410: 161: The strongest duo in history!
(Vote for us monthly!)_3 410: 161: The strongest duo in history!
(Vote for us monthly!)_3 And the veterans in Magic Team’s hands themselves do not have high trade value.
Unless you’re a superstar, the older you are, the less your trade value.
So, it’s difficult for the Magic to strengthen their roster through trades.
This is what the team has to face.
Harper will be 34 in another month, and very few players can maintain their peak defensive state at this age.
Harper is still an above-average defender, but against a Mt.
Rushmore level scorer like Michael Jordan, he can’t do better than the past two seasons.
In the next play, Roger assisted McKey, who had pulled out, to hit a three-pointer.
Knicks fans like the Magic’s current style of play; they wonder how long can they survive on three-pointers?
In their view, the Magic are stepping closer to the abyss.
In the end, they still have to challenge the Knicks’ fearsome interior defense!
The score was tense in the first half, with the Magic struggling to contain the pick-and-roll of Jordan and Ewing, but luckily their own perimeter shooting was brilliant, so they didn’t let the Knicks get too much of an advantage.
Roger and O’Neal both performed fairly normal, there were no deliberate instances of not passing the ball to each other, no neglecting the game.
Despite their dislike for each other, if one of them had a chance, the other would still make the pass.
In this way, they did better than the Dallas 3J; at least they didn’t make a mockery of the game, didn’t put personal conflicts above the game itself.
But on the court, they didn’t say a single word to each other, nor did they celebrate together.
You know, even on a street court with strangers teaming up, you would communicate with your teammates.
But Shaq and Roger, it’s as if they didn’t speak the same language, completely ignoring each other.
Can such a way of cooperation win games?
The whole world placed a huge question mark on this.
Bob Costas continued to offer his opinion, “The two of them are just draining each other’s patience, they could continue to tolerate this situation, but patience will eventually run out.”
As the game moved into the third quarter, the scales of victory gradually tilted towards the Knicks.
It wasn’t that Roger and O’Neal started to not pass the ball to each other, rather the Magic’s perimeter jump shots started to miss at the beginning of the third quarter.
Roger continued to be double-teamed and let his teammates take the chances.
But both the movie essence and Harper started to miss.
In the third offensive round of the third quarter, Dominique Wilkins, receiving the basketball again, chose to attack the basket; he didn’t want to gamble on his outside shot anymore.
As a result, Wilkins became today’s first casualty, the first victim under the iron fortress!
Facing the zone guarded by Ewing and Oakley, Wilkins went up for the attack, thinking he could soar like a Hawk.
Then the tough muscles of Ewing and Oakley hit him in mid-air, sending him tumbling to the ground.
The Knicks were using the same method they used against Jordan on Wilkins, but Wilkins didn’t have the same finishing ability in contact as Jordan.
Even though Pat Riley was no longer there, even though the team had gone through major roster changes.
The tough spirit of the New York Gang still flowed in this team’s blood.
The Hawk falls, the scene unbelievably tragic.
This is the consequence of challenging the Knicks’ zone.
You not only fail to score but also end up bloodied and battered.
They enjoy crushing their opponents brutally, torturing them.
If you are scared, then you just have to keep missing from the perimeter over and over again.
After the Knicks made their move, Ewing and Jordan ran a pick-and-roll again.
Pick-and-rolls filled the Knicks’ offense tonight.
In the many seasons before Jordan came to New York, he actually didn’t run pick-and-rolls that often.
Because for pick-and-roll tactics to succeed, strong inside support is a must.
Can you imagine Longley and Jordan running a pick-and-roll?
No doubt, the opposing center and guard would choose to double-team Jordan while completely ignoring Longley.
Pick-and-roll would instead become an obstacle to Jordan’s offense.
But everything changed when he arrived in New York.
The Knicks played the triangle offense most of the time but occasionally used pick-and-rolls to break the opponent’s defense.
When Jordan and Ewing ran the pick-and-roll, it was difficult to decide who to defend against.
This time, O’Neal covered for Harper again.
Harper also rushed to Jordan as fast as he could.
But when O’Neal tried to go back to the inside, he found that Ewing hadn’t rolled down but instead popped out to mid-range.
Receiving Jordan’s pass, he calmly made a mid-range jumper, finishing the offense once again.
By now, the New York Knicks were ahead by 7 points.
In the first half, the Magic, relying on their shooting touch, kept the score close, but in the second half, the Knicks were rapidly pulling away.
The fans at Madison Square Garden were jubilant, and it seemed like the Magic were on the brink of collapse.
Their celebration could finally begin!
Brian Hill called a timeout, defense, defense, everything about victory revolved around defense.
He couldn’t let Jordan and Ewing score so easily with pick-and-rolls anymore; even though this pairing couldn’t be completely locked down, he had to try to contain them somehow.
Actually, Brian Hill already had a strategy in mind.
But he didn’t know if it could actually be executed.
After the players left the court, O’Neal and Roger were the last to walk to the bench, and only two seats next to each other were left in the middle.
Roger and O’Neal both hesitated, but in the end, Shaq broke the silence: “Derek, move over a bit.”