The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 136 - 110 The Pacers are playing a very new style.

Chapter 136: Chapter 110 The Pacers are playing a very new style.

Larry Brown had an interview before the game, and when a reporter mentioned Su Wan being selected as "Second Team All-League," he said, "Kobe is more deserving of being on that list, but that’s the league for you, always in need of fresh blood."

Su Wan saw Larry Brown being interviewed and knew this guy must be belittling him, something Brown had taken a liking to lately. He wasn’t angry, though, especially since he had been engaging in the same kind of talk recently. Among the league’s 30 head coaches, Larry Brown had successfully clinched the 31st spot in his personal ranking.

If he had heard Larry Brown’s interview, he would surely have smiled, "It’s not just the league that needs fresh blood, basketball tactics are crying out for it too. Quit playing around with your ancient constricting strategies. They’re like a hundred-year-old pickled vegetable—stinky and sour!"

However, even if Larry Brown couldn’t hear these words, halfway through the game tonight, he would be able to feel it himself:

The Pacers were playing a very new style.

Today’s goal was simply to open the eyes of the old guard to the world!

The buzzer sounded and both starting lineups took the court.

The Pacers’ starting lineup hadn’t changed, and the Pistons had stuck with their usual "Civilian Five Tigers" as well.

Amidst roaring cheers, it was the younger O’Neal who jumped for the ball.

Rashid Wallace, watching the high school kid who once sat immobilized on the bench beside him, grow to such heights, was filled with emotion. Moments like these made him acutely aware of the passage of time.

Tinsley, facing Billups, passed the ball to Su Wan.

No doubt, Hamilton was the gap in the Pistons’ defense which could be likened to "Shanhai Pass."

With the ball in his hands, Su Wan could distinctly feel Billups and Prince closing in from both sides toward him.

This match, Larry Brown did not use Prince as the first line of defense. It was obvious he wanted to restrain him with help defense.

Rick Carlisle couldn’t help but smile.

Because...

This was all within their anticipation.

Su Wan made a forceful breakthrough to the right, forcing Prince to leave Stephen Jackson and join Hamilton in a pincer move. It was at that moment, Su Wan, as if he knew someone would surely be behind him, turned his head and tossed the ball.

And there, indeed, stood Stephen Jackson.

This wasn’t some extraordinary field of view. It was a tactical arrangement discussed before the game.

When Su Wan’s breakthrough drew the attention of the wing players, whoever was left open, be it Stephen Jackson or Tinsley, they would immediately move behind Su Wan. His job was simply to pass the ball into their hands.

Prince quickly tried to recover, but Stephen Jackson with his 37% three-point shooting percentage told him:

Don’t leave me open!

Not ever!

Larry Brown, seeing Stephen Jackson sink a three-pointer, remained expressionless. To him, in his age-old tactical ideology, a three-point shot had never decided the outcome of a playoff series before.

Let alone a three-point shot, even shooting a team to death had never happened. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

Shooting could always go cold, but layups were the eternal, stable way to score.

The Pacers’ first offensive play ended with a three-point shot, which just proved how effective the Pistons’ defense was.

The "Rookie of the Year" couldn’t break through to the inside and was forced to pass to the perimeter, leaving Stephen Jackson no choice but to attempt a three-pointer out of "dumb luck," which just happened to go in for them.

That was Larry Brown’s perspective.

Seeing Jackson nail a three right off the bat, Rick Carlisle’s gaze grew steadier.

Tonight they were going to play a strategy that, in his view, was bold but might turn out to be highly effective.

This strategy had been gradually promoted by Su Wan since the end of the season.

Now, it looked like it had been tailor-made to take on the Pistons.

Everyone knew how much Larry Brown loved to contract the defense and lock down the paint.

So, tonight the Pacers’ weapon was...

Shooting!

When Su Wan brought up this idea, if any other coach had been in charge, they might have outright rejected it.

This era hadn’t yet seen a team win a championship relying on shooting alone.

Su Wan dared to propose it because of Rick Carlisle.

