The Rest, Only Noise

Chapter 827: The enviable city dividend and Miami's request for help

The Knicks beat the Hornets 4-1 to advance to the Eastern Conference finals for six straight seasons.

The next day, the league announced the winners of the major awards in the regular season.

One: Jordan, Wilson, Drexler, Malone, Sampson.

Second Team: Stockton, Mullin, Pippen, Barkley, Ewing.

Third Team: Isaiah Thomas, Kevin Johnson, Hank Gaithers, Danny Manning, Brad Doherty.

The ten players on the first and second teams, with the exception of Stockton, Drexler and Pippen, are all members of the Dream Team.

And Pippen is a quasi-dream team member.

In addition, there are many strong contenders for the best team but for various reasons, such as Mark Price, Petrovic, Reggie Lewis, Bird, Rodman and Kemp.

The All-Defensive Team was swept away by the Knicks.

A defense: Jordan, Wilson, Rodman, Robinson, Ewing.

Second defense: Stockton, Buck Williams, Pippen, Kemp, Sampson.

Defensive Player of the Year is Rodman.

Sixth Man of the Year is Kemp.

Most Improved Player of the Year is Chris Jackson...

Honestly, Louie blushed seeing so many people on the team winning awards.

Not surprisingly, the large number of awards for Knicks players has caused overwhelming controversy.

Many questioned Stockton's selection to the second team and defense.

Fans outside New York felt that KJ, Dumars, Thomas, Price and even Mookie Blaylock were better than him.

The doubts about being selected for the second defense are even greater.

Detroit people complained that Dumars was squeezed out of a defense by Jordan, and then they found out, more than a defense? There is no secondary defense!

In addition to the Pistons, areas such as Indiana and Brooklyn are all dissatisfied with Stockton being selected for the second defense.

But Stockton was just the smallest of all the grievances.

Camp's second defense, and Jackson's Most Improved Player, angered fans in multiple regions.

Among them, the most angry are the Indiana who broke the defense twice and Washington, D.C., which rarely has a sense of presence.

Even if Stockton enters the second defense, is Kemp's defense better than Danny Manning?

Why did he enter the second defense?

The Capitals' dissatisfaction was largely driven by the joy of the stunning improvement in their new parallel second-place No. 2 Perives Ellison this season.

Last year, the swelled Clippers sent Ellison, who had been testing the waters for two years, to Washington.

Unexpectedly, Ellison, who claims to be never nervous, after going to the capital, decided instead to fulfill his potential and play seriously.

As a result, the average of 20+7 per game this season, compared to the average of 8+6 per game in the Clippers two seasons, this is a leap.

For any previous season, it is appropriate to be the winner of the Most Improved Award.

As a result, this year ran into Chris Jackson, a recognized parallel trader in Apple City.

In this case, winning the most improved player is actually not unpopular, but the opponent is also very competitive.

Just like Kobe's MVP in 2008, it's also the uneasy feeling of Paul fans for many years.

With so many awards, if he can't continue his previous dominance in the playoffs, he will be seen as a joke.

The media outside of New York were waiting to see the joke.

Before the Knicks made the joke, Miami was the joke first.

Before the start of the playoffs, the Heat's godfather Lewis Shafir boasted: "If we fall in front of the Indiana again this year, I will not eat meat for a year!"

Louie thought at the time that Shafir didn't say a year without Sex would show a lack of confidence.

The Heat are indeed full of momentum this year. Except for the Knicks, no one in the East is afraid.

Gaithers, who has grown up initially, Petrovic, one of the league's most threatening perimeter ball handlers, All-Star wing Reggie Lewis, rookie first-team Steve Smith and veteran Sam Bowie.

In the first round, they easily swept the Nets and met the Pacers in the semifinals.

In the past two years, the Heat have played against the Pacers twice in the playoffs and have been eliminated.

After hitting the Pistons in the first round, the Pacers want another round.

