Yang Yi: Finals G3: 1.8 meters of little white guy, can he also capture the Little Heavenly King Mountain?

Returning to the finals 25 years later, Indiana fans are very enthusiastic, but this enthusiasm cannot stop the Thunder from being strong. Before the game enters the second quarter, the finals G3 looks no different from the previous game. Jaylen Williams, Homegren and Doulter were fully fired in the first quarter, while the Pacers could only rely on Siakam to get some points, giving people the feeling that the SGA had not yet exerted its strength and the Pacers were about to fall.

Until the Pacers' savior began to exert their strength.

In the previous push, we mentioned that as long as both sides "play normally", the Thunder would almost never lose the game, but in just 3 minutes and 40 seconds, the great T.J. McConnell did the following things, making the game "abnormal":

Breakthrough assist Siakam to play the board at the basket, steal Carson Wallace's baseline ball, grab the frontcourt rebound, assist Matherin, and handed over to the inside to assist Nesmith to make a layup, breaking through Jewish, and breaking through assist Matherin to shoot a three-pointer, counterattack layup caused two fouls and two free throws. Under his push, the Pacers made a 15-4 wave and directly stopped the Thunder.

At this time, it is hard to remember that he is a player who is 1.85 meters tall, does not run fast, does not jump high, and does not have a stable three-pointer. He was once considered to be a player who is "not worthy of playing the NCAA". This is not verbal. When he received the Duquesne University basketball scholarship, a Duquesne University fan even sent an email to the school coach: "Why did our school send the scholarship to a water-delivered person?"

Later, this "water-delivered person" played in the NCAA and transferred to the prestigious Arizona school, becoming the starting point guard of the Arizona Wildcats. He led the team to 67 wins and 9 losses in two years, and won the regular season championship of the Pacific Twelve Schools League twice, but no one was interested in it at the 2015 draft. If the Philadelphia 76ers hadn't wanted to "believe in the process" and wanted to recruit a local Pennsylvania player to improve the box office, he wouldn't have been able to play in the NBA at all.

Then we saw this guy who is different from all the other NBA players. As long as he stood on the field, his legs never stopped and his hands never stopped. Whether in training or competition, he is always running, fighting, thinking, and fighting against his opponents, teammates and himself endlessly. At this point, he impressed Wildcats coach Sean Miller.

"He always finds ways to challenge himself, and sometimes in basketball games, you are distracted by feeling underestimated. T.J. has always been extremely competitive, and he can use these small details in the game and training to inspire himself to have a more fighting mentality. If you don't believe it, you can ask Stanley Johnson." In 2014, the Wildcats recruited a five-star high school student named Stanley Johnson. Johnson was considered "the body has reached the NBA level" in high school and had a good chance of being the top pick in the 2015 draft. But he has a lot of bad habits, such as being careless during training. Then in front of all the players and coaches, McConnell smashed the ball directly at Johnson in training and shouted at him.

"You are not the only one among us who has goals to achieve, and you are not the only one who cares about our future prospects. And you are basically hindering our path to achieving these common goals now. Not only are you not a solution to the problem, you have actually become part of our team's problems. To be honest, I've had enough. I won't allow you to ruin my senior season! To play, you have to give me the full commitment of TM!"

Did Johnson do what he said? We don't know. The only thing we know is that the talented McConnell, who is now 33 years old, became the X-factor in the game in the Finals, while the talented Stanley Johnson has been away from the NBA for two years at the age of 29 and is now playing in the Turkish League.

What is the secret you want to ask him? It’s those five words, devote yourself to it.

In the first two games of the finals, the Pacers have been playing McConnell's role in the confrontation with the Thunder, with a total of 96 minutes of the game, and they were 94 minutes behind. They have to do more things, make fewer mistakes, and make more efforts to stay in this showdown, rather than being punched by a much taller and stronger opponent.

Thunder of course has the problem of poverty, and no one knows about this today. It's just that in the games before this season, they can completely cover this up with their excellent defense and SGA's stable downs. And the way Pacers found today to make the game "abnormal" is to "return the other person to do what he does." They took out more active pressing and stronger defense. Even though the Thunder did not seem to be significantly affected at the beginning, as time progressed, every attack of SGA gradually became more and more difficult. When the game ended, the Thunder team only sent 16 assists, but made 17 mistakes, and made many ugly attacks that were just a glance. This is enough to deflect the winning and losing balance of this game.

In addition to this, the Pacers have simplified their own offensive methods. In the past, when a large number of outside hand hand and continuous breakouts were proved to be insufficient to tear the Thunder's defense, they increased the frequency of dribbling attacks on the penalty area in this game and increased their cooperation in a small range.

As the Pacers' dual engine, McConnell perfectly performed the coach's arrangement. As the player with the smallest player in the NBA - affectionately called "little hand" by Director Zhang - he can always pass the ball stably or transport it to the paint area to attack, and Halliburton, who seemed ordinary in the first two games, was able to show his strength. We know there are a lot of people who want him to shoot more and score more in the finals, but that is not his comfortable way to play. Today, the game that makes 22 points, 9 rebounds, 11 assists can best demonstrate his talent in a narrow space.

Of course, he may also be blocked by Thunder players who assisted in defense, and once this kind of offense is intercepted and counterattacks, it is difficult to organize retreats like G1, but the Pacers are willing to take this risk to increase the intensity of the offense. As Carlisle said after the last game: "When facing a team like the Thunder, you can't play too cautiously, otherwise you will never be able to score."

Facing the Pacers' bold offensive strategy, the Thunder's defense seems a little inadequate. They gave the Pacers too many points in the inside throughout the game. After the game, someone will definitely continue to ask him why he doesn't use Haltenstein more. But that's all the questions that need to be considered in the next game.

In short, the finals G3 is the most similar game that has the content of the finals in everyone's concept. The Pacers once again proved that they are the opponents that the Thunder are serious about. If the loss in the first game is attributed to the Thunder's overreaction and the Pacers' super shooting super-god, it is an unreplicable accident, then this game undoubtedly points out another relatively more reasonable path: the Pacers only made 9 of 27 three-pointers in the whole game, and the rebound was also behind 36-42, but they scored 51.8% shooting percentage in a simpler way.

Of course, the Thunder are likely to be the better team and have a better chance of winning the championship, but once again the Pacers proved that they had their own reasons for standing on this stage - yes, like T.J. McConnell.