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Chapter 138 There are still three games left (5000 words chapter, begging for monthly subscription!)
Compared to the champion players in the Warriors.
Before the finals, Mike Malone was the only one who felt nervous on the team.

Last season, he was also an assistant coach to Cavaliers head coach Mike Brown.

He is a person who relied on his father Brandon Malone's connections to get out of the shadow of unemployment and get the opportunity to assist the Chosen One.

But now, who would have thought that he would soon step onto the finals stage with the team as the head coach of the defending champion?
Recalling the interview he took last summer, Malone couldn't help but sigh.
That interview not only changed his destiny, but also gave him the opportunity, which many of his colleagues envied, to coach the greatest active player in the league today.

Before the start of Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, Malone had already written a "repentance letter" to take the blame for the Warriors' failure to defend their title.
But with the Messiah's epic "50+20+10" performance in that Game .
Tearing up that "Confession of Sins", Malone knew very well that the Warriors were only one step away from becoming the final champion.

And this step.
In Malone's eyes, this may be the easiest step for the Warriors in this year's playoff journey.

Malone knows his old friend Brown's coaching style very well, and he knows what kind of defensive system he has built for the Cavaliers.

- Relying on frequent personnel rotation to maintain the Cavaliers' defensive intensity on the field. And by keeping a close eye on the opponent's key players, the performance of the entire opponent team is affected.

In the previous three series against the Cavaliers, they were able to limit their opponents' offense to less than 87 points per game.

What an outstanding and remarkable defensive statistic!

This Cleveland Cavaliers team is very good at fighting with opponents. But after experiencing the seventh game of the Western Conference Finals with the Supersonics, Malone does not think the Cavaliers can do better than the Supersonics in hand-to-hand combat.

And as Jeff Van Gundy said, any defense must be based on the premise of being able to form an effective matchup.

In the regular season, Qin Yue had already proved that there was no player on the Cavaliers who could match up with him.

LeBron James, who is fully committed to the defensive end, is undoubtedly the most suitable player in the Cavaliers to defend Qin Yue.

Comparable to "Full Strength".
Malone doesn't think James can do better than Garnett, whether in terms of defensive experience or size.

Moreover, once James suffers too much damage on the defensive end, who can the Cavaliers rely on for offense?

In the upcoming finals, Shaquille O'Neal, who had made great contributions to the Cavaliers' advancement to the finals, will inevitably have his playing time reduced.

As one side gains strength while the other loses strength, Ma Long believes that this may even be the finals round with the most disparity in overall strength between the two sides in history.

In addition, after the Western Conference Finals holiday, both Malone and the Warriors players clearly felt that Qin Yue's crazy state not only did not disappear, but
There seems to be a trend of intensifying.

Qin Yue was so depressed.

Ever since that bastard Bowen plotted against me
He had been unable to exert his full strength in ten consecutive games, and at that time he seemed as if his hands and feet were tied up.

Even in the seventh game, he had a thrilling fight with "Quanli Te", which only allowed him to expel some of the resentment in his chest.

另外
The league's general director David Stern's forced interference in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals also made Qin Yue determined.

He tried his best and gave everything he had to make it to this date with James in the sky, just to continue to collect debts from the foolish and incompetent league with full power release one game after another.

If last year Qin Yue only wanted to take off the crown for himself, then at this moment, he was extremely angry and full of infinite resentment.
He just wants to personally crush any villain who tries to prevent him from being crowned again!

He's going to have a well-deserved finals performance.
To completely establish his rule over this era!

Satan, the destroyer of the world, has already prepared his blade of destruction.

2007 6 Month 8 Day.

——This is the day when the first game of the NBA Finals begins.

That night, James, who made it to the finals for the first time, seemed extremely excited.

Although before the game, nine experts from ESPN were not optimistic about the Cavaliers.

But James still said in an interview: "You know, I have always been a loyal fan of Liverpool. In Istanbul in 2005, no one was optimistic that they could beat Milan. Even at the end of the first half, Liverpool was once behind 0-3, but Liverpool finally won the Champions League trophy."

Is James really a Liverpool fan?

Qin Yue didn’t know.

But in his memory, James will indeed become a small shareholder of Liverpool in the future.

