Durant dribbled the ball to the right side of the field, made a signature Kill Crossover to shake Tatum away, and in that instant, Grant Williams (defending Drummond) and Horford (defending Bruce Brown) were both standing in the box and staring at him. Jaylen Brown also decisively let go of the counterpart Owen (!). ), blocking his way to the left side of the penalty area. Durant hesitated between choices to make a sharp stop at the free throw line and was chased by Tatum behind him.
Such defenses pervade every round of this series. Whenever Durant wanted to do something, there were always Celtic players standing in his way. As a young and talented team with enough height, arm span, confrontation, speed and execution, they did not let Durant easily open the block, did not give him the opportunity to reach the basket in the penalty area, did not let him dribble and pass comfortably, did not let him jump shot, preferred to let him take 20 balls.
Tatum concluded after the game: "We can't make him [Durant] comfortable, we can't give him any empty space, we can't let him find even the slightest rhythm of shooting, that's our game plan – as much as possible to make the most talented scorer of our time feel uncomfortable." ”
The Celtics' torture of Durant was all-encompassing, not only on the defensive end, but also on the offensive end. In the other round, Jaylen Brown made two crotch dribbles at the top of the arc, then picked up a back-up move, dribbling all the way to Irving into the paint, and although Durant let go of his defensive Grant Williams and rushed back into the box, his long arm failed to interfere with Brown's layup. Nash modified his defensive strategy in this game, no longer letting Durant keep an eye on Tatum, originally intended to reduce his task on the defensive end, but the result was that the first line of the Nets defense collapsed too easily, but it made Durant suffer more impact, and his physical fitness even declined faster than he played. In the second half of yesterday's game, Durant shot 0-of-10 and played the worst half of his career.
Grant Williams's description of their game strategy is more vivid: "Our mission is to make Durant feel difficult to do anything, not just the problem of him holding the ball or not, not just on the offensive or defensive end. Even if he wants to go to the sidelines to get a glass of water, we have to find a way to disrupt his rhythm. ”
The series was played twice, with Durant shooting just 13 of 41 from the field but delivering 12 turnovers. As a price, Seth Curry, Goran Dragic and Bruce Brown have gained some room to play in both games, but this is an acceptable price for Udoka compared to Durant's outburst, as the Nets' defensive assistant coach last season, he knows more than most people in the league how dependent this team is on Durant: "We want to consume KD as much as possible on both the offensive and defensive ends, as much physical contact as possible, as much as possible to exhaust him. He made 20 free throws, which is a bit of a lot, but we wanted to defend him that way. In terms of the course of the game, I think we executed our game plan well. Even though we were behind in the first half of the game, I don't think we need to make any big changes, as long as we can hold out until the end, we're going to win. ”
Before the start of this series, we had predicted that the Celtics had a clear advantage in the game, and one of the important reasons was the size: the Celtics are a team that strictly adheres to the 8-player rotation, the Nets' rotation lineup is generally older and more dependent on the stars, when the game enters the fourth quarter, the physical fitness of both sides will also usher in a vacuum period, and when neither side can continue to shoot efficiently or run out of the tactics, the body advantage is undoubtedly the most immediate. As shown in the fourth quarter of today's game, when Brown and Tatum crushed Irving and Curry Jr. to the basket, Durant's guard basket seemed to be a drop in the bucket.
But we also didn't expect that Udoka had given Durant such a desperate boost from the beginning of the series. In the initial preconceived, we would have thought that Udoka would pinch the Nets' role players first, allowing Durant to do a certain number of singles and try to drag Durant down in the long series. But Udoka was clearly more keenly aware of Durant's exhaustion throughout the regular season, leaving no backhand and boldly bringing the final game forward early to give the Celtics a 2-0 lead.
Four years ago, the Celtics also led James' Cleveland Cavaliers 2-0 in the playoffs. After that, as an organizational athlete, in the face of the Celtics' single-handed invitation, James played the ultimate bloody, cold-blooded and iron-blooded adjustment in the face of the Celtics. He kept calling for cover every turn, mobilizing his 33-year-old body to constantly attack the weaknesses of his opponents' defenses, and finally smashed the Iron Curtain in Boston with an average of 33.6 points per game, giving the Celtics the only 2-0 lead in history to be overturned.
Durant is facing a very different challenge now, he may indeed be the best scorer in the league, but as the best defensive team in the league, the Celtics have tested him in this series is something he has never seen before. After a major injury and a return, when the regular season of dad and mom passed, Durant's physical condition is obviously much worse than last year. In this situation, the Celtics tied his hands and feet with a fierce, tough and resilient system, forcing him to play the ball, forcing him to attack by mistake, forcing him to fall into thinking and the ends of the rat. After the past few years of tempering, Durant's ability to handle the ball is indeed not what it used to be, but the Durant that the Celtics are wary of is still "Durant the scorer" instead of "Durant the organizer". As long as he hesitated for a moment, Durant, who was no longer sharp, was no longer afraid.
Durant isn't the kind of player who has a hard mouth, and he acknowledges that the Celtics have been successful in his defense, declaring that he will make a change: "They always use two or three men to defend me, even when I don't have the ball. When I called for cover, Al Horford would let go of his defenders to pinch me, and when I broke through, there were always other defenders stuck on my breakout line. When I want to pass the ball, there are always a few hands across my passing line. It's the playoffs, and they show off their wild instincts. They did a great job against me defensively, and every time I got the ball, I saw several defensive players around me, ready to pinch me. I felt that in the later games, it was unrealistic for me to rely on the mistakes of my teammates or opponents to solve this problem, and I had to find a way to crack such a defense: either I had to play more patiently, or I sometimes had to play faster. ”
You see, to this day, Durant still believes in himself. On the one hand, it's superstar self and self-confidence, but we can also see the opposite of it: Irving and Durant have been in Brooklyn for three years, and the Nets still haven't built up the familiar sense of cohesion or identity that belongs to a strong team. With sudden deals, injuries to core athletes, and municipal regulations about vaccinations, this team is too easily distracted by a variety of external factors. When such a team plays at the final critical moment, encounters trouble and difficulties, a team that is not united can not come up with any other solution except the singles of Durant and Irving - just like their situation in this series, Durant has indeed encountered trouble, but even if the Celtics have made it clear that the car will not let him single and force him to pass, it is still difficult for him to trust his teammates, only to believe himself.
Of course, we're not announcing that the series is over, Durant is still likely to make effective adjustments, Irving may play another amazing performance, and the legendary Ben Simmons can make a comeback as early as game four of the series. The Celtics are a young team that could make some mistakes. In Brooklyn, the Nets may also gain some home-court advantage from blowing penalties. You know, in 14 years in the NBA, Kevin Durant has never been behind a series 3-0. But it's not this two games or this series that we're going to put a question mark on. Rather, it's a deeper question:
If Durant had insisted on believing only in himself, it would be hard to imagine him being able to achieve the kind of success he wanted when he left the Warriors anywhere but golden state.