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Chapter 453 - 205. Genius Kidd dances alone, the Bad Boys Legion advances strongly!_2

Chapter 453: 205. Genius Kidd dances alone, the Bad Boys Legion advances strongly!_2

In the first quarter, the Bobcats were scoring from multiple positions.

Zhang Yang took 4 shots and made 2, including 1 of 2 three-pointers, and with Clifford Robinson’s technical foul free throw for yelling at the ref, scored 6 points in 7 minutes.

Okafor had 8 points and 4 rebounds, Felton 4 points and 2 assists, Rondo 1 point, 1 rebound, and 2 assists, Alan Anderson 3 points, Jarett Jack 2 points, and Gerald Wallace 3 points, bringing the Bobcats to a total of 27 points for the quarter.

On the Nets’ side, they also scored 27 points in the first quarter!

However, the Nets’ scoring was clearly different from the Bobcats’—only 3 players scored.

Kidd had 7 points and 4 assists, Carter 10 points and 3 assists, and Richard Jefferson 10 points and 1 assist. The three combined for 27 points and 8 assists, matching the Bobcats head-to-head!

Kidd changed the strategy tonight; the three of them were just shooting!

Whenever Kidd was open, he shot directly, and if the opponent jumped at him and couldn’t block it, he still fired away.

When Carter and Richard Jefferson got the ball, whether they were open, one-on-one, or facing help defense, they didn’t care—they just shot it.

They took 16 of the Nets’ 21 shots in the first quarter, making 9 of 16, including 3 of 5 three-pointers, and 6 of 8 from the free-throw line, playing furiously!

The trio didn’t just shoot themselves; they would still pass when double-teamed, but their teammates missed all 5 of their shot attempts in the first quarter and didn’t even get a single free throw, wasting the open shooting opportunities that the three had created.

However, in the second quarter, Kidd led Carter and Richard Jefferson in successfully energizing their teammates. Carter scored 6 points with 2 for 2 shooting and 2 for 2 free throws, adding 1 assist, Kidd gave 3 assists, Richard Jefferson got 3 points, Clifford Robinson 4 points, Bostjan Nachbar 5 points, and Mikki Moore 2 points. They outscored the opposition 20-12 in the half, taking an 8-point lead!

In the first half, Bickerstaff had already adjusted his line-up to strengthen the offense, but it wasn’t effective; in the latter half, he had to strengthen the defense.

The effort paid off somewhat, as the Nets only managed 11 points in the last 5 minutes and 38 seconds of the half, but the Bobcats’ offense also greatly suffered. With a better defensive line-up, their offense dipped to a level which the Nets could defend, scoring just 8 points in the half.

By halftime, the Nets led the Bobcats 58 to 47—an 11-point lead!

In the third quarter, the Nets, having already built up their momentum, persisted and outscored the Bobcats by 27 to 20, widening the gap to 18 points. Although the Bobcats managed to outscore the Nets 25 to 18 in the final quarter, they couldn’t overcome such a large deficit.

Carter made 12 of 23 shots, including 3 of 6 three-pointers, along with 6 of 7 from the free-throw line, scoring 33 points with 4 rebounds and 6 assists; Richard Jefferson scored 24 points with 6 rebounds and 3 assists; Kidd had 14 points, 11 rebounds, and 15 assists; Nachbar had 12 points, Eddie House 8 points with 3 assists, and Clifford Robinson 9 points...

to 92, the Nets won away against the Bobcats, taking away the home-court advantage, evening the series at 1-1!

Zhang Yang started to force shots from the second half of the second quarter on, but against the defense of Richard Jefferson and Kidd, he performed poorly, making only 11 of 26 shots, including 2 of 8 three-pointers, plus 3 free throws on 3 attempts, scoring only 27 points with 5 rebounds and 6 assists.

Even with Okafor’s 23 points, Felton’s 10 points and 6 assists, Gerald Wallace’s 18 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 assists, Jarett Jack’s 12 points and 2 assists, they couldn’t beat the Nets.

Mainly, this style of play greatly affected the offensive performance of players like Rondo, Millsap, Perkins, Muhammad, Alan Anderson, Herrmann... etc.

Especially Rondo, he was turned purely into a defensive player with this style of play.

But grinding it out on defense was a move of desperation; Kidd’s ability to seize opportunities and create them was simply too strong. When the role players did what they were supposed to do, the Nets seemed to return to their peak years.

After the game, Kidd’s back-to-back triple-doubles finally caught the attention of the media and fans.

The Western Conference’s top-seeded Mavericks had their home-court advantage stolen, looking like they couldn’t win, and now the Bobcats had it happen to them too! Their home-court advantage was also taken away!

ESPN headline news—"The first ’Double Black Eight’ season in NBA history on the horizon?"

This topic exploded in popularity. Indeed, it’s extremely rare in NBA history for both the first seeds of the Eastern and Western Conferences to lose home-court advantage in the first two games.

Zhang Yang complained after Game 1 about the lack of attention their series was getting, but hey, after Game 2, the attention came...

However, the defeat in Game 2 didn’t shake the confidence of the Bobcats’ players. In their strategy meeting, they discussed how strong Kidd was, how many opportunities Kidd created in Game 1 that the Nets’ role players didn’t capitalize on, and even debated about how the Nets could have won if certain players had responded better, which was quite effective.

The next afternoon, the Bobcats held a post-game review meeting.

They calmly analyzed the key to the Nets being able to successfully execute Kidd’s strategy in Game 2—"Eddie House, Nachbar, and Clifford Robinson made 5 three-pointers."

Those three-pointers were scored at critical moments—in the first half of the second quarter and the latter half of the third quarter.

During these time slots, the three players made the shots that were passed out by the Nets’ three stars under pressure, creating better scoring conditions for the stars. The Nets managed to pull off scores of 20-12 and 17-10 during these periods while, for the rest of the first three quarters, the Bobcats and Nets played somewhat evenly.

In the fourth quarter, however, as the Nets’ role players started missing shots, the Bobcats gained the advantage, recovering a 7-point difference by the end.