"My dear bread, have you thought about how you will feel after being swept by my team?"

During the pre-match warm-up, when Malone was greeting Brown, he did not give him face because of their personal relationship.

Hearing this, Brown frowned and asked, "Why are you always so optimistic and confident?"

Malone put his arm around Brown's shoulders and said, "Because you didn't have the opportunity to coach the Messiah, otherwise you would be as optimistic and confident as I am."

Unlike the Cavaliers players who have forgotten how their team lost to the Warriors in the regular season.

As the head coach of this team
Brown knew very well that this was destined to be a finals in which the Cavaliers would be at a complete disadvantage.

For this reason, Brown, who cannot boost others' morale and destroy his own prestige before the finals, can only support LeBron James wholeheartedly and believe that this chosen one can create that glimmer of possibility for the Cavaliers in the finals.

At the scene, in the golden wave that had begun to roll in the Oracle Arena, after the entrance ceremony, the starting rosters of the two teams were immediately announced.

Cavaliers: Big Z, Gooden, James, Mo, Snow.

Warriors: Brown, Qin Yue, Artest, Richardson, Davis.

Having a large number of players is indeed the biggest feature of this Cavaliers team.

During the previous Eastern Conference Finals, Brown used two lineups every night to deal with the Pistons.

Before the start of the finals, the only way Brown could feel about winning was this - using the physical confrontation and defensive standards that were tacitly allowed in this year's playoffs to reduce the Warriors' outside shooting percentage, and maintaining such defense through high-frequency rotations, and finally praying that James could lead his Kings Guards to capture the Warriors' position again and again.
On the court, after the jump ball, the game officially begins.

The Warriors' first offensive possession.

Qin Yue, who stood at the top of the arc and helped the Warriors break the Cavaliers' one-on-four combination, broke through the opponent's iron bucket formation right from the start.

James, who was responsible for facing Qin Yue, defended very hard and seriously.

But when he tried to increase his strength to Qin Yue, he pounced too hard, which gave Qin Yue the opportunity to use his body size to trap him from the side and back.

Then, Qin Yue took three steps into the Cavaliers' restricted area and made a reverse layup against Big Z.

At the beginning of the game, Qin Yue's unreasonable personal breakthrough with the ball made James frown.

This is not the picture James wanted.

Although James knows better than anyone how difficult Qin Yue is to defend, in James' opinion, at least on the outside, he should have an advantage over Qin Yue.

After all, "Young James" is really fast.

Obviously, James needs more time to figure out what kind of magic Qin Yue had just cast on him.

Artest on the side had already seen the clues.

What a perfect timing for releasing the ball!

What a smooth rhythm of releasing the ball, accelerating and then combining the ball!

And the amazing body control during the finish!

In just one round, Atai confirmed that Qin Yue was in his best form tonight.

Back to the Cavaliers' offensive round.

The Warriors responded with a 2-3 zone defense.

The weakness of the 2-3 zone lies in the corners on both sides.

When Qin Yue noticed that the players standing in the two corners for the Cavaliers tonight were Snow and Mo, he immediately signaled to Brown with his eyes and asked him to move quickly to Mo's side.

At the top of the arc, with the appearance of the "W" pattern on James' forehead, you can feel how difficult it is to break the Cavaliers' double-team defense even through the screen.

Gooden and Big Z have set screens for James at least three times, but James still has no chance to attack with the ball.

After the grueling Western Conference Finals, CCTV's Zhang Weiping, who was finally able to fully support Qin Yue and the Warriors during the commentary, said: "James was a little too hesitant on this ball!"

hesitate?

From James' perspective, since there are always people on either side of the Warriors' restricted area, plus there are always three players standing on the two wings and the top of the arc,
So how could he, who is always cautious by nature, not hesitate?

With about 7 seconds left in the Cavaliers' offensive time, James took the ball and launched an attack with the help of Gooden's screen, showing his extremely decisive side.

Shortly afterwards, Mo, who was not completely left open by the Warriors, received the breakthrough pass from James.

Immediately after
Facing Brown's huge body, Mo forced a three-pointer from the corner.

when!
In the Warriors penalty area, Qin Yue easily grabbed the rebound and quickly launched a transition offense.