The 2011 Mavericks can be considered the prototype of the "Small Ball Era" playing style, which favored solving problems with shooting during defense counterattacks.

This just demonstrates that Rick Carlisle does not disdain such tactical concepts.

And last summer, the League’s alteration of the "hand-checking" rules had already shattered the greatest barrier between the era of the "traditional center" and the "Small Ball Era."

If you ask Su Wan whether the playing style of the "Small Ball Era" could definitely overthrow the powerhouses of the "traditional center" era,

Su Wan couldn’t provide an affirmative answer, but the Pacers were not the standard powerhouse of the "traditional center" era; at least their interior line didn’t possess a big center like Shaquille O’Neal.

The Pacers themselves couldn’t play pure "small ball" either; with O’Neal’s current weight, he definitely couldn’t play the "space four" position.

The Pacers team was merely borrowing a part of the "small ball concept."

The original 2005 Finals, where Manu Ginobili went wild on the wing, essentially served as the most exposed whip-lashing of Larry Brown’s tight defense under the basket.

Larry Brown initially failed to recognize this, and by the time he realized the Pacers intended to settle the game with shooting tonight, garnering a 5-point lead, it was already 6 minutes and 34 seconds into the first quarter.

But during the timeout, he still firmly declared, "Continue to stick to this defense!"

He just couldn’t believe the Pacers could shoot his team to death from beyond the three-point line with Stephen Jackson.

If he could do such a thing, then he should, like Hamilton, be signing a contract extension worth tens of millions per year, not being unsought after and joining the Pacers for a mere $5 million mid-level salary.

On this point, Larry Brown wasn’t mistaken.

However, seeing the Pacers’ lineup change, the "old antique" was stunned.

Because the Pacers’ lineup changed to:

Point Guard Su Wan, Two Reggie Miller, Three Stephen Jackson, Four O’Neal, Five Foster.

The frontcourt remained the same, but Su Wan shifted from the two to the point guard, and they added another shooting point at the two!

Seeing this lineup, he felt a bit of pressure.

If it were just a Stephen Jackson, indeed it wouldn’t kill the Pistons, but he knew all too well what kind of guy Reggie Miller was.

What he was best at was "playing dead" during the regular season and exploding in the playoffs.

Moreover, this lineup would limit the performance of the currently most stable Hamilton of the Pistons.

Su Wan admitted that he couldn’t continuously break through on the offensive end while also keeping Hamilton in check.

Not only him, he believed no one in the league could manage that.

Including that snake from Los Angeles.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have thought about breaking Hamilton’s legs after last year’s Finals.

But if it were Reggie Miller,

It was indeed possible to constrain him.

Miller once said when evaluating Hamilton: "I see a lot of myself in him, many of the moves he uses are ones I’ve adopted."

It wasn’t an illusion, nor was it that Hamilton had secretly followed Miller’s videos to learn his style.

But rather, their peak periods both collided with Larry Brown.

With the minimal offensive acumen Brown had, when he saw Hamilton, it was hard not to associate him with Reggie Miller and then to replicate that playing style.

In the original 2005 playoffs, the sixth-seeded Pacers "upset" their way into the second round, coincidentally meeting the Pistons in the playoffs, and without Artest, they still battled the Pistons through 6 games before being regrettably eliminated.

Hamilton’s shooting percentage did not exceed 40% in three of those games!

Of course, to defend him, Reggie Miller paid a heavy price as well; his own shooting percentage was not pretty either, with three games below 40%, the lowest being just 27%.

However, the difference between this Pacers team and the Pistons is that they don’t heavily rely on Reggie Miller for scoring; they have Su Wan and O’Neal to work together.

It was different for the Pistons; Hamilton was their "Scoring King" this season, and if he couldn’t perform, the entire scoring pressure on the Pistons would fall on the shoulders of Billups.

"Fix-it-all" Rashid Wallace and Prince, who achieved a career-high average of 14.7 points per game, were more adept at "gilding the lily" than providing "timely help."

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