The Pistons started with 5 wins and 3 losses. In terms of record alone, they are only slightly worse than the Lakers who have 6 wins and 2 losses.
However, the Pistons and the Western Devils have recently played four consecutive games, and now they are in their third game. The players' condition is obviously worse than that of the Lakers.
However, after the game officially started, Billups took the lead and knocked Payton into a defensive hole in two or three blows.
And on the defensive end, Billups can not only defend Payton alone, but also has the ability to help defend Kobe.
Thanks to Kobe's recent soreness in his right shoulder and his somewhat self-blame for two consecutive losses, he changed his style of play and didn't insist too much on singles.
Otherwise, the Lakers will not be able to withstand the offensive firepower of Billups and Hamilton if they continue to provide defensive rebounds to Ben.
"Kobe, leave Hamilton to me!
You go lock Billups up, we can't let him score easily anymore!
Gary, I leave this rookie Tayshaun Prince to you! "
Halfway through the first quarter, Duan saw the score was 13-9 and the situation was a bit unfavorable for the Lakers, so he took the initiative to find Kobe and Payton and asked them to adjust their defensive goals.
You can use talent, but you can’t live without it! Billups was called the third overall pick in his early years, but now he is slowly showing the reasons why he can become the third overall pick.
Although Payton is the second pick, he is old after all and his body is a little immobile. Now being crushed by Billups' talent, he has no temper at all.
After these few games this season, Payton also realized that he is no longer as prosperous as the data shows.
Considering that his good brother Du En, who was also a substitute, asked him to switch to personal defense, Payton quickly accepted it.
After all, Prince is only in his second year, and Payton never takes rookies seriously.
If Prince is good at shooting and Payton goes up to guard him, then it's basically a giveaway. Fortunately, Prince's shooting is unstable and his style of play is mainly about breakthroughs. Payton can still defend a little.
Of course, thinking from another perspective, as long as Billups and Hamilton don't take the ball to attack, the Lakers can accept it even if Prince is misplaced to hit Payton.
How many times does Prince take shots in a game? With Prince's attack power, he couldn't kill anyone at all.
What the Lakers really need to pay attention to is Billups and Hamilton.
Payton couldn't guard Billups, but Kobe could.
However, Kobe and Hamilton are good friends and have known each other since high school.
Kobe had some obsession with guarding Hamilton, and Hamilton worked harder on defense against Kobe.
Dunn was willing to defend Hamilton not because he was confident that he could defend Hamilton, but mainly because he wanted to free Kobe so that Kobe could restrict the Pistons' real brains - Billups.
As the creator of the 58 tragedy, Billups has always been a player whose strength far outweighs his fame.
"He was never the first point guard, he was only responsible for sending the first point guard home!"
This sentence was originally used to describe Parker, but it is actually very appropriate to describe Billups.
In Dunn's view, although the 2004 Pistons' five Tigers are very strong, it is not difficult for the Lakers F4 to win against the Pistons' Five Tigers.
The key is that Kobe wants to score too much. If Kobe can spend his energy on defending Billups instead of defending O'Neal, the outcome of the finals will be very different.
Of course, Kobe also tried to prevent Billups from dying, but unfortunately Hamilton happened to explode again.
The Lakers in Duane's memory only have one Kobe, and there is no way to kill both Billups and Hamilton at the same time, but now Duen is here with this Lakers.
Now Duane wants to see if he can help the Lakers limit Hamilton's offense.
Before the finals, Doan still has a semi-regular season of trial and error time. It is not a bad thing to accumulate more experience in defending Hamilton.
"Don't worry, I won't let others run wild on my territory!"
Kobe also accepted Duen's suggestion of changing defenses and was willing to lock down Billups, the piston engine.
With Kobe Bryant leading the defense, it was difficult for Billups to find a shot and could only pass the ball to Prince and Hamilton.
Hamilton doesn't always get the ball at the top of the arc. He usually keeps running to help the team open up the opponent's defense.
As a result, Prince, who was only in his second year, was severely tested with the ball.
After Prince got the ball, Payton made small moves on Prince holding the ball to interfere with Prince's dribbling.
Prince's body is too tall and his center of gravity when dribbling is relatively high. Facing Payton's defense, he can easily lose the ball when he keeps driving to the basket.
In this case, you can only protect the ball with your back and wait for teammates to respond.
It is worth mentioning that after Larry Brown came to the Pistons, he particularly liked Ben, the only All-Star player in the team, so he increased Ben's tactical proportion in the offense.