Big Z and Gooden, who were standing high up to block James, retreated to the Cavaliers' restricted area. Then, they saw.
Qin Yue suddenly stopped dribbling at the three-point line.

Qin Yue knew very well that this was a round of the finals in which the Warriors had a very high tolerance rate.

So, he played much more recklessly than usual tonight.

At a forty-five-degree angle on the right, Qin Yue drew his bow and shot a three-pointer.

Swish!
In the first quarter, such scenes will be repeated in the never-ending golden wave of Oracle Arena.

The Cavaliers, who have to spend more than ten seconds of offensive time to break through the Warriors' double-team defense every time, may be able to seize some of the shots, but most of the time, they just give the Warriors opportunities for transition offense.

Qin Yue's return from injury has indeed given the Warriors the capital to speed up the game.

but more importantly
Because the Warriors team had fully understood the error tolerance of this round of the finals through the "hot and scorching" second game in the regular season, so.
Mike Brown, who tried to drag the Warriors into a positional battle, soon discovered that the Warriors didn't want to play as human beings in the game.

The Cavaliers can certainly respond to the Warriors' constant fast breaks on the court by retreating more quickly.

But who told the knight?
As long as you retreat to the right position, the Warriors will stop their fast break?
In the game, Qin Yue's second three-point shot was about one step away from the three-point line.

However, the basket then rejected the Golden State Warriors No. 30 player's long shot.

But Qin Yue, who grabbed a long rebound in the frontcourt, jumped into the Cavaliers' basket and scored two points and one rebound!
The depressed Bread made major adjustments to the Cavaliers' lineup in the second half of the second quarter.

He successively replaced Vallejo, Marshall and Pavlovic to assist His Majesty the King, who was already having difficulty walking.

More outside shooting points do give James more passing options during his breakthrough and passing process.

However, Qin Yue and Brown each completed a steal in the second half of the first quarter.

Because the angle after James jumps and passes the ball is limited.
Therefore, Qin Yue and Brown, who work in perfect harmony, only need one person to block the passing angle of James to one side after his breakthrough, and the other can easily accept this gift from the king.

The first match ended with a score of 17 to 34.

During the intermission, James, who kept chewing his thumb, began to become anxious.

His "intimate brother" Shaquille O'Neal walked towards the court with an indescribable expression on his face.

According to the Warriors' previous rotation strategy, the first half of the second quarter will be one of the few opportunities for O'Neal to prove himself during this round of the finals.

However.
After the intermission, O'Neal's expression suddenly became confused when he saw Qin Yue, who did not plan to rest in the first half of the second quarter.

No, man, that's not necessary, right?

Not necessary?
No, it is necessary.

According to the current game situation, Qin Yue will most likely have to punch out after the first three quarters, so how could he choose to rest in the first three quarters?

Oracle Arena.

The Warriors' lineup for the second quarter was Qin Yue, Murphy, Barnes, Dunleavy Jr., and Jack.

This was a lineup that made O'Nealton feel desperate.

And what is more desperate than despair is
The Cavaliers players couldn't even get the ball to O'Neal while he was on the court.

The Warriors' 2-3 zone defense, which never wavered, firmly blocked the entire restricted area.

As long as the Cavaliers players cannot seize the three-point opportunities in the corner that the Warriors will inevitably give them.

The Cavaliers, who lacked the means to break through the double team defense, could only let O'Neal run back and forth on the court.

On the Cavaliers bench, Bread, who was about to become autistic, was discovered
It turns out that the team whose shooting percentage was dragged down by the physical intensity and defensive standards that are tacitly accepted by the current era was actually themselves.

After the Game 7 against the Supersonics, the Warriors players' mentality, which was far superior to that of the Cavaliers players, determined that even under the same intensity of confrontation, the Warriors players' three-pointers would be more confident than those of the Cavaliers players.

And it wouldn’t matter if the Warriors didn’t make those 3-pointers.

Because as long as the restricted area is blocked
The Warriors players have absolute confidence that they can defend against the Cavaliers' offense in most rounds.

On the court, the Warriors' offensive round.

Qin Yue, who had long lost interest in O'Neal, did not deliberately bully this big shark for personal reasons.

