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Chapter 294 - 146.Beat LA (8000 words)

Chapter 294: 146.Beat LA (8000 words)

At 7:58 PM on June 7th, at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, the starting players of the Celtics and the Lakers were already on the court.

Celtics starting lineup: Danny Ainge, Zhang Yang, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish.

Lakers starting lineup: Magic Johnson, Byron Scott, James Worthy, A.C. Green, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Tonight, Auerbach didn’t stay in the box, but instead came to the sidelines, standing with K.C. Jones.

K.C. Jones: "Are we really going to play like that? Coach, there’s still time to change..."

Auerbach: "..."

During yesterday afternoon’s pre-game strategy meeting, Auerbach’s first reaction to the tactic provided by Bird was—can the game be played like this? Is that even a basketball game?

He then realized that this couldn’t possibly be something Bird came up with alone; it must have been that young man who was staring at the ceiling.

Auerbach wanted to ask, what are other players supposed to do with such a tactic?

This didn’t fit with the team basketball he advocated! He had always spoken about the team being above the individual, encouraging passing.

But before he could voice his questioning, Auerbach found he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Where did they have other players? They had been relying on just six players to play all year...

With the "Czar of the Basketball" staying silent, K.C. Jones had no choice but to keep quiet too; indeed, he didn’t have a better strategy.

The gap in strength was too great. Just the night before last, the Lakers effortlessly scored 126 points, and their team offense couldn’t find any openings.

What could they do? They had only six players capable of playing, tactics, adjustments were limited, and their strategies had been thoroughly scouted by their opponents.

Two minutes passed quickly, the referee blew the whistle to start the game, tossed the ball into the air, and Parish won the tip-off against Abdul-Jabbar, giving Celtics the first possession.

The Lakers players quickly fell back on defense, and as the Celtics players entered the three-point line, they followed their defensive assignments.

After the Celtics exploded with 37 points in the fourth quarter of the first game, giving them a scare, tonight the Lakers were highly focused on defense. They aimed to make use of the 3-second allowance for "zone collapse" within the "restricted area", using good switching and movement towards the ball handler to keep away from "illegal defense" without the ball.

As the Celtics players settled into their positions, Zhang Yang tossed the ball to Bird who was spacing out the floor, and the Lakers players who were marking their assignments: ?

Why are there so many people on this side? The entire left side of the key is nearly filled up!

Zhang Yang stood outside the three-point line at a 45-degree angle on the left, McHale stationed himself on the left of the free-throw line at mid-range, Ainge was at mid-range along the left baseline, and Parish was to the left of the basket.

On the right side of the key, Bird stood alone at the elbow, holding the ball with one hand, his back to James Worthy.

Amidst the boos of the home crowd, Bird started his back-down, Ainge circled around from the baseline to the front of the basket to the long two-point area, McHale turned and blocked Byron Scott who was chasing Ainge.

At this moment, if the Lakers wanted to double Bird, A.C. Green on the left of the free-throw line was best positioned. With Ainge and McHale executing an off-ball screen, they occupied the defense; if A.C. Green left to double Bird recklessly, Ainge would be open following the screen, and Bird could easily pass the ball into Ainge’s hands.

A.C. Green didn’t risk the double-team, and Bird scored over Worthy with a turn-around jumper from the right elbow!

The Lakers felt something was off with the defense that time, but they didn’t dwell on it. It was just a basket by Bird, right? Then they’d score two!

Magic Johnson took the inbound pass and advanced up court. The Lakers sped up and adjusted their offensive positioning. They had just crossed the three-point line when the offense began!

Johnson passed to Worthy, Worthy to Byron Scott, who drove to the free-throw line before dishing it, Abdul-Jabbar caught the ball just after reaching the left side of the key and went up for a hook shot that went straight in.

The Lakers’ team offense was like a piece of fine art; with Abdul-Jabbar, they couldn’t possibly be very fast, but from the moment Johnson took the inbound pass to Abdul-Jabbar’s hook shot dropping into the basket, it was only 9 seconds!

On the Celtics’ possession, it was still Bird going one-on-one against Worthy.

Worthy felt like he was being isolated on defense. Even for "Big Game James" who always performed better in the playoffs than regular season, and even better in the finals than the playoffs, guarding Bird one-on-one still made him uneasy.

This time, Worthy stayed close to Bird, who used a slow back-down that suddenly sped up. He spun and drove under the basket, bypassed Abdul-Jabbar who came to help, moved to the other side of the rim, jumped, and with a single-handed slam dunk smashed the ball through the hoop!

How could they defend against that?

Worthy cursed to himself for a moment, then immediately thought—let’s see how long you can keep playing one-on-one, Bird!

"Big Game James" was someone willing to take responsibility, whether it was shooting the decisive shot or defending the critical one-on-one. He would also take on the humiliation of being dominated, as long as it helped the team win.

In the following exchanges, the Lakers played team offense, while the Celtics relied on Bird’s one-on-one. Both teams started off with a field goal percentage of 5/3, tying the score at 6-6.

Worthy sensed that the tough times would pass; after Bird made two consecutive shots at the start, he only made one of the next three. The rough patch was nearing its end.

It was the Celtics’ turn to attack again, Worthy prepared to continue wearing Bird down... But Bird didn’t go to the right side of the key, instead, he stopped at the 45-degree angle on the left.

Worthy, following Bird to the inner side of the 45-degree three-point line, felt an ominous premonition... He turned his head and saw Zhang Yang going one-on-one against Magic Johnson on the right wing!