Watch the NBA | The Green Army and the Pacers, are they finally going to play the "serious playoffs"?

Quiet and easy to ink

2024-05-21 18:50Posted in Beijing Basketball Commentator, Tencent NBA Writer

Both the Pacers and the Green Army are teams with distinct styles, and they both have a kind of "you fight yours, I play mine" personality beauty. The difference is that the Green Army can at least give you a clear arrangement in defensive alignment, and Mazzulla often has a famous scene playing various wrong defensive alignments. On the other hand, the Pacers understand that it takes a lot of time to get the matchup right, and learning how to defend opponents systematically will take a series to evolve. As a young team, the Pacers have paid a lot of tuition, and only in their games, there will be a teaching experience of "training by game", such as G1 against the Bucks, G5 against the Knicks, Carlisle's rotation and suspension, which will give people a sense of anger of "this hook is a good loss, otherwise you grandchildren will not have a long memory".

If the opponent is the Green Army, the Pacers are not entangled. If you are facing a team that is wrong in how to arrange the right position and how to defend no matter how the strategy is, then the defense is poor and it is easy to choose the wrong answer, and it will become more wrong no matter how you choose. It's as if the exam questions are too difficult for everyone to do, so the scumbags kneel in ecstasy.

Of course, this may be a joke.

At least statistically, among the many teams that can't be guarded, the Green Army is the one that the Pacers can't guard in particular. The two teams met 5 times in the regular season (including the championship), and the Pacers conceded 126 points in 100 rounds, making them the third most ruthless team in the regular season. Even if you take away the first regular season meeting between the two teams (Haliburton is out, the Green Army scored an exaggerated 155 points), that number is still 121, which is much higher than the Pacers' average of 117.6 points per 100 possessions in the regular season.

The Green Army can create shooting opportunities from the three-point line with simple screens and moving the ball, and they are the No. 1 in the league in confidence in shooting small open threes, while the Pacers happen to be the team that gave opponents the fewest three-pointers in the regular season. However, the Pacers give the opponent less three points, which does not show how good the Pacers are at defending three points, but more because the Pacers do not often shrink the three-point line to help defend in the regular season. The side effect of this simplistic defensive option in the playoffs is that it is too difficult for the Pacers to deal with the complex defensive environment, the subsequent rotation of the pinch ball handler, the rotation after the big delay in breaking the roll call, and the trade-off between different quality shooters on the three-point line.

From this point of view, the Green Army can't afford every point on the three-point line, and for those who do strategy, it is indeed a relief that "it doesn't matter which school district is better in Haidian or Xicheng, I can't afford it anyway". But the pressure on them in turn is, how to hand over high-quality counterpoint single defense? The previous Miami has already given a demonstration, Spo not only took out an infinite change of defense in G2 to invite the Green Army to play one-on-one, and even put the weakest single defense point on the court, Herro, in front of Jaylen Brown, trying to use the counterpoint trap to pull the double tanhua into the heads-up.

This move G2 worked, and it couldn't be stopped in the next three games.

The Heat's matchup talent makes it impossible for them to execute their strategic ideals, and even if they have excellent team discipline to support them, they can't stand the talent and shooters of the Green Army.

The same is true for the remnant knights, the 1-4 positions are all at a loss, Mobley is strong in defense, but in front of the Green Army's five-outside lineup, he still can't beat 10 hands with two fists, and he will be punished by the second attack after the next attack.

The Pacers' team discipline can't be compared to that of the Heat and Cavaliers, and Turner's sense of help may not be as good as Mobley's. In addition, after two rounds of the playoffs, the Pacers' efficiency in defending opponents without the ball is 1.06 points per game, and the efficiency of defending opponents with the ball is also 1.06 points per game, which is the worst among the 16 playoff teams. If the speed of losing points is about the same as the opponent's three-point, then it doesn't make much sense to miss three points.

There may be two pieces of good news for walkers:

One is that their forward alignment ability will be better than the Heat and Cavaliers in front, and they have Siakam who is worthy of Tatum in size and Nesmith who is good in hardness;

The second is that the top main attackers of the Bucks and Knicks are point guards, and Nembhard, the lead guard used at the beginning of the series, was not enough to deal with it, and it was not solved until the pinch attack against Lillard and the change to Nesmith against Bronson. The Pacers' strong point of alignment is on the front line, and the two cores of the Green Army are forwards, so the Pacers don't have to take detours.

