Super All-around Point Guard

The playoffs and the regular season are both a four-quarter 48-minute game, but everyone knows that the playoffs and the regular season are games of different levels, so what is the difference?

Some people say that the regular season is the world of offense, and the playoffs rely on defense. Some people say that the regular season is dominated by new stars, while the key players in the playoffs are old players. There are many back-to-backs and many injuries in the regular season. The reason why the playoffs are different from the regular season is that this is a Win Or Go Home series. Either advance to the next round or pack up and leave.

People will do whatever it takes to succeed, and players are the same on the court, so the physical confrontation in the playoffs is more intense, and some players are even ruthless and will do everything they can. What Xie Chen is going through now, the predecessors before the Heat Also experienced it long ago.

In 2012, in the series between the Heat and the Pacers, Granger, the boss of the Pacers, knocked off James' hairband on the field, dragged his jersey behind his back, and spouted trash to provoke James. He wanted to force James to fight him. James was also very angry if he didn't stop for a game, but he knew that it would be stupid to be suspended for such a thing, so James, who has a high emotional intelligence, ignored it.

In last year's playoffs, the task of provoking James fell on Lance Stephenson. He was not as savage as Granger, and he adopted a relatively vulgar way, blowing foul smell into James' ears with his mouth.

Now, Granger and Lance are no longer in the Pacers. It seems that only David West is competent for this villain. In addition, all the grievances between West and Xie Chen before have led to this situation.

Maybe Xie Chen is mentally prepared, but not physically prepared. Anyone who is provoked and maliciously hurt by the other party will not be able to calm down in a short time. Fortunately, Xie Chen's bad mood will not affect him. He's shooting from the field, but turnovers are inevitable.

After the conflict with David West, Xie Chen made two consecutive pass mistakes. The more mistakes he made, the more impatient Xie Chen became!

This time, the pass error was intercepted by Paul George. After George succeeded in stealing the ball, he immediately started a fast break. Xie Chen was obviously very angry. He must chase the big cap and try to save the situation. One after the other slowly approached the basket on the Pacers side.

Because Paul George took a step first, he has an absolute lead. According to the past situation, with the distance between the two, Paul George must accelerate all the way to the basket, and then end with a dunk.

However, after Paul George realized that Xie Chen was chasing him ferociously, the closer he got to the basket, the slower his speed became.

Xie Chen didn't have time to figure out Paul George's inner thoughts at this time, and he ran all the way to chase, thinking that after Paul George made a layup or dunk, Xie Chen followed from behind and jumped up to use Griffin's shot-blocking skills , If you can cover it, you can cover it, if you can't, it's fine. However, the result is not what Xie Chen expected.

Because when Xie Chen caught up, Paul George hadn't taken off yet, and he hadn't shot yet.

Then, Xie Chen's speed also slowed down. I saw Paul George waited for Xie Chen to catch up, and made a fake shot with both hands, but Xie Chen didn't fall for it, and just tiptoed slightly. Can't take off rashly, but even so, George, who has the advantage, seems to be completely out of shape. He pretended to make a foul again, but failed again. He really smashed the rebound and shot for the third time.

After George took the shot, Xie Chen immediately used Stephenson's rebounding skills to take off vigorously. On George's body, he firmly held the rebound, and then quickly rushed to the frontcourt.

This scene made the scene, the coaches and players of both sides sigh.

This kind of situation is absolutely rare. If it was the old George, let alone Xie Chen chasing after him, even if it was LeBron James, George must be fearlessly dunking vigorously. George has absolutely no reason to be afraid of the 193CM Xie Chen. Chen, this action of his proved a very important thing, that is, although his injury has healed, the shadow in his heart has not been lifted!