In the first game of the semifinals, Manning went crazy, scoring 41 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists in a single game, and single-core blew up the Miami man's flank.

The Heat didn't know who to put on him.

Although Gaithers can match the size, Manning's offense with the ball is as flexible as a small forward, and he has a variety of offensive methods. He also has a throw in the paint that even Manute Bol can't cover.

In the second game, Petrovic and Lewis defended the dignity of the second in the East.

Shafir, who doesn't know if it was intentional or not, hugged Lewis after the game and said, "What you don't get in Boston, Miami has it all."

At this point, the Miami people didn't notice, and Gaithers was beaten up by Manning again.

To Gaithers, Manning was like a player who naturally restrained him.

Gaithers is good at pick-and-roll cuts and low-post offense, and his help defense is much stronger than one-on-one defense.

The Miami natives didn't want him to consume too much, so Gaithers' position was quickly made clear after he entered the league.

The main thing is to eat cakes and protect the basket in the pick-and-roll.

The low-post offense he was admired by scouts in college wasn't much developed.

This positioning is people-oriented, and I don't want to put too much pressure on him.

It's just that an insider who lacks the ability to attack on his own will lower his threat on the offensive end by a notch.

Manning, the bitter master of Gaithers, is a living example.

Because of his height, he can't dominate offense and defense like Sampson.

The Pacers chose the right path, allowing him to do whatever he wants on offense, with Oakley on defense to protect the rebound, and a Blaylock-style guard on the outside to increase pressure, preferably a shooter on the flank, so as to open up space for Manning .

The one thing the Pacers lack most right now is a shooter.

When Louis came back to pay attention to the matchup between the Heat and the Pacers, he found that the Pacers had already held the match point 3-2.

He reviewed the third and fifth.

These two games are close games, a Heat win, a Pacers win.

After reading it, Louie found that the Heat's strategy was a bit strange.

In the second game, they were determined to give up their defense on the perimeter and blocked Manning.

Judging from the results, Manning still blew up Gaithers, but it is difficult to control the overall situation while ravaging the inside line like in other games.

But in Game 5, the Heat cared too much about the inside and outside of the Pacers.

The Pacers' wing shooter was named Chuck Person (SF), a 1986 lottery pick because of Louie. He accidentally fell outside the lottery and was drafted by the Clippers.

Throughout the 1980s, the Clippers took one lottery pick from the draft every year, but none of them made it.

The same goes for Posen.

When Person's contract expired, the Pacers sent him a big contract, the Clippers didn't match, and a powerful player was lost in vain.

It was the man who changed the course of the series.

Manning is brave, but without Person on the perimeter, the Heat can compress the Pacers' offensive space into a very small range.

In that case, Manning would either believe in himself, get caught, or risk passing the ball.

The Heat were afraid of Posen's touch, but they didn't try to influence the Pacers with offense.

Louie wanted to call Shafir and try to talk about how to hit the Pacers.

Looking back, he has gone too far to help the Heat rebuild, and he still has to coach from the air?

No, you have to give people some autonomy.

Who would have thought that on the eve of Game6, Shafir himself called Louis for advice.

"Coach Lu, we have nothing to do with Danny Manning!" Shafir said bitterly, "Hank is so weak in front of him!"

Louis Youyou said, "I really want to lend you Dennis, but I don't think Mr. President will agree."

"With our existing manpower, can we limit that monster?"

In Shafir's heart, Manning is already a formidable monster.

"If you are determined to change, you can try it." Louie said modestly, "But you have the second-best coaching staff in the East, so you shouldn't have to tell me."

"They're the second best coaching staff in the East, if it weren't for our poor coaching staff..."

Shafir suddenly realized that it is not good to complain about his own coaching staff in front of outsiders.

"I'm not sure you can communicate my intentions precisely to your coaching staff, and if something goes wrong, you may be held responsible for it..."

"If you don't make changes, the next game may be over. No matter what, you have to try it, just to develop new ideas."

At Shafir's request, Louis shared his thoughts.