NBA: Start by torturing Jordan and add points to upgrade

James, who suddenly stopped the ball under the basket, was inevitably surrounded by the Bobcats.

In addition to Odom, who was always with him, and Yao Ming, who was helping defend under the basket, Hayward on the wing also rushed to James' side, forming a three-sided encirclement.

Three people grabbed the ball, one using their bodies to block the referee's view, and the other using their combined strength to prevent James from getting the ball back to him. Odom held the basketball tightly with both hands, wrestling with James like mad.

"Let go!" Hayward suddenly roared, and Odom immediately released his grip. Then Hayward slammed his fist down.

"Snapped!"

Another muffled thud. Hayward had slammed the ball down with almost a full fist, the force was extraordinary. Even James could no longer control the basketball, and it finally slipped from his grasp and rolled to the ground.

Odom reacted the fastest, diving to catch the basketball.

Then, before James could rush over to contest for the ball again, he immediately passed the ball to Rose.

After receiving the ball, Rose made a quick and swift turn, leaving Stevenson behind. He then slapped the ball in front of him and accelerated at full speed, and the Bobcats' counterattack started again.

In a flash, Rose once again charged to the frontcourt, but this time, because he started from a relatively far back position, even though he was incredibly fast, Butler and Barea had already returned to their defensive positions, standing one in front of the other and marking Rose closely.

This time, Rose didn't choose to attack directly. Instead, he suddenly pushed the ball with both hands and passed it to the other side at a 45-degree angle, where Jeremy Lin had just run into position.

When Jeremy Lin received the ball, there were no Mavericks players within several meters of him. The only other Mavericks player running across half-court at that moment was Stevenson, who was also heading towards Rose. Rose was so threatening that the Mavericks made such a basic defensive mistake.

Three against one, and Jeremy Lin completely missed.

Jeremy Lin certainly wouldn't miss such an opportunity! At the same time, instead of rushing straight to the basket for a layup, he stood still, took a look, and then decisively launched a three-pointer!

If your Mavericks can bring the game back to life in the third quarter with three-pointers, then we can also use three-pointers to wipe out the suspense of the game!

"Shh!"

With a crisp sound, Jeremy Lin sank another wide-open three-pointer!
At the start of the fourth quarter, the Bobcats went on a 5-0 run against the Mavericks!

If you add the 6 points at the end of the fourth quarter, the Bobcats have now gone on an 11-0 run!

As Lin Tian said, the Mavericks can't be without making mistakes, and they can't maintain their high morale and hot shooting touch forever. As soon as they relax even slightly, it will be the Bobcats' chance!
The score at this point became 105:98!

The Bobcats' lead has reached 7 points!
"Get on the court!" Johnson dared not hold back any longer and immediately waved his hand, bringing Nowitzki and Terry onto the court, along with Marion.

With James and Butler on the court again, the Mavericks brought out their star lineup once more, the same lineup that allowed them to outscore the Mavericks by 19 points in the third quarter.

They're about to fight to the death!

While the Mavericks were making substitutions, Lin Tian was also busy. He replaced Hayward with Boozer.

Lin Tian used the same old tactic from the third quarter: "I don't believe you can stay accurate all the time!"

And no matter how accurate you are, our inside players can continue to dominate you.

With a tall and strong interior presence, plus three players of exceptional height, Lin Tian has absolute confidence!
"The two teams are going back to that kind of third-quarter duel, one side is tall, the other is accurate. The Mavericks' accuracy had a clear advantage in the third quarter, but what about the fourth quarter?" Miller asked quickly. "Can the Mavericks keep up their accuracy?"

As Miller spoke, Terry had already set a pick and roll with Nowitzki once again. Both of them were on fire tonight, so their pick and roll combination was naturally incredibly powerful.

After the two players blocked each other, Terry surprisingly didn't choose to force a shot himself. Instead, he made a bounce pass, passing the ball between Rose's legs and directly to Nowitzki, who was cutting down the court.

After receiving the ball, Nowitzki made a quick drive to the basket, raised his hands to shake off Boozer, and immediately stepped up for a layup, easily sending the ball into the hoop.

