At last, Durant faced Paul George to finish with a buzzer-beater, leaving the Heat Team grinning at the end.
Durant scored 48 points throughout the ga, breaking his personal playoff record for the highest score in a single ga.
"This is KD’s season!" His performance made the live comntators exclaim.
Leading the team to 70 wins, grabbing the MVP, breaking the playoff record for highest score in a single ga—Durant in Miami was truly the leading man.
And as long as he won the championship, he could boast about Scarlett’s bathwater, living out the perfect "promotion and marrying a rich beauty" scenario—it was a beautiful thought.
After resting for two days, the Grizzlies and Spurs series’ Ga 2 continued in mphis.
Popovich displayed his stubbornness in this ga.
Help defense was out of the question, employing it against the Grizzlies would only increase their defensive pressure.
He made adjustnts to the starting lineup, substituting Dio for Split to be the starting center.
Previously, he had used Split as a starter to counter the Grizzlies’ twin towers. Now that the Grizzlies’ offensive focus wasn’t on the twin towers, having Dio could better assist in double-teaming Hansen.
Hansen’s performance at the start of the ga wasn’t as explosive as in Ga 1. Even his shooting wasn’t too good.
But he penetrated more to the basket, drawing double teams and revitalizing the Grizzlies’ offense.
Basketball tactics are complicated if you delve into it and simple if broken down—it’s all about creating easy scoring opportunities.
Like Princeton, it’s about playing as a team, where every player can create such opportunities through movent.
But more often, tactics rely on strong offensive players attracting double teams, then creating opportunities for teammates.
This is why, as basketball evolved, complicated tactics were simplified because just letting the stars mismatch and isolate could achieve the tactical effect.
When Hansen was shooting well, he could rely on his own shots without much need for tactics. But when he was off, by increasing penetration, he could drive the Grizzlies’ tactics.
However, facing the team-oriented Spurs didn’t intimidate the Grizzlies. Green and Leonard couldn’t defend Hansen one-on-one, but their help defense was very strong.
Especially Leonard, whose large hands, even without stealing the ball, exerted imnse pressure in help defense.
Also, Popovich letting his starters play during garbage ti in the last ga fueled the Spurs’ players to play more proactively tonight.
By halfti, the Spurs led the Grizzlies 45-40.
This Spurs team, as far as Hansen knew "historically," missed the championship by just one free throw from Leonard.
Or rather, if it weren’t for Ray Allen’s historic tying shot, they would have already been champions.
Barring any surprises, they could have continued to suppress the Grizzlies and even the series.
However, in the second half, a surprise occurred.
Hansen found his shooting touch!
This scene seed familiar—two years ago in the Western division semifinals, Hansen had a poor first half but found his touch in the second half.
Facing the Spurs, it seed like Hansen really had so special mayoral gene.
But unlike back then, the current Hansen was even more formidable.
Popovich stuck to his defensive strategy, then Hansen made one after another "least cost-effective" mid-range shot.
In that quarter, Hansen turned into Anthony, who, in a ga against the Thunders towards the end of this season, managed to score 50 points without once entering the three-second area.
Scoring 20 points in a single quarter, Hansen had Barkley and others questioning Popovich’s coaching abilities.
"Did Popovich forget he was still on the court?" O’Neal wondered.
"He’s like a stubborn donkey, frantically running out but forgetting it’s still tightly leashed." Just as O’Neal couldn’t forget Kobe, Barkley couldn’t forget his donkey.
At the sa ti, similar discussions were taking place on social dia.
"eting Duncan was the luckiest part of Popovich’s coaching career. Duncan aging is the biggest challenge he’s faced."
"The Spurs’ success is firstly due to drafting Duncan, secondly due to the GDP’s pay cut, and thirdly because of Popovich."
"The third reason you ntion, is that when the team faces difficulties, he makes them cripple the opponent’s core player, right?"
...
In the final quarter, Popovich put the GDP lineup on the court at the beginning, trying to take back control of the ga in this way.
Ignoring his coaching ability, he always managed to pull off so maneuvers that others hadn’t seen.
At this ti, however, Joerger was surprisingly calm and didn’t let Popovich lead him by the nose.
Of course, his confidence had much to do with the depth of the Grizzlies’ bench.
After trading for Carter, the Grizzlies could field a pure bench lineup of Livingston, Carter, Battier, Jamison, and Faried.
Not to ntion Guy, who was always staggered in his playti.
Just this lineup alone was better than so of the starting teams in the East.
This was also the main reason why the Grizzlies could still maintain the top spot in the West after the midway point of this hellish season, even while just coasting.
The San Antonio Spurs narrowed the score gap sowhat with the GDP playing during this period, but it didn’t et Popovich’s expectations.
Because they couldn’t make a significant dent in the score, Popovich’s initiative would turn passive as the GDP got worn out.
The fact was soon proved, as once the Grizzlies put their starters back in, the gap in the score widened again.
Leonard perford well during this period. With the GDP lineup exhausted, he helped the Spurs catch up by cutting to the basket and shooting from outside.
Getting Leonard for the Spurs was like the Lakers getting Kobe and the Grizzlies getting Hansen.
But since he hadn’t developed the ability to effectively play one-on-one, he couldn’t yet impact the outco of the ga.
In the end, the Grizzlies beat the Spurs 95 to 85, taking the series to 2-0.
Hansen scored only 9 points in the first half but racked up 31 in the second, totaling 40 points for the ga.
Over two gas, his average score reached 42.5 points.
Initially, Barkley casually predicted Hansen could score 40 points, but it turned out his prediction was conservative.
At the postga news conference, Popovich was once again rattled by a reporter’s question.
"Why does the Spurs team always allow Han to score high? Could there be a problem with the team’s tactical arrangent?" a reporter asked.
"The person sitting in this position is . I have coached this team to four championships. I understand how to win gas better than you do," Popovich responded, reminding people of Jas, and perhaps he should really consider coaching "the Chosen One."
"I hope they keep up such a defensive strategy, then my stats would surely look fantastic," Hansen also joked about Popovich during the postga interview.
While the Grizzlies had taken a 2-0 lead over the Spurs, the Heat had a turnover in Ga 2.
Wade was still searching for his rhythm. The ga process and the outco were identical to the last match, tough and unresolved in regular ti.
This ti, however, George shined in the final quarter.
With 0.7 seconds left in the ga, George received a hand-to-hand pass from West and managed to tie the ga with a three-pointer against Durant.
In overti, it was his intense defense against Durant in the final monts that forced Durant to commit a traveling error.
The Pacers eventually took Ga 2, and George significantly boosted his popularity with his performance in this ga.
The old nickna "Little McGrady" from his draft days was brought back by fans.
"Hey Han, Miami isn’t really going to be knocked out early, right?" Guy couldn’t help but approach Hansen before Ga 3’s pre-match training.
If the finals really saw the Pacers, the Grizzlies would have a much greater chance of winning compared to playing against the Heat.
The match against the Spurs showed that with a scorer like Hansen, the Grizzlies had a better chance against defensive teams.
And with the season’s toughest opponents, the Lakers, being out early, if the Heat were also knocked out early, the Grizzlies would be incredibly lucky.
"It doesn’t matter whether they get knocked out early or not, it would be good for us either way."
Hansen didn’t really think the Pacers could beat the Heat, just ntioned, Wade couldn’t possibly keep being out of form.
But as the Heat had already expended so much in the regular season and if they exhausted themselves further in the Eastern Conference Finals, what percentage of their strength would they have left in the finals?
You know, Guy asking this really made him think of the 73-win Warriors team.
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