Coach Spoelstra saw this scene, raised his chin and frowned: "That's the position, that's the position, Paul George suffered a terrible broken leg, with a 90-degree fracture in his right calf! Not to mention him, even myself , Every time I see it, it is still shocking. The reason why he slowed down and didn’t dare to rush to the basket quickly was because he was afraid that Xie’s block would cause him to accidentally fall again. In the torment of the season, he obviously had some scruples on defense in this game, but unexpectedly, even his offense was affected... This may be our opportunity for the Heat!"

Coach Spoelstra was already full of confidence. After seeing that the Pacers star was still haunted, he was even more certain that this series would definitely be won. He even questioned Frank's choice, or this was the only way to see through the illusion created by Frank. Yes, Paul George's scoring ability has recovered very well, but in the fierce playoffs, if George has always been in this mentality of not daring to play, it will not help the Pacers a little bit. Frank let George play time The longer it is, the more it will drag the team down overall.

Coach Frank's heart was beating all the time. Seeing the scene just now, Frank also recalled the painful scene of Paul George's injury. Fortunately, Paul George adopted a conservative approach, but if he was conservative, it would mean...failure!

Xie Chen, who is good at watching people's psychology, also realized the opponent's weakness, so for the next attack, Xie Chen directly handed the ball to Luol Deng, and Luol Deng singled Paul George!

Everyone pulled away to watch Xie Chen's meticulously crafted duel between the two!

Luol Deng is 206cm, and now he has increased to 105kg. Paul George is also 206cm, but his weight is only 95kg!

Luol Deng held the ball and stared at Paul George like a prairie wolf preparing to attack.

Luol Deng has an absolute advantage in physical confrontation, and he is a guy who likes to bully people. As long as he meets a white player who is not as heavy as him in the fast break, he will concentrate on hitting the opponent without looking at the basket. When will you hit the basket and fly again?

As for Xie Chen's intention to pass the ball to him, Luol Deng already understood.

Paul George, who stretched out a hand in front of Luol Deng, swallowed, and the atmosphere was a little quiet.

Suddenly, like lightning and thunder, Luol Deng, who was ready to go, suddenly launched an attack. Before he dribbled the ball, he slammed into Paul George. Paul George was defeated. He took a step back with his right leg, but he still refused Then Luol Deng turned around, turned his back to Paul George, and kept squeezing Paul George with his body, forcing the other side to retreat. Luol Deng kept rolling George with his body, and tried every means to consume George to fight against him. Finally, Luol Deng made a shot, George reached out to block, was called a foul, and Luol Deng made two free throws.

The Pacers fell silent.

Paul George was panting heavily. Defending Luol Deng was a very difficult task. Even if Paul George had been selected to the All-Defensive Team, it was okay that Luol Deng had been shooting from the outside. With Paul George's defense plus On Luol Deng's unstable mid-range shot, he has been able to control the opponent very well, but now Luol Deng has changed his style of play, which is to use his body to constantly consume against George, which is extremely harmful to George!

Luol Deng made two free throws, and the Heat had already led by almost 10 points, and the Pacers began to feel a little anxious.

Fortunately, the Pacers are also a team with rich experience in the playoffs. They did not lose their position all of a sudden, and gradually caught up with the score to only 4 points. Stand up for once!

After CJ Myers received the ball from outside the three-point line, he made a feint and tricked Wade into jumping up, but because the experienced Wade didn't really want to block the shot, he just jumped to scare the opponent. The opponent made the shot, so Wade dropped very fast. When CJ Myers turned to break through for a layup, Wade took advantage of the victory and chased him from behind.

The scene is boiling! Wade seems to be using this block to tell his opponents that there is no way to catch up!

And Wade's shot-blocking performance was far from over. Two minutes later, with only five seconds left in the attack clock, CJ Miles caught the ball at the top of the arc and was about to shoot a three-pointer. Wade, who was chasing him, jumped Then he blocked the basketball with one hand. After being blocked, CJ Miles was still unwilling. He rushed forward to try to save the basketball, but Wade ruthlessly took the basketball away. Then, he dunked successfully !