Nowitzki is not only a great shooter, but his face-up drives and physical strength are also top-notch among power forwards!

Or to put it more bluntly: throughout NBA history, there has never been a single power forward whose offensive ability is significantly better than Nowitzki's!

Only a handful of players, such as Malone and Webber who were at their peak for only two years, could rival him in offensive power.

The rest of the people are at least one level below them.

Therefore, Nowitzki's offensive arsenal is quite diverse and comprehensive.

Even with his back-to-the-basket skills, his turnaround jump shot is incredibly accurate. Aside from not being particularly good at strong, head-to-head play under the basket, he is proficient in every offensive skill that an inside player should have. In addition, he has top-notch shooting touch and top-tier ball-handling ability among players of his height and class.

Once Nowitzki gets going, he's truly unstoppable.

But if you, Nowitzki, can't stop us, do you think we, the Bobcats, can easily stop you?

Rose dribbled to the top of the arc once again and easily drove past Terry, heading straight for the paint!

Your Mavericks' interior defense is weak, so we'll keep attacking your paint!

This time, Nowitzki's rim protection was unusually effective, interfering with Rose's layup. The ball bounced off the rim and missed, but Nowitzki's presence on Rose meant that the Mavericks' only tall player was away from the basket.

The Bobcats naturally won the rebound again!

This time, Boozer, who had just entered the game, easily jumped and tipped the ball into the basket again.

The Bobcats' lead remains at 7 points!
"Finally, we've stabilized!" Jordan let out a long sigh of relief, sat down in his chair, looking completely exhausted, as if he had just played 30 minutes of the game.

"You're making a fuss over nothing. We've played over 100 games like this this season." Lin Tian immediately retorted to Jordan's naive and unsophisticated attitude.

"How many games have you guys even played this season? More than 100 of these kinds of games?" Jordan glared at him, giving him a look that said, "Stop bragging."

"8 preseason games, 82 regular season games, and 24 playoff games, not counting tonight's game, that's a total of 114 games. What's wrong with playing over a hundred of these kinds of games? Why isn't it over a hundred games?"

"Do you want to be shameless?"

"You don't care whether I have any shame or not, just tell me if my logic is flawed!"

"FUXX! Shameless bastard! Go to hell!"

"You idiot who can't even build a team, I'm quitting next season. You can go begging and pleading to find someone to carry you into the playoffs!"

Van Gundy, listening to the two's pointless bickering, felt a little more relaxed.

Like the other two, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The team has finally stabilized the situation again and regained control of the game!
In the next few minutes of the game, both sides finally started to lose their touch. Although they were still in pretty good form, they did not have the seemingly cheat-like shooting percentage they had in the third quarter.

Although both teams' efficiency declined, the Bobcats were unable to widen the score gap again.

Because Johnson also began to adjust tactics, he started to have the players drop back more, protect the rebounds, and allow the Bobcats to take some shots.

As the Bobcats' shooting touch cooled off, Johnson's strategy began to show results, with the team's rebounding efficiency finally starting to improve, and they were no longer getting dominated on the boards by the Bobcats.

The game time never stopped ticking away, with both sides giving their all. Time flowed relentlessly, and the point difference between the two sides remained in the single digits.

The Mavericks even closed the gap to just one point, but the Bobcats quickly regained control and widened the score gap again.

The Bobcats also extended their lead to 9 points twice, but they were just one step away from getting it back to double digits.

The two sides remained deadlocked, with exciting moments occasionally emerging on the field, but also some basic mistakes from time to time.

In absolute terms, this game wasn't a particularly technically demanding or exciting top-level match. However, considering that it could potentially decide the championship, the fans watched with bated breath, their eyes glued to the screen, afraid that the outcome would be decided in the blink of an eye.

The score remained close until the final two minutes of the game.

125: 120!

The Bobcats maintained a 5-point lead, never trailing throughout the fourth quarter and consistently holding the advantage. At this point, Johnson called another timeout.

When the timeout ended, everyone saw what adjustment he made; he made a rather bold substitution.

