However, although the pace at which they widened the score difference was slow, it was exceptionally steady.
By the third quarter, the Pacers fans at the venue had already started to watch the ga with ease, no longer worried about the outco for their team.
"In the Position War," once the rhythm was controlled, though the score difference might not seem terrifying, it could make the opponent struggle every single round.
Su Wan had the ball a lot in this ga, and eventually scored 32 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.
With his assists, Billups scored 3 three-point shots and ended up with 15 points.
Zach Randolph scored 18 points, all from easy scoring opportunities given to him by Su Wan’s draws on defense. He felt that tonight didn’t feel like the Eastern Conference Finals at all!
The ease of scoring clearly seed more like a preseason ga!
The O’Neals didn’t score much, Shaquille O’Neal had 12 points, and Jermaine O’Neal only 14.
But both of them did very good jobs on the defensive end.
Shaquille O’Neal, against the "Chosen One" Dwight Howard from the semifinals who played like LeBron, defended him to a re 5 out of 12 shooting, 6 out of 12 free throws, for 16 points. Additionally, as the season’s ’Rebound King,’ he only grabbed 8 rebounds, with only 1 frontcourt rebound.
Of course, limiting Howard like this wouldn’t have been possible without the equally indispensable Marc Gasol, who was sitting on the bench after being fouled out.
Under Jermaine’s defense, Tekeglu also perford very poorly, with 6 out of 15 shooting, 1 out of 7 three-pointers, finishing the ga with 13 points, 5 rebounds, and in addition, giving away 6 assists and suffering 5 turnovers.
Later, when Jermaine defended him, he beca so desperate that he continuously missed top-shot three-pointers, infuriating Stan Van Gundy, who cursed loudly from the sidelines.
Lewis perford the best for the Magic, ending up with a team-high 21 points.
But such a performance was obviously not enough to help the Magic win tonight.
After the ga, Bill Walton said, "If the Magic don’t co up with more variety, this ga will be a microcosm of the entire series!"
Barkley also said, "Both being first-team all-defense this season, Dwight Howard clearly has a long way to go compared to Su Wan!"
Kenny Smith added, "Actually, Dwight always does not perform well when facing Shaquille O’Neal and Yao, these two old-school big n!"
Barkley gave him a glance, "Trivia: Yao Ming only joined the league two seasons before Dwight!"
Kenny Smith said, "But he is 6 years older than Howard!"
For the Magic, there was another very bad sign.
After the ga, both Tekeglu and Howard looked very dejected during interviews.
This was definitely not just the emotion from losing a ga.
Especially Howard...
He usually wouldn’t take a loss to heart like this.
The real reason he felt so dejected was not just because of tonight’s loss, but also because he could feel that he couldn’t adapt to the Pacers’ defensive sche, and it was impossible for him to regain his dominance within this defense.
Not seeing the possibility of adjustnt was the reason he was so downcast.
The sa was true for Tekeglu; Jermaine’s defense made him feel very uncomfortable, but he did not have confidence in making adjustnts in the next ga.
With both of them in such a mindset, the outco of the next ga was predictable.
to 88.
The 13-point difference might not seem large.
But fans who watched the ga knew just how torturous this ga was for the Magic.
They were like frogs in lukewarm water,
and what’s worse, they knew the water would only get hotter, but they simply couldn’t escape the Pacers’ "warm water."
The series score reached 0-2.
An Orlando dia journalist remarked, "I have never missed Jamil so much. If he was here, the Magic’s offense definitely wouldn’t have been so passive!"
Not only did he think this way, other Orlando dia people felt the sa.
They believed that Little Nelson’s penetrating breakthroughs would beco the key to breaking the Magic’s losing pattern.
The good news, for the sake of balancing the post-season schedule between the conferences, was that the next Eastern Conference Finals ga would start in 5 days.
During this ti, the Orlando dia could pray fervently in hope for a miracle, such as Little Nelson declaring his return in the next ho ga.
On the Western side, the two teams that made it to the finals were the sa as before, the Lakers and the Nuggets.
The intense match-up between Kobe and Carlo Anthony was delivered as expected.
It stunned the Denver fans.
No...
Could our "Sweet lon" really be such an excited "young man"?
Carlo Anthony stuck to Kobe throughout the entire ga, as if he wanted to cling to him and never let go.
Baron Davis gained a significant advantage in his match-up with "Old Fish."
So much so that at the beginning of the ga, the Lakers were actually the ones behind.
But after Phil Jackson shifted the offensive focus to the inside, the Lakers gradually evened out the score.
Nene, together with Foster, was better on defense than offense; their defensive ability could handle most teams’ big n in the league, but the Lakers’ Twin Towers duo wasn’t on this list.
They had enough enthusiasm, but in terms of talent, they really fell short compared to Paul Gasol and Yao Ming.
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