The rest is just noise

Jordan in 1992 was at the peak of his competitive form.

Louis doesn't expect 24-year-old Benjamin Wilson to be able to compete 50-50 with Jordan like this.

But in the second half of the first quarter, Wilson really showed momentum.

He first made Clifford Robinson break his promise, and he scored in the Blazers penalty area with the ball, which was known as "no one can score here".

Robinson jumped up and tried to block the shot, but failed.

Wilson's dunk passed by Robinson's arm, making a perfect position difference and dunking the ball.

Wilson's offense brought out the momentum of the Knicks. It seemed that even Jordan could not restrain him.

The tragedy expert said: "If you want to defend the Knicks' offense, you must not rely on one player alone. Their pick-and-rolls and screens are ever-changing. No matter how good a player's defensive ability is, one person's power is limited after all. The Knicks like it best

What he does is to use the screen to carry out partial one-on-one coordination, which is why it is difficult for MJ to restrict Benj."

The Knicks had three first defenses and one second defense. Under full defense, the Blazers' opportunities focused on Jordan and Barkley.

Jordan occasionally made moves to attack with the ball, but in most cases, passing the ball came first.

Riley instilled in him the concept of focusing on the team. In fact, he does not lack this concept. When he was at the University of North Carolina, Dean Smith often told him that one person is only strong alone, and a team is truly strong.

powerful.

It's just that after entering the league, I met Adelman who was eager to achieve results and lacked discipline for his players, so he developed some bad habits.

Riley corrected his shortcomings, so he saw Wilson explode but remained indifferent and continued to pass the ball until the second quarter.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Louis replaced Wilson, McHale and Stockton and replaced them with Chris Jackson, Kemp and Vernon Maxwell.

Riley replaced Barkley to rest, allowing Jordan to continue his rotation. Porter and Mason were also replaced. They were replaced by Xavier McDaniels and Larry Nance.

"Erwin, what do you think of the Knicks' substitutions?"

asked Groom Albert.

"From a player's point of view, I don't like this aspect." The tragedy man laughed, "It's a little proud. Portland's adjustment is more reasonable, and they kept Michael on the court, but New York did not.

Playing Benj next is a rotation that is extremely disrespectful to Michael. However, this is also the characteristic of Coach Lu, he does not play according to common sense."

Another analyst, Mike Fratello, clearly pointed out Louie's intentions: "As always, Little Lou chose to use offense to suppress the opponent's defense. And we can see that although there is no Benj on the field, there is still

Shawn Kemp and Dennis Rodman. A Defensive Player of the Year and a second-team member of the Defensive Team of the Year are enough to bring a strong defense. I believe the Knicks' defense will not have problems, the point is

The offense, can they hold off Michael without Benj? It will be interesting to see how much CJ and Mad Max can do."

After the start of the second quarter, the Trail Blazers were eager to make up for their deficit in the first quarter.

The Knicks relied on their higher offensive and defensive intensity to establish a 5-point lead in the first quarter.

The current score is 28 to 23.

The intensity of the Blazers' game is indeed unprecedented.

In the past, this kind of intensity was usually brought to their opponents by the Knicks. Unexpectedly, the Trail Blazers suppressed the defending champion as soon as they came up.

But the Knicks are quicker to adjust and more suited to playing at this intensity.

The Trail Blazers always gave people the feeling of leaving some room, because Jordan never exploded with all his firepower.

As a result, in the first possession of the second quarter, Jordan passed Maxwell in one step and scored a gliding layup.

25 to 28

"Where are the pockets? Why don't you close them?" Louis asked loudly.

The pocket formation essentially forces Jordan and the others to use shooting to solve problems.

It is very simple to break this defense. Jordan and the others keep hitting shots, which is also the result that Louis foresees. Another way to break it is to place reliable shooters on both wings.

But the Trail Blazers are like the Lakers in the past few years. They don't pay attention to outside shooting and firmly believe that shooters are only assists rather than playing a key role in qualitative changes.

This is also a difference in thinking brought about by the times.

Louis was influenced by the small ball era when there was space and the offense was as smooth as water. No matter how hard the offensive end was, there had to be a shooter.

Now that the Trail Blazers only have Porter as a shooter, the Knicks should provide targeted defense and close the pocket tightly.

The Knicks' offense started with Chris Jackson.