今晚已经拿到11分13篮板7助攻，另外还有3盖帽2抢断的詹姆斯被换了下去！
Not only because he has gone 0-for-2 and scored no points in the fourth quarter, but also because although he did not have a single turnover in the first three quarters tonight, he committed three turnovers in the fourth quarter!
This also includes a crucial mistake made 10 seconds earlier when his pass was intercepted by the Bobcats, allowing Yao Ming to hit another mid-range shot and widen the gap to 5 points!
That mistake could very well have cost us the game!
After all, if that shot had gone in instead of being a mistake, the Mavericks could have narrowed the gap to one point or even tied the game.

However, James's mistake not only resulted in the Mavericks failing to score, but also allowed the Bobcats to score on a successful offensive possession. The difference of 4 points, one inside and one outside, was truly a difference between heaven and hell for the Mavericks.

In particular, James's mistakes in the fourth quarter were all due to hesitation!
He hesitated and was indecisive, as if he had forgotten how to make decisions on the court, which led to his fatal mistake in the fourth quarter.

So at this point, Johnson couldn't take it anymore. He decided to disregard things like status, team position, and league position, and he took James away.

He brought in veteran Peja. Although Peja is now no match for James in any aspect except for the length of his name and the consistency of his three-pointers, at this point in the game, Johnson was unwilling to trust James anymore.

He didn't care what was wrong with James. He gave James enough time, but James didn't give him any effective return.

If there's no return, then move on!

"I don't think there's anything wrong with Johnson's choice. James' performance throughout this series has been quite strange." Miller said bluntly, "I don't know what's wrong with him, but the team won the first two games by a large margin, so we didn't need his performance."

"But what about the three away games? Apart from that 40+ game, scoring even 20 points has become incredibly difficult for him. Tonight, he didn't even score 15 points! Honestly, if he were facing the Pistons of yesteryear or the Celtics of today, I could understand why he played so poorly."

"But please, he's facing the Bobcats! The Bobcats do have Yao Ming, the tallest player in the league, guarding the paint, but their starting forward is that damn Hayward!"

"A white rookie!"

"And the player who matched up against James the most on the Bobcats' bench was Odom, damn Odom!"

"I know Hayward is great, and I also acknowledge Odom's versatility, but a white rookie whose physicality is barely at the NBA level and a guy who has never been known for his defense and has never received a single Defensive Player of the Year or All-Defensive Team vote in his entire career."

"With this setup, they can defend LeBron James like this?"

"If you say that the Bobcats defended well, played brilliantly, and were very effective in targeting James, then nobody would believe that!"

"I can't guess what's wrong with LeBron. All I can say is that the most disappointing person in this series, or the only one, is LeBron! He played terribly, he played so badly, he played like, like those stinky socks that haven't been washed in 30 years under my grandma's bed, disgusting!"

Miller's comments were absolutely rude. It's rare to hear such blunt and direct criticism in the official commentary booth of a formal game, but James' performance in this series has clearly broken through his limits, which made Miller unable to hold back.

This time, even his partner Jackson didn't try to stop him, showing that the two were thinking exactly the same thing.

The game on the court had already restarted. As if the whole world wanted to slap James in the face, Peja, who had just replaced James, received a pass from Butler on the wing and immediately launched a three-pointer.

With a crisp sound, the three-pointer swished through the net, narrowing the gap between the two sides to two points once again.

This play seemed to be telling everyone: You should have substituted James a long time ago, and you should have substituted Peja a long time ago!

Yes, at least Lin Tian really thinks so!

As soon as Peja entered the field, he immediately stood up and yelled at his players, "Kill him! Kill him! Chase after him and beat him to death!"

This 'he' naturally refers to Peja!

With this natural defensive weakness on the court, it would be a miracle if Lin Tian didn't chase after him and attack him!
Although the Mavericks were playing with a big man lineup, the Bobcats also had three big men. After a run, Peja was matched up against Odom.

As soon as Odom saw Peja, he immediately turned around and aggressively charged towards the paint. Peja was completely overwhelmed and forced to retreat all the way to the edge of the paint before Odom finally stopped his relentless, ruthless attack.

Instead, he reached out for the ball.

After getting the basketball, Odom immediately turned from the baseline, using his shoulder and elbow to push Peja away without lifting his arm. Then, Odom easily banked the ball into the basket!

