739: 253: First, take the first championship of the comeback to the throne before anything else!
(Asking for monthly tickets!)_2 739: 253: First, take the first championship of the comeback to the throne before anything else!
(Asking for monthly tickets!)_2 When has holding an opponent to single-digit scoring become something to celebrate?
At the start of Game 3, Roger continued to feed his teammates like the previous game, but the Hawks’ shots were cold.
Pippen’s perimeter shooting kept clanking off the rim, and Pierce couldn’t find his shooting touch either.
Pierce tried to break into the paint, but Alonzo Mourning was guarding the basket firmly, keeping Pierce’s finishing rate very low.
As a consecutive two-time Defensive Player of the Year, Mourning’s rim protection was still top-notch.
In Game 1, where Roger scored 62 points, most of his points came from mid-to-long range, so it was unfair to blame Mourning for that.
The other Hawks also faded in comparison, as their nine-game winning streak seemed to have drained all their strength.
The Heat could smell victory, a great chance to secure this game, and their last chance to win the series.
As long as they could make the series 1-2, they would have a chance to struggle on.
1-2 and 0-3 are the difference between competitors and losers.
However, heroes always emerge at the brink of doom to save the day.
Roger “revealed his true form”, which had been disguised as Jason Kidd in the last game, and took control of the game once again.
The Heat continued their excessive double-teaming on Roger, but the Hawks adjusted, with Lenny Wilkens using Eric Snow more in the second half while Roger moved off the ball to become a pure scoring guard.
Snow, besides his defense, actually had strong organizational abilities.
In the original timeline, he was the one charged with reliably feeding Allen Iverson every night.
So, the Hawks’ offense became very classical, with Eric Snow handling the ball at the top of the arc, ready to deal.
Roger, running past the muscular screens, would get into position, catch the ball, and finish.
Roger played very cleanly, with simple movements, and even if he dribbled, it wouldn’t be more than twice, trying to shoot before the double team took shape.
Once Roger started scoring consecutively, the Heat would use a fake zone to cut off his passing lanes.
That’s when Eric Snow started looking for Pippen and Marion on backdoor cuts.
The sharp off-ball movement of these two players was something last season’s Hawks lacked, and it was an offensive resource that could help Roger break the deadlock when double-teamed.
No matter how hard the Heat tried, last season’s situations were not going to recur.
In the end, Roger exploded for 36 points, defeating the Heat 87-81 and making the series total 3-0.
Ten consecutive playoff victories!
Once again, the Heat had been very close to victory.
The desperate Heat players tried very hard.
Mourning, Mashburn, and Allan Houston all played 45 minutes.
They really could’ve won and kept hope alive.
But Sprewell’s 1 for 8 shooting spoiled everything.
Ever since Game 1, when he was knocked to the floor by Roger, Sprewell had lost all his energy.
After all, it was the first time in his career he was so undignified.
It was the first time he nearly lost his life on a basketball court.
Spree once heard a guy say he had made his ex-girlfriend’s best friend suffer from respiratory alkalosis from shouting too hard and breathing too rapidly during sex.
At first, Spree didn’t believe it because the guy wouldn’t talk about the details of that night, and it sounded like a boast.
But now he believed it.
Being dominated too harshly could indeed lead to that condition.
The huge blow had him unable to move past that night till now.
Now, as soon as he got the ball, he was nervous, afraid of making mistakes, afraid of missing shots, and clueless.
He dared not shoot, dared not drive, and would hastily pass the ball when faced with defense.
Roger found all this strangely familiar and then realized, Sprewell was exhibiting a beauty reminiscent of a Chinese national team guard playing in the World Cup.
When your mentality is shattered by the opponent, you feel a blank in your mind holding the ball, not knowing what to do.
Spree was suffering from that symptom.
Roger had thought Game 1 of the series would be the moment Spree woke up from his dream, but instead, he had plummeted from a sweet dream into a nightmare.
The absence of the team’s second scorer was a missed opportunity for the Heat to win the series and wasted the efforts of everyone else.
3-0, and the Eastern Conference Finals could be concluded early.
At the end of the game, Pat Riley embraced Lenny Wilkens feeling inconsolable.
The Miami Heat he had built, after a brief moment of brilliance, was poised to disband this summer.
Yes, Riley had decided to rebuild.
The 3-0 score made him realize the team was hopeless.
He needed top talent; he needed a Magic Johnson.
After repeated failures during his time with the Knicks and the Heat, the media often said about Riley, “Without Magic, he wouldn’t know how to win a championship,” to diminish the four-time championship coach.
In the past, Riley had sneered at such comments.
But now he admitted, he needed the next Magic Johnson.
It wasn’t that he wanted a tall point guard but that he needed the next superstar, the next top talent.
If such talent couldn’t be acquired through trade or signing, he was ready to tank!
When it comes down to it, the playoffs are ultimately a stage for the stars.
The Miami fans were silent as Roger completed his ruthless revenge.