The rest is just noise

At the beginning of the second quarter, facing the Verdun defense again, the Knicks' entire perimeter trio was changed.

The advantage of Rauf, Wilson, and Stevens over Stockton, Williams, and Miller is that the core ball handler is more reassuring.

Rauf's offensive threat is greater than Stockton.

From a defensive perspective alone, Stockton's threat lies in initiating tactics with the ball, while Rauf himself is a threat with the ball. Therefore, to defend him, the Blazers need to expend more energy.

Wilson is the third-ranked ball handler in the Knicks. Except for the two point guards Stockton and Rauf, others are not as good as him. But his ball-handling threat is the biggest on the team. As a ball-handler,

The team's top attacker, whether holding the ball alone or initiating tactics with the ball, can change the opponent's defense.

Compared to Miller, Stevens' ball handling is only half as good.

Over the years in the Knicks, he was mainly praised for his defense, but he would use other skills whenever the Knicks needed it.

Holding the ball is one of them. As a supporting role in breaking through Verdun's defense, his ball holding ability is basically sufficient.

When Jordan saw Wilson, he felt like Zhang Yishan in "The Deer and the Cauldron", ferocious and powerful.

Although the public opinion circles claim that Jordan and Wilson are the sad birds of this generation, Earvin Johnson already had two championships before he turned from a magician to a tragedy maker. At least before 1987, he and Bird were jointly known as double champions.

Male is no problem.

Although Jordan is currently full of personal honors, he does not have any of the most important championships.

Wilson has already won a ring that could fill his entire hand.

How could Jordan, who had always been so strong, endure this?

In the short term, his goal is to win a ring. In the long term, his goal is to surpass Wilson's number of rings.

But these things, ranging from half a year to five, six, seven or eight years, cannot be accomplished immediately.

The only thing he can do now is to knock Wilson out.

This thinking is reflected in his actions.

Jordan defended extremely closely and refused to give up until he forced someone to make a mistake, allowing Wilson to pass the ball.

"Do you only run away from problems when you encounter them?" Jordan prodded him.

Wilson smiled sarcastically: "No, I just want to find another solution. Only a natural loser like you has only one solution. Winners are never restricted."

Although Wilson has not read "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", he grasped the essence of the lesson "Zhuge Liang scolded Wang Lang to death".

No matter what the other party says, first stand on the commanding heights of absolute correctness. Since he is absolutely correct (winner), then Jordan is absolutely wrong (loser). An incarnation of absolute error, no matter what wise words he says, is arsenic for the soul.

Not worth listening to.

The Knicks broke through the Verdun defense led by Jordan.

This is good news.

This is when the Trail Blazers' morale is at its strongest. Breaking their defense can dismantle their mental defenses.

Then came to the defensive end, McHale covered the weak side, and Ewing picked and rolled in the high post.

Rauf seemed to be attacking with the ball, and the Blazers focused on guarding him.

However, Ewing stepped forward to pick and roll, but before Rauf could use his pick-and-roll, he broke open and went inside.

Mason, whose attention was only on Rauf, didn't know how to react for a moment.

Should he go back with Ewing or switch to guard Rauf?

It was this moment of hesitation that allowed Ewing to cut to the basket and Rauf easily passed the ball.

Ewing caught the ball, and the person who came to help defend was Clifford Robinson.

How can a mere "big tree" resist a raging orangutan?

Clifford was ruthlessly dunked by Ewing.

"Anyone who stands in my way will die!" Ewing yelled in the second place.

Pat Riley was in deep thought: Didn’t the pick-and-roll come into effect?

In this era, there is no concept of fake pick-and-roll.

In fact, there are only a few teams that use pick-and-rolls in large numbers.

And things like fake pick-and-rolls, which are highly rebellious in the eyes of old coaches, have become extinct.

The purpose of the pick-and-roll is to create dislocations and local overplaying, and if you use a fake pick-and-roll, what does that look like to a coach who doesn’t understand the magic of this move? It brings the risk of double-teaming to the ball holder. Because the fake pick-and-roll

The pick-and-roll eliminates the need to block people, and the opponent can step forward to put pressure on the ball carrier at the first opportunity.

This is also a profitable choice.

He told Alvin Robertson and Jordan: "Next time they do this, just double-team the ball carrier!"

The Blazers' response goal was not scored.

Clifford Robinson's catch-and-shoot shot off the pick-and-roll.

Ewing collected the defensive rebound and the Blazers pressed on the spot.

But Ewing raised the ball above his head and threw it to Stevens who was running forward quickly, and the press was broken.

With the mobility of the members of Verdun's defense, few teams can run the fast break in front of the Blazers.