127: 123!

There are 1 minute and 24 seconds left in the game!
This is truly a life-or-death moment!

At this point, Johnson didn't call another timeout. He only had one time left, so he had to conserve it!

With one and a half minutes left, the Mavericks still have a 4-point gap to close!

Terry, on the other hand, was in no hurry at all. He slowly dribbled the ball forward, directing his teammates' runs while carefully guarding against the Bobcats' defense.

Then, when Nowitzki stepped forward again to set a screen for Terry, Terry suddenly passed the ball out prematurely!

While the Bobcats' entire team was focused on him and Nowitzki, this guy made a smart move and passed the ball to Butler, who was raising his hand to call for the ball in the mid-range area.

After receiving the ball, Butler immediately turned and shot in one smooth motion, the whole movement was perfect!

"Shh!"

With such a comfortable shooting form and smooth movement, it's only natural that the basketball would go into the basket!

Still 2 points!
"The two sides were incredibly evenly matched!" Jackson said. "The last two minutes were destined to be suffocating and incredibly long! But when time finally ran out, you would definitely feel that the game was over so quickly!"

"This is a fantastic game! This is the kind of game that keeps you glued to the screen the whole time!"

"That's the magic of the finals!"

"Rose is back in the frontcourt!" Miller continued. "With 1 minute and 10 seconds left, let's see how the game unfolds!"

Logically speaking, the Bobcats, who are in the lead, shouldn't be in a hurry at this point. Time is their friend. They should play steadily until the 24-second shot clock expires, run down the clock as much as possible, and make the Mavericks anxious and make them make mistakes in their haste.

But Rose clearly doesn't think so!

He had just arrived at the front of the field when he glanced at the time and then accelerated and started moving!

Without waiting or considering the teammates' positioning, a completely unreasonable and tactical forced attack was launched!
However, this irrationality has its advantages, namely that the Mavericks were completely caught off guard and did not expect Rose to launch such a sudden attack.

In the blink of an eye, Rose drove into the heart of the Mavericks' defense. Nowitzki moved laterally into the three-second zone as quickly as possible, hoping to block Rose's path to the basket. But just as Nowitzki collapsed, Rose passed the ball.

The basketball flew towards the left corner, where the Bobcats' most reliable outside shooter this season, especially during the playoffs.

Yao Ming held the ball beyond the three-point line and stood still. Marion, who was beside him, tried to come over to defend, but it was too late.

Yao Ming ignored the noise from the crowd and Marion's help defense, and decisively took the three-pointer.

"Shh!"

The crisp sound was like a sharp blade, piercing the hearts of all the Dallas fans in the stadium!
The point difference is 5 points again!

130: 125!

That three-pointer was fatal for the Dallas team!
The only good news is that the Bobcats' attack went from advancing to scoring in just 11 seconds, giving them 59 seconds to redeem themselves!
An excited Yao Ming roared to the sky, pounding his chest wildly as he sprinted back to defend at top speed.

"Rose drives to the basket, Yao catches the ball on the baseline and shoots! This is one of the Bobcats' most frequently used tactics this season, and one of their most refined and proficient tactics! However, due to Rose's lethal drives and Yao's height, very few teams can effectively contain this move."

After Yao Ming made that shot, Miller forced himself to calm down and said as calmly as possible, "Yao has worked so hard to improve his three-point shot this year. It is truly the greatest personal change and sacrifice I have ever seen in the history of the NBA!"

"He abandoned his most familiar and dominant area, leaving the space under the basket for players like Rose and DeRozan, while he stretched out to the three-point line and punished every opponent with his accurate shooting!"

"If Yao's three-pointers in the regular season could only be considered a secret weapon, as neither their accuracy nor their volume was top-notch, then in the playoffs, Yao's three-pointers became a deadly weapon!"

"The Cavaliers, Celtics, and Knicks all suffered because of Yao's three-pointers, and tonight, it's Dallas' turn!"

"Of course, to think of having a dominant inside player switch to practicing three-pointers, and to achieve such amazing results in just one summer, Lin is truly a genius, a real genius!" (End of Chapter)