On October 30, Beijing time, according to ESPN, when asked bluntly by reporters before the game how he would defend Durant, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle's answer was very clear: "Once the ball is past halftime, any time Durant holds the ball, he has the threat of scoring, so restricting him from receiving the ball is everyone's top priority." But it wasn't easy, knowing that he was 7 feet tall and just had to throw the ball upwards to him, so we wanted to be able to make it as difficult as possible for his card slots and not let him find the rhythm. ”
In some ways, they only let Durant score 22 points in only 10 shots tonight, which is a successful pre-game assignment. But the real beat was the resurgent James Harden, who scored a season-high 29 points on 16-of-19 free throws in his first five games.
"Obviously it's not 30 points," Harden said after the game, "I kept saying, I felt good in every game, I felt better today." I also continue training on rest days and on days when there are no games, and then on game days I keep going to the basket and shooting the shots I should have made. Nothing will change, and eventually what should happen will happen and I will play the same way as ever. ”
"I just stay aggressive, I didn't play aggressive in the first few games," Harden said of the 19 free throws he got all the time.
Veteran Lamarcus Aldridge, who came off the bench, played equally well, finishing with 21 points and nine rebounds, becoming the 48th player in NBA history to reach 20,000 career points.
"He (Ade) has the guts of a scorer," Durant praised, "and it's a huge achievement, a great milestone." ”
It is worth mentioning that Kevin Durant once threw a basketball into the stands in the third quarter and received a technical foul as a result. After the game, Carlisle admitted that Durant deserved to be expelled: "I saw Kevin Durant throw the ball in the stands in the 10th-15th row, but he was not expelled because of it, that's what I saw, and it really shocked me. ”
"I'm not going to share referees and my explanations because I don't want to embarrass referees and the league, they're all very kind people," Added Carlisle, who is also president of the coaches' union, "it's just that they made a big mistake... You won't want to listen to the explanation, because it won't change the outcome, but it's really an obvious blow-off that can't be missed. ”
Source: NBA official website