601: 214: Look, he’s a very reliable person (asking for monthly votes!)_2 601: 214: Look, he’s a very reliable person (asking for monthly votes!)_2 “Oh?
Who are the other three?” Roger was curious.
“Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, and Danny Ainge.”
“Huh, only two of those guys are basketball players,” Roger chuckled.
“Who do you think is not a basketball player?”
“Bill Laimbeer, his main job was to work on the parents’ mindset.
The basketball court was nothing more than a legal place to fight for him.”
“What about Karl Malone and John Stockton?”
“Two genuine bastards.”
Hearing Roger say this, Big Ben seriously replied while cutting hair, “I won’t let them touch you, OK?
Is the length still good?”
“Not bad, thanks Big Ben.”
The next afternoon, the team immediately set off for Salt Lake City.
On June 3rd, Game 1 of the NBA Finals began.
This was Roger’s first finals in nearly four years without the home-court advantage.
In the first game of the finals, Roger felt the difference.
On the bus to the Delta Center, Roger saw that the streets were full of Jazz fans.
And people of all ages were out in force.
Mostly they were holding up a cartoon of Karl Malone holding a shotgun in one hand and an eagle in the other.
From this, it wasn’t hard to see how lacking in entertainment Salt Lake City was; it seemed the people here truly only had basketball for leisure.
Of course, it also showed that the Salt Lake City fans hadn’t forgotten last season’s grudge.
For Jazz fans, although this season wasn’t against the Magic anymore, what could be a more perfect script than “Malone taking revenge on Shaq and Roger”?
A week ago, Salt Lake City fans happily watched the Jazz tear Shaq apart.
Now it was Roger’s turn, the one they most wanted dead!
They were full of confidence in their team after all, the Jazz had swept the Hawks during the regular season.
Yes, the playoffs are different from the regular season, but no matter how you looked at it, the Jazz were the ones with the better strength.
When they arrived at the game venue, the Delta Center was just as terrifying as Roger remembered.
By then, the different mentalities of playing at home first versus away were apparent.
Playing at home first, Roger felt calmer inside and more able to perform.
Playing the first two games away, there was a feeling of inadequate security inside.
Although Roger was accustomed to the thin air and daunting home crowd, how could he ensure the whole team was the same?
Playing away first, he inevitably thought a lot.
Before the game started, Karl Malone expressed his determination to win:
“I’ve played professional basketball for 13 years, I know how to keep the home-court advantage.
We’re not going to let the Hawks get out of Salt Lake City easily, that’s the difference from last year.”
Roger disregarded Malone’s statement.
Since when could career length be a point of argument?
The 21st rookie took only 19 years to win 1,001 regular season games, a number that his history-making comrades haven’t caught up with even after playing for 21 years.
The game quickly began, and Game 1 of the Finals was a fierce battle.
The Utah Jazz rolled out a defense even more suffocating than the Pacers.
Defense was the foundation on which this Utah Jazz team stood.
Last season, the Magic could manage a 4-1 victory over the Jazz, admittedly because the Magic’s offensive line-up was too luxurious.
No team could defend against the strongest duo in history, and this opinion would not be contested even a decade later.
But when the strongest duo no longer existed, people realized how strong the Jazz’s defense was.
First, the Jazz team had the best level of rim protection in the league.
The defense of Karl Malone and Dikembe Mutombo made even top-level big men like the Admiral, Duncan, and O’Neal struggle significantly.
While having top rim protection, the Jazz could also limit threes.
The Lakers were swept 4-0 largely because their three-point shots weren’t as miraculous as when they played against the SuperSonics.
Against the SuperSonics, the Lakers’ perimeter seemed as if each was a historic-level shooter.
But against the Jazz, Eddie Jones’s three-point shooting immediately dropped to 28%, Nick Van Exel’s to 19%, Fisher’s to 16%.
The Jazz would immediately reposition themselves the moment the double-teamed inside players passed the ball out, blocking the fleeting shot opportunities.
It sounds like a truism, every team knows to reposition immediately after the ball is passed from a double-teamed player, the SuperSonics too.
This is as meaningless as saying, “play the game the right way.”
The real difference is in the execution by the Jazz, shrewd and precise, machine-like without mistakes.
They could really seal off the outside opportunities at the moment the ball is passed inside.
Beyond this, the Jazz’s physicality was extremely fierce.
That’s the Utah Jazz, proficient in defending the inside, the three-point line, and the mid-range!
The Hawks found themselves mired in such defense at that time.
The moment Roger got the ball, he would be double-teamed, and the instant he passed the ball to an open teammate, the Jazz would again immediately rotate into position.
Karl Malone and Mutombo made Roger pay a very painful price.
Yes, a painful price.
The Jazz’s defense was incredibly brutish, always looking for ways to hurt you.
Of course, when Big Ben got in, he could make Stockton or Malone hurt, which felt great, but it didn’t address the real problem.
The game remained tense, with Roger being the only stable scoring point for the entire Hawks team.
Moreover, under the Jazz’s defense, Roger couldn’t easily claim 40 points as he could in the previous round.
Still, the real difficulty didn’t stop there.
With 1 minute and 16 seconds left in the game, Jazz led by 3 points, Hornacek shoots from beyond the three-point line and misses, Abby cheers with arms raised.