Porter adopted high-intensity defense against CJ.

This is one of the evidences that the Trail Blazers have studied the Knicks' personnel characteristics, but can Porter's defense lock down Jackson?

Rodman's pick-and-roll, Kemp followed up with a pick-and-roll behind Rodman.

This is the Knicks' signature slide pick-and-roll.

Jackson broke through Porter's defense, broke into the paint area and was surrounded by many Blazers. He suddenly stopped and chose a high throw pass.

Larry Nance thought he could intercept, but he didn't expect that Kemp, who was responsible for the second pick-and-roll in the high post a second ago, had already run into the paint area and took off with an unprecedented elasticity and speed.

.

At that moment, Louis thought of Griffin's ruthless dunk that "killed" Pau Gasol in the air.

Gu Lei

Now Kemp can only go beyond, but never fall below.

Unlike Griffin, who couldn't use his hands and feet cleanly, he simply used the impact of his body to knock Nance away, and then the hand holding the ball burst out with terrifying force, dunking as if he was going to smash the rim.

Nance's body fell backwards, completely out of control.

“Oh oh oh oh oh oh buy it!!!”

Albert cried out excitedly.

"Shawn Kemp has no regard for human life! What a spectacular shot!"

The noise created by Kemp caused Dick Bavetta's whistle to be ignored.

It was a 2+1, and Nance was called for a foul.

So, during the time Kemp stepped to the free throw line, the fans in Madison Square Garden chanted his nickname.

The cry of "ruler" echoed throughout MSG.

Kemp's extra penalty also scored.

31 to 25

The score difference came to 6 points.

Louis happily reached out and gave Kemp a high-five.

"He is really amazing!" Tomjanovich exclaimed, "Only he can do that kind of dunk, not even Dominic Wilkins can do it."

Louis was mentally prepared for Kemp's dunk. No matter how outrageous his dunk action was, he would not be excited. That was what he originally thought.

But he was wrong.

It's like no matter how much he dislikes the nowhere hand in Griffin's dunk highlights and the sneaky extra steps in James' highlights, the moment they complete the goal, the visual impact that stimulates the eyeballs is unparalleled.

.

The good thing about Kemp being better than them is that his dunks are flawless, clean, powerful, and smooth.

Kemp's stunning dunk successfully aroused Jordan's desire to compete.

The Flyers dribbled the ball to the top of the arc in the frontcourt. Maxwell, who was responsible for guarding him, not only had strong shooting ability, but also defended very well.

If he wasn't good both offensively and defensively, Danny Ainge's bench would not be "reliable".

However, with his defense, it was still too difficult to defend against Jordan.

Suddenly, Jordan's aura was fully activated, he made a strong burst, stopped suddenly, collected the ball, and landed just outside the three-point line, so he made a pull-up.

28 to 31

His long-range shooters feel the impact of muscle gain has been severely reduced, but this does not mean that he will stop shooting three-pointers.

In every game, he will take a certain number of three-pointers to test his touch. If he can make the shot, he will continue to shoot.

He knows very well how much it will help the Blazers' offense if he can hit a three-pointer.

"Max!" Louis called Maxwell.

Maxwell looked back.

"In principle, we can let him shoot, but if he can score, we have to find a way to let him in to break through. Our inside line has obvious advantages when assisting in defense!"

After Louis finished his instructions, there was a problem in the whole place.

Jackson fell into the Trail Blazers' trap and was double-teamed by Porter and McDaniel to force a turnover.

The Trail Blazers' double-teaming is not like the Knicks' method of using opposing players to enter a certain area to trigger a trap. Instead, it relies on the athletic ability of wing players to launch unreasonable surprise attacks.

This kind of unorganized punching is very difficult to prevent, because the point of judging their double-teaming is "Do they think this position can be double-teamed?" rather than "You can't get to that position, otherwise the double-teaming will come."

Jackson dropped the ball, Jordan went to the frontcourt and made a wonderful pass to McDaniel who followed up.

McDaniel dunks.

30 to 31

"Freak, how did a player like you get into the rotation in New York?" McDaniel deliberately provoked Jackson, trying to mess with his mentality.

"If you, a mediocre guy like you who has no other strengths except fighting, can make MJ give up fast break opportunities and choose to pass the ball, what can't happen?"

Louis loudly supported CJ.

"Or are you feeling itchy again?"