Replacing Dwyane Wade in the starting lineup was Rasual Butler.
An underdog who rose through the ranks from the second round.
Typically, such players either beco the core of the team with impressive explosive power, like Michael Red and Gilbert Arenas,
or they are energetic and have so decent scoring tricks up their sleeve.
Butler belonged to the second category, a fairly standard "3D player."
However, his three-point shooting wasn’t that stable, nor was his defensive ability outstanding.
He could only serve as a regular rotation for the Heat.
With Butler replacing Wade, Eddie Jones could finally move back to his preferred position at the two.
But that ant he would now be matched up against Su Wan...
Looking into Su Wan’s gleaming eyes, Eddie Jones suddenly had an intense thought:
This is going to be bad tonight!
As it turned out, sotis a man’s intuition can be incredibly accurate.
Su Wan’s isolation plays left him completely disheartened.
With 7 minutes and 34 seconds left in the first quarter, Stan Van Gundy sighed helplessly as he looked at the glaring stats on Su Wan’s sheet: 7 shots and 5 makes, 3 free throws and 3 hits.
Originally, he had moved Eddie Jones back to the two in the hope of limiting Su Wan’s performance.
He didn’t expect Jones to completely restrict Su, that was unrealistic given Jones’ current form. But even a slight restriction would have fulfilled the tactical goal. The Heat’s wing and power forward positions weren’t bad at help defense.
However, the outco...
It wasn’t that there was no effect; rather, there was no effect whatsoever.
Watching Su Wan do as he pleased on the court, scoring at will, the Heat fans in attendance realized that Wade was not only the "offensive core," accounting for over 30% or even more of the Heat’s total offensive GDP for the season; he was also carrying a heavy defensive load.
Our "new core" will be exhausted!
Wade probably never imagined that not playing would make him tonight’s biggest winner for the Heat.
So people are like that; when they are around, you feel they are important.
But when they’re gone, oh my, they are even more important!
Su Wan was displaying his "scoring talent" on the offensive end.
As Shaquille O’Neal anticipated before the ga, he faced various frustrating "double teams." Forget about getting the ball to attack; the Pacers didn’t even entertain the idea of letting him touch the ball today.
Every ti the ball was about to reach his hands, at least two people would instantly appear, teaming up with Foster to form a siege. If he hesitated for even a second, passing the ball out would beco incredibly difficult.
These guys didn’t care how many points the other Heat players scored.
As long as Shaq didn’t score, that was fine!
And yet...
With Shaquille O’Neal being double-tead like that, the other Heat players still couldn’t score.
Of course, this wasn’t the other Heat players’ fault. If it were the previous season, when the team practiced "equalism," and every ga everyone had a certain opportunity to initiate plays. Then, at critical monts, anyone could step up to take on so scoring responsibilities.
But this season, the team played an absolute "superstar strategy," with the ball primarily in the hands of Wade and Shaquille. These two averaged nearly half of the team’s points per ga in the regular season!
Aside from them, the highest score from any other player was only 12.1 points.
The others had already grown accustod to shooting "opportunity balls" around them.
Scoring through an offense they had to break down on their own...
Even a forr All-Star like Eddie Jones, from whom Kobe had stolen moves, had regressed, hardly being able to get the ball now!
By the end of the first quarter, the Pacers had pulled ahead by nearly 15 points.
Su Wan had scored 16 points alone in the quarter!
And that was without even entering "The zone."
That’s how bad Eddie Jones’ defense was.
Actually, that’s not quite right to say; Jones could still guard ordinary players without much trouble. Su Wan’s real strength wasn’t that much superior; it’s just that in the previous gas, he had faced top-tier defenders like Wade. Now, he was up against Eddie Jones, a much lesser challenge.
It was sowhat reminiscent of the ti when, after Lu Bu’s death, Guan Yu faced other opponents.
How could it be that everyone else seed like easy pickings!
Just not challenging enough~
There was also another reason—Eddie Jones’ physical condition had deteriorated.
Otherwise, he could have caused more interference for Su Wan.
In the second quarter, Stan Van Gundy began devising a defense against Su Wan. This adjustnt imdiately opened up the three-point areas on the wings.
Stephen Jackson and Reggie Miller started firing, scoring a combined seven three-point shots in the quarter, racking up 21 points between the two of them.
The gap quickly widened to more than 25 points.
"If this continues, the Heat could lose by 40 points tonight!" Charles Barkley also noticed that Su Wan often performs better in the second half than the first half.
It was as if...
He was using the first half to warm up?
With Su Wan heavily double-tead in the second quarter, his stats didn’t improve much. After scoring 16 points in the first quarter, he only had 24 by halfti...
This made him realize the limitation of his scoring thods...
With Shaquille O’Neal guarding the interior, his efficiency driving to the basket was much lower than finding opportunities from midrange. The Heat’s players also noticed this.
If his shooting range could extend even further, he would have even more options.
Unfortunately, he needed to save his upcoming zone points to enhance his physical fitness over the sumr.
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