But who made his model so big that Qin Yue could always find him at the first time?
At the top of the arc, after quickly breaking down the wall with Murphy, Qin Yue once again replaced O'Neal in front of him.

This night will be the end of the center position.

Boom, boom!

Qin Yue left O'Neal behind like a butterfly flying through flowers, dribbled into the Cavaliers' penalty area, and made a one-arm slam dunk.

"From now on, there is only one center in this league. Except for 'Big-Yao', everyone else is just a bunch of scum!"

Looking back at the frustrated O'Neal, Qin Yue deliberately raised his voice to remind him and Big Z who was sitting on the Cavaliers' bench.

Qin Yue remembered that O'Neal once said that there are only two and a half centers in the NBA, one is him, the other is Yao Ming, and the other half is Big Z.

So, since both Big Z, who is always low-key and does not argue with others, and the former No. 1 center seemed so powerless in the game that night, the NBA will naturally have only one center in the future.

Barkley gave the same opinion on TNT TV almost at the same time: "The Messiah has personally ended the center era. Even 'Big-Yao' needs the protection of a super power forward like Kevin Garnett before he dares to compete with him on the court."

The center era will never return.

after all
It is an extremely low probability event that Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson and O'Neal appeared in the NBA at the same time.

Plus, every time the rules of basketball change, seven-footers are further restricted.
Therefore, except for a few gifted people, most of the seven-foot-tall people are destined to become tools in the future.

Qin Yue came from the future, and he knew very well why in the future, teams would rather use more mobile players at position four to play as centers than give seven-foot tall players a chance.

In the development of basketball, there have been some centers with good skills.

However, with the introduction of zone defense, the abolition of the Hand-Chcek rule, and even the subsequent changes to the vertical jump rule and handball rule, these seven-foot-tall guys were gradually deprived of their living space.

At the end of the first half, the score was 40 to 67.

At the start of the second half, James, who tried to open up the game with outside shots, frequently assisted and rebounded.

The Cavaliers' outside offense can only be supported by Mo.

But compared to Irving in later generations, Mo is obviously inferior in terms of output and personal ability.

In the third quarter, Qin Yue even ran to the LOGO area and made two three-point attempts. His actions have told the world how big a lead the Warriors had established on the court at that time.

The defensive efforts of "Young James" are certainly worthy of recognition.

But in front of Qin Yue, who had fought against "Quanli Te" for the entire game in the seventh game, his defense was full of loopholes.

After the first three quarters, the game completely turned into garbage time.

秦岳出战36分钟，27投15中，其中三分球9投3中，罚球8罚8中，总计砍下41分17篮板8助攻3封盖3抢断。

Through his perfect performance on both offense and defense, "Thanos Qin" once again made the entire basketball world fully feel the dominance of the best player.

The final score was 89 to 123.

The Warriors dashed Cleveland's hopes with a 34-point win in the first game of the finals.

If we say that before the finals started, Cleveland people had imagined that the chosen one could lead them to create miracles.
Compared to the score of the first game of the finals
On the court, the Cavaliers' inability to mount an effective resistance had already caused the Cleveland players to completely lose confidence in winning the game.

ESPN commentator A-Smith said bluntly after the game: "I think what we need to pay attention to now is whether the Warriors will set a new NBA Finals point record."

After the game, many of James' fans wanted to find undercover agents to prove that James suffered a crushing defeat in the first game of the finals only because of his teammates.

Then, they saw Mo, who made 17 of 7 shots and was completely exhausted in the game, and Big Z, who scored 12 points and 8 rebounds in the game under tremendous pressure, and Gooden, who had few chances to shoot but made 5 of 3 shots.

三分线外分别4投1中与6投2中的帕夫洛维奇、马绍尔，还有3投1中的吉布森倒是可以在赛后成为接锅的对象。

However, on the night of the game, he shot 8-for-0 from beyond the three-point line.
Isn't it LeBron James himself?

After the game, James, who was somewhat stunned, even spoke nonsense in an interview: "There are still three games left. I believe we can perform better and better with each game."

……

PS: 5K-word chapters are here! Please subscribe and vote! (I may need to wait a while after staying up all night to pay back the 5000-word chapter I owed yesterday. I will try to complete the -word guaranteed update today.)

(End of this chapter)