Seeing this scene, Xie Chen couldn't help laughing: "The Flash is really back. In the past, even if there were no defensive players, his ball would be a layup instead of a dunk. He's really fine! "

CJ Myers, who was completely crushed, looked melancholy, and cursed in his heart, didn't everyone say that this guy has passed his peak? Why is it still so difficult to deal with!

In this way, in the third quarter, relying on Xie Chen's explosiveness at the beginning, Luol Deng's singles, Wade's excellent defense and stable scoring, the Heat finally overtook their opponents. After the third quarter, the Heat led by eight points. player team.

Coach Frank of the Pacers has been cheering up the players, saying that it is not yet the time to win and we still have a chance, but it is obvious that the players of the Pacers are a little depressed, especially It's Paul George, looking terribly tired.

Frank had decided to play George late in the fourth quarter. Then, Luis Scola helped the team at the beginning of the fourth quarter. He frequently made fouls in the interior and made frequent hits in the mid-range shots. .

However, fortunately, with Wade on the court to stabilize the situation, the Flash really returned. He didn't just explode for one or two quarters, but his explosion ran from beginning to end. With Luis Scola constantly chasing points, Wade counterattacked the opponent with scoring again and again. When Xie Chen played, Wade had already scored 37 points alone.

Xie Chen couldn't help sighing, Wade is going to go to 40+ today, and he scored 40+ in the first playoffs. Is this to announce the official return of the Flash to all playoff teams? Xie Chen guessed that James must have mixed feelings after seeing it, because he didn't want to have another strong opponent, and this opponent happened to be his brother.

In the end, facing the strong strength of the Heat's main players, the Pacers finally lost. In the first game, they lost to the Heat in an away game.

In this game, Wade scored the team's highest score of 41 points, and Xie Chen had a double-double of 30+10. Although this score is already quite good for a rookie in the playoffs for the first time, in most people's eyes Here, this statistic is very common, maybe everyone is used to Xie Chen's superb performance.

As for the Heat, apart from Wade and Xie Chen, Luol Deng, the starting center who has high expectations, also performed abnormally in this game, whether it is in terms of rebound protection or the number of blocked shots. They are all much lower than the average value per game, and there is no achievement in scoring. Among the substitutes, Beasley, Walker, and James Ennis did not perform particularly well. Only the veteran Chalmers played well.

In the Pacers, although Paul George scored the team's highest score of 31 points, he also made 6 turnovers, and many things cannot be reflected in the data. Xie Chen's opponent George Hill performed well today, scoring 24 points. points and 5 assists. This also made Xie Chen feel very unacceptable.

The first game of the series ended like this. Maybe it was because of the first game. Everyone didn’t care about the outcome of the game. At least the Pacers didn’t lose confidence just because they lost this game. The series is still very long , they still have a chance.

After the game, Coach Spoel held a meeting for everyone and pointed out everyone's performance in the first game, especially the mistakes they made. Although Spoel didn't criticize Xie Chen, Xie Chen had already started self-reflection.

He was still nervous in the first game of this playoffs, and he shouldn't be emotionally affected by David West. He didn't do well enough in shooting selection and passing selection. If it wasn't for Wade's superb performance today, this It's really not necessarily possible to win a game.

Xie Chen vowed to learn from this lesson, and in the next game, he must play at the MVP level!

In addition, among the other games played today, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Celtics in the first game of the series. James scored a triple-double, Irving scored the highest score in the team, Love grabbed the highest rebound in the game, and the Big Three abused the Celtics. The current Celtics are powerless to resist. It is worth mentioning that the Cavaliers have never been behind from the beginning, leading the score from beginning to end.

In the West, the Grizzlies defeated the Trail Blazers for the first time, even though Aldridge scored 35+15.

The most exciting thing is the contest between the Clippers and the Spurs. The Clippers narrowly beat the Spurs at home. Jordan scored 14 free throws in this game, because Popovich adopted a long-lost "shark-cutting tactic" in the game!