The Heat played the Eagles' G2 to the end, more suspenseful than G1, and the game form is more like a tit-for-tat playoff. The Eagles are obviously ill-prepared in G1, and the attack with Yang as the starting point is basically not systematic, and the G2 Eagles have indeed come up with something, the attack and defense are OK, but they encountered Butler's performance against the sky, and finally lost a little regretfully.
The Hawks basically rotated 8-man, without Capela, Collins played the starting center with Gallinari, and the three substitutes were Okongu, Bogdan and Wright. Young's defense is indeed poor, Gallinari's pace is relatively slow, but the overall mobility of the whole team is good, Hunter, Wright's defense is particularly top, Collins, Okongu is not in vain, the Hawks made a lot of mistakes, protected rebounds, and suppressed the Heat's pass. The unguarded part is Butler's personal ability, which is no way, the opponent only deserves to eat on the night of the star's outbreak. If the Hawks can continue this defense, they can indeed resist again when they return home.
There's bad news for the Eagles. One reason they were able to withstand defensively was that Adebayor came out with an injury and didn't do well, which made the Hawks' currently empty inside pressure a lot less. The timing of Capela's return is unclear, and if Reba returns to normal before Capela returns, the Hawks will be even more difficult.
While Butler's 4-of-7 three-point range in the G2 isn't an easy statistic — 23.3 percent from three-point range in the regular season — other ways to tear apart the Hawks' defense are indeed his technical characteristics. He ate almost all of the Hawks' defenders and named Trae Young at the stage of deciding the outcome of the game, and the more similar options went into the scorching hours of the series, the more likely they were to come up with.
Where is Butler?
Because of the strength of "bulk", the power is not intuitive enough, which is a question that many people are asking.
In fact, fans who have watched 20 years of playoffs, especially the Finals G5, should be impressed by Butler's "roll call" skills. Butler is not the league's top player, nor is it the one with the highest ball quotient, but to find the common divisor from the set of these two events, Butler is definitely one of the larger values. "Roll call" needs a combination of these two abilities, so that in the opponent's defense of breaking the roll call, seize the opportunity to tear open the defense line. For example, in this round, Butler looked to look for Young, but after Lowry's back cover was in place, he walked to the side of the bottom line without Yang.
Roll call does not necessarily have to catch the misalignment, as long as the defensive flaws can be found in the roll call process, the purpose of roll call is achieved. In this regard, Butler's understanding is indeed profound. In this game, the Eagles' protection of Yang is actually good, but Yang wants to be in the position of Lowry, who has strong tactical participation and can cooperate with Butler to make a lot of tricks. These rounds will continue to appear in the series.
Throughout the game, the Heat's offensive efficiency of 117.3 looks good, but in the case of a team-wide three-point shooting rate of 40% + Butler explosion, this number Hawks is quite acceptable. The Hawks' defense had some effect, and the other end of the court decided the game to a greater extent.
Yang's G2 is still not good, although it is not as outrageous as G1, and 10 mistakes are still eye-catching. But the Hawks got it right against the Heat, and their game strategy went something like this:
Instead of struggling with one-on-one singles, Young became a dealer and let the other players score. The Eagles are offensively strong, not strong in Yang alone, they are a neglected wing, forward offensive team, the current rotation mode, almost everyone has the ability to attack independently. So Young can give Hurt's no-ball cover, give Collins, Gallinari, hunter's fake cover, rely on others to open the situation, and these misplaced attacks that grab and change defenses are the usual routines of changing defenses. In addition, Bogdan's three-point explosion dominated by the ball in the fourth quarter also gave the Hawks a life extension.
Young even played a little without the ball. However, because there is no good no-ball running habit, in addition to a simple outside-cut catch and fixed point, Yang's no-ball threat is still not enough. From this point, it can also be seen that Yang is not the next Curry, the two play styles are very different, and Yang is a proper ball-holding core.
The Hawks let the cover man on the inside and front, and the main attacker on the flank replace Yang to hold the ball, all of which had a little effect. After all, no matter how strong the Heat's ability to change defenses and how perverted the multi-point defense is, it is impossible to completely hold down the Eagles, who have the ability to attack independently. But the Hawks' timing and finale of the game is still not good enough, and Hunter missed too many opportunities. Yang's three-point shot of single-handed or grab the change of defense is also completely inaccurate, which also leads to a certain extent to Yang's impatience at some times, making the wrong offensive choice, and some of the 10 mistakes can be avoided.
Back at home, the Hawks were still able to resist. Young's three-point shooting rate of 11.8% in two games certainly has room for recovery, and some effective offensive and defensive arrangements of the Eagles G2 can also continue in G3, and the Heat's feel is not necessarily online.
But then again, as long as the Heat held Butler's move to name Yang, there was always a sword hanging over the eagle's head. It is still difficult to have suspense in the results of the series, and the first thing Yang has to do is a game of honor.