed his killer qualities and made a three-point shot that he was not good at, helping the Pistons take the lead.

Louis glanced at the crowd and didn't know who to give the ball to for a moment.

It can be seen that many people want to vote, but no one speaks out.

Only Benjamin Wilson dared to speak his mind truthfully at that time: "Coach, let me shoot."

Louis originally wanted Wilson to execute the key ball. Since he is willing, it is best.

Louis drew a simple tactic for Wilson: "Use tactical movement to catch the ball, and prioritize tactics. If you can use tactics to create openings, use tactics to end them; if tactics don't work, it's up to you to make your own decision."

"

The timeout ended and Wilson handed in a perfect answer sheet.

His movement is extremely spiritual and he catches the ball beautifully.

In the last few seconds of the game, the Knicks' classic exhange (high dynamic offense) tactics were still disciplined under his command.

On the contrary, their opponent, the Pistons, failed to hold up.

He worked hard to follow people, moved, and Ewing's high-quality pick-and-roll knocked Ilo to the ground, who was focused on following Wilson.

A perfect pick and roll can always kill the defensive player cleanly!

Wilson found a wide open space. He did not hesitate or sloppily take the ball. He took one step outside the three-point line and took the shot. His body rose straight to a height of more than half a meter and he took the shot.

"Yes," said Louis.

"Whoosh!"

A hollow three-pointer that made Detroiters scream in anger penetrated the net, leaving only 0.2 seconds for the Pistons.

There is no suspense about the result!

Afterwards, the Pistons failed to serve and the alley-oop failed. At the end of the game, Wilson beat the Pistons and the Knicks led 3-0.