Big Ben stepped forward and made a cross screen with Prince, passing the ball hand to hand.
At the same time, Hamilton, who ran to the basket, used Elden Campbell's screen to get rid of Duan's pursuit and quickly ran to the three-point line.
Ben passed the ball to Hamilton according to the tactics. The latter made a fake shot and passed the ball to attract the defense. Then he stuffed the ball under the basket and passed it to Ben who was cutting down.
The speed of Ben's air cuts is not something that ordinary people can keep up with. Malone can't catch up if he doesn't keep up, so he can only sit back and watch Ben dunk with both hands.
It has to be said that Larry Brown still has two brushes.
Although it starts out defensively, it can also allow blue-collar players to participate in the team's offense.
Ben's two highest-scoring seasons in his career were the two years Larry Brown coached the Pistons.
Of course, a blue-collar player is a blue-collar player after all and does not have the ability to attack independently. It is difficult to score in double figures in a game just by relying on air cuts.
The Lakers didn't pay much attention to the Pistons' interior offense. What really needed to be solved was how Dunn could restrict Hamilton from getting the ball after Kobe guarded Billups.
When Hamilton gets the ball, he is not only a shooting threat but also a passing threat.
It was indeed very difficult for Doon to face Hamilton at the beginning. In many cases, he was thrown away by Hamilton's reverse run with an overhand push.
But thanks to Kobe's restriction of Billups, there was no way for Billups to pass the ball to Hamilton at any time.
Hamilton sometimes had opportunities, but was unable to convert them into shots. The rest of the Pistons lacked the ability to attack independently.
In order to avoid the 24-second violation, the Pistons, who have been playing positional battles and following the tactics laid out by Larry Brown, can only allow Campbell to digest the ball and attack the weakest inside line of the Lakers' defense.
Because Campbell is getting older, he is often unable to do what he wants.
The Lakers were guarded by the Pistons and couldn't score efficiently, but the Pistons couldn't score efficiently because of their limited abilities.
In the first quarter of the game, the starting players of both sides played almost the entire quarter. There is no doubt that this will be another strong dialogue between the head coaches of both sides.
However, the score between the two sides was only 21 to 19. The defensive strength was sufficient, but the offensive aspect was not so exciting.
The game started quickly in the second quarter, and the Lakers finally started to exert their strength under the leadership of Duan and Payton.
In the first quarter, Duan made 1 of 3 shots and only scored 2 points on fast breaks.
On the one hand, it is because Prince is much taller than Duane and does not suffer in terms of weight. It is not easy for Duen to beat Prince in singles, not to mention that Prince's long arms are very restrained in Duen's shooting.
On the other hand, it is also because it is not easy to defend Hamilton, and just running consumes a lot of energy.
At the beginning of the second quarter, Prince was not on the court, and Duan finally got the opportunity to travel at a staggered time.
The Pistons' Bob Sura and Collis Williams couldn't limit Duane's shooting, and they couldn't prevent Duane from hitting Billups out of position in the pick-and-roll.
Without Prince's personal defense, Duane can dribble in front of Billups in pick-and-rolls.
In the second quarter, Duane was looking for trouble for Billups on both offense and defense, trying to drain Billups' energy as much as possible.
Billups' defense is very good and his confrontation is quite good, but Duane has the advantage of height and weight after all.
Duane can pass the ball again. Once the Pistons double-team Duen from the outside, Payton can get another chance to attack the basket.
More than 4 minutes into the second quarter, when the main players on both sides returned to the court, Duan had already scored 7 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists in the second quarter.
Duen went down to rest for a while and returned to the court with more than 3 minutes left in the second quarter.
Originally, the two sides were still fighting, but the Lakers took the lead in breaking the deadlock with Duen's three-pointer.
However, then Duan was stuck by Prince again, and he hit two irons on both throws. Kobe felt that it was better for him to do it, so Kobe also hit two irons.
40 to 41, with Duan providing 10 points of firepower in the second quarter, the Lakers finally came back to win, temporarily leading the Pistons by 1 point.
During the halftime break, the Lakers returned to the locker room, everyone was exhausted.
"Duen, don't you want to eat?" Payton held a few bananas and approached Duen.
Du En glanced at Kobe who was also eating a banana, shook his hand and refused: "I'm not hungry, I just have a drink."
Kobe used practical actions to tell other NBA players that when defending Hamilton, you really can’t eat during halftime...