This round, they successfully returned to defense.

It's a positional battle again, this time Stevens is holding the ball.

McHale whistled: "Baby, I'm coming!"

Stevens has a hard time convincing himself that this old and crooked guy has been the captain of the Knicks for many years.

McHale fully understood Louis' arrangement.

He ran to the top of the key and first set up a screen next to Stevens.

Clifford was about to switch defense, but suddenly, McHale cut inside without waiting for Stevens to make a move.

Seeing the Knicks repeating their old tricks, Clifford decisively teamed up with Cosey to double-team Stevens.

However, how the Trail Blazers will react to the Knicks' fake pick-and-roll tactics is all within Louis' calculations.

Because of his poor passing skills, Stevens did not challenge the opponent's double team and pass to McHale. Instead, he passed the ball to Wilson, who was being watched by Jordan.

Wilson received the ball, without pausing, and sent a through ball to McHale from the left wing at a 45-degree angle.

McHale caught the ball and turned around for a layup.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa," McHale yelled coquettishly, "Just give it back gently!"

Louis scolded: "Be careful if you behave badly again, I'll kick you!"

In these two positional battles, the Knicks had no personal ability and were just simple pass-and-play tactics.

Use the fake pick-and-roll from inside players as an opportunity to disrupt the Blazers' defense.

The problem lies in the Blazers' switching tactics.

Because of the defense switch, they placed a large number of players outside the paint area. When Sabonis sat off the court to rest, the Blazers' interior defense was as weak as before.

At this time, whether it is Ewing or McHale, as long as one of them goes down to the paint area to catch the ball, it will be easy to score.

If the defense is switched normally, or if the defense is not switched, for example, Clifford/Mason does not flank, but chooses to chase Ewing/McHale down the line, it will not work either.

In the next round, Laili will ask the players to follow to the end without changing defense.

In the end, it was still beaten to pieces.

Because the attacker always has the initiative.

It's up to the Knicks to decide when to turn the pick-and-roll into a fake pick-and-roll.

As they used fake pick-and-rolls more and more often, the Jamaican gunner, who was regarded by Louis as the league's top pick-and-roll player, even made more outrageous tricks to convince the Blazers that he was going to actually pick-and-roll because Rauf dribbled the ball. Finally, he had no intention of moving.

When Rauf was about to move to the pick-and-roll position, he opened it.

Rauf still didn't use the pick-and-roll, but the Blazers' defense was torn apart by Ewing's sudden pick-and-roll.

Mason actually collided with Robertson. Rauf saw Ewing pointing to the basket and directly sent an alley-oop pass.

"The orangutan has become a sperm!" Louis exclaimed.

Ewing has many of Louis' faults from his rookie days to now, but there is one thing that even Louis can't find fault with.

That's his pick-and-roll and screen.

It can be described as perfect.

Pick-and-roll quality, pick-and-roll timing, pick-and-roll method, pick-and-roll selection. For a team that has to play a lot of pick-and-roll and screen tactics, an inside man like Ewing is perfect.

McHale can't finish as high a quality as Ewing, but again, it's an arrangement that allows players to use their subjective initiative to judge whether the opponent's pick-and-roll is a real pick-and-roll or a fake pick-and-roll, and then decide whether to switch or not, is an arrangement that is destined to be ineffective. Wrong decisions.

Because no matter whether you can see the opponent's pick-and-roll intention or not, the defense must make a decision before moving. If the opponent doesn't move, you can't move either.

However, if the opponent moves first, for example, McHale moves down first, Clifford can react, but his position has already been stretched. If he moves again at this time, even if he can use the threat of blocking to affect McHale's offense, he is bound to be defeated. Fang's defense line was in disarray.

McHale passed inside to Ewing.

Orangutan dunked Clifford again.

A false screen made the Blazers' switching defense system go crazy.

At the same time, the Blazers' Verdun defense line also began to expose problems.

The public believes that the reinforcement of Alvin Robertson is a good move for the Trail Blazers. He adds depth to the Verdun defense and allows Jordan to sit down and rest at certain times.

However, now that McDaniel can't play, they lack a strong player who can fight with opponents. Robertson and Jordan have overlapping defensive attributes. Both are aggressive defenders who like to ride on the ball handler and drive the opponent to death.

Under the same defense, Robertson was not as effective as Jordan. Since he had just joined the team and had insufficient tacit understanding with his teammates, he was unable to bring the suffocating feeling of Verdun's defense in the frontcourt.

After the Knicks adapted to that kind of defensive intensity, they found that they could no longer force the Knicks to make mistakes.