The Pacers will also have a problem, Haliburton will be more difficult to hide than against the Bucks and Knicks, White and Holiday are both capable of punishing him, and the Pacers don't seem to have much of a good way to deal with it other than counting on Harry to defend better, after all, these two are not the stronger main offensive points of the Green Army, and their passing is good, and the upper shot may die faster.

Compared to Bronson's roll call, Harry's response to the roll call of the double tanhua may have more room for maneuver. Bronson is a defender and has a better ability to hold the ball directly. There is one more procedure for Shuangtanhua to be a cover person to catch the ball, and if you hold the ball to go to the point, you will not be able to point for half a day, and then trigger the impatience of "point your coal, just do it". That's probably something the Green should be aware of - the benefits for Harry could be greater than a direct smash for Sika, Nesmith, or a pick-and-roll for Turner. It takes a little execution and patience.

The Pacers' offense, and the Green Army's defensive end, may be the key to determining the intensity of the series. The Green Army's retreat ability is the top in the league, which is the embodiment of the center's standing at the top of the arc + the quality of individual soldiers in each position + discipline, the Pacers' fast-break raid against the Bucks and Knicks, this round has not worked, and now a question mark must be drawn.

Of course, the Pacers have proven that they can easily dismantle the positional defense without playing fast, and the Green Army has always left the No. 5 position to sink the flaw, and before Boshen returns, Horford and Cornet may become the Pacers' breakthrough in the middle of the defense. With a grip on it, the situation will not freeze.

The Heat think the same way, but the Heat don't have the resources to catch it unless Herro plays his career masterpiece. The Cavaliers have Mitchell to target steadily, but the Cavaliers are only capable of Mitchell, and the others are not humanoid most of the time.

What about walkers?

Maybe they can do a good job. The Pacers' offense is going to achieve a goal, and they won't be limited to one means, and their ability to create open threes and eat small misalignments is incredible, so it's hard to guess exactly how Carlisle will use the Green Army's grip. It is precisely because the Pacers' offensive methods are extremely diverse, so that the so-called "Harry can't break" change of defense has never really killed the Pacers - many times, the defense is chaotic against the Pacers, the Pacers' running and moving the ball are too penetrating, and there are many players with finishing and mid-range ability, and you don't know where the blow will come.

If you can fight a scene where no one can prevent anyone, it will be blood for the dog walkers. The Greens want to avoid falling into such a game, they are the best team in the league at "keeping the defense in chaos", and in response to the chaos of the Pacers, the Green Army needs to prove that they have a way to solve the problem by giving the Pacers only one solution to the problem - for example, only giving the pick-and-roll ball-carrier a flaw in the middle to challenge Harry's ascetic style. If the Green Army can do that, and the Pacers can't produce enough in one way, the series will end quickly.

The Pacers will have better continuity than the Heat and Cavaliers, which makes what happens in the unpredictable transition more nuanced. Will Boshen's importance be reflected in Cornet's presence? If the Walkers can make Cornet uncomfortable, there won't be much time left for Boshen to rest.

It's hard to think that after two rounds of playoff playoffs, two of the remaining four teams have actually been playing the "regular season". The Green Army has gone through two rounds of "sprinkling" intensity series, and although the Pacers have lost 6 games, they are still in the long rotation + no one has more than 35 minutes of main time. Compared with the westerners' heads beaten into dogs' heads, the eastern side is far from getting into the main topic. The two Eastern Conference finalists are finally going to face opponents with full lineups (if Boshen returns early in the series), and there may be more to see in this round, such as:

To what extent will the problems of the Green Army's interior be exposed before Boshen's return?

Is Boshen 100% in state after his return?

Can Shuangtanhua average 60~65 points per game in a series of rounds of opening for ball carriers?

If the Green Army does come up with a change of defense, and the Green Army's backfield and forward line are quite small and strong, what is Harry's response?

When will Carlisle really show playoff-caliber rotation intensity?

Or is the long rotation his playoff intensity for Carlisle?

Maybe the suspense of the outcome of the East Final is still not big, but the style of the Pacers determines that no one will feel good in their BGM. Compared to the Cavaliers and the Heat, they are opponents who can really give the Green Army some intensity.

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