"Kobe, give the ball to Shaq!" Looking at Kobe Bryant, who got rid of Hamilton's pressing, chose to hold the ball and play alone again, Phil Jackson, who was standing on the sidelines, yelled at Kobe Bryant. As the game progresses, the situation on the court is becoming more and more unfavorable for the Lakers, as the Lakers' strongest point on the offensive end, O'Neal is the Lakers' loosest one on the court forced by the Pacers, but the embarrassing thing is that O'Neal can't even catch the ball now, and can only do useless turnaround and run on the court. If you want to break the Pacers' defense, the first thing is to restore the connection between the Lakers' inside and outside lines, but Kobe, who has repeatedly broken through Hamilton's blockade, has no such awareness.

"Kobe Bryant missed the shot, the backcourt rebound was grabbed by James Posey, the Pacers launched a fast attack again, Meng Xu made a long pass directly to the frontcourt, Prince split the dunk with one hand, and the Pacers have overtaken the Lakers by 5 points."

"Damn!" O'Neal, who walked off the field, fell directly to the seat in front of him after receiving the towel handed by the assistant coach. For this year's championship, O'Neal has always been determined to win, not only to avenge last season's revenge, but also to continue to suppress the brat who is ready to move within the Lakers, and of course, Malone and Payton who came to him for the championship, otherwise O'Neal would not have publicly issued a championship announcement before the Finals began. And for today's game, the first game of the finals, O'Neal not only wants to win, but also to win beautifully, preferably to slaughter the Pacers by a large score, and directly destroy the Pacers' will to resist, which is why he knows that the Pacers have a big problem with their defensive strategy, O'Neal must also resolutely shoot and continue to attack on the inside, because O'Neal has such confidence, if he doesn't wrap up, I will fight until you wrap me. But the game changed dramatically in the third quarter, which was completely different from the style of the first half, and for the whole six minutes, O'Neal only had a few touches of the ball, and they were all when he was fighting for rebounds in the backcourt.

In the first half of the third quarter, Payton not only could not provide any support for O'Neal on the offensive end, but also became an obvious shortcoming of the Lakers when facing Meng Xu on the defensive end, and Payton, who tried his best, could not keep up with Meng Xu's footsteps. Kobe, who got off the court at the same time as O'Neal, took the towel handed over by the substitute player and sat on the bench with a butt, and at the same time beckoned the water cooler manager at the end of the bench to hand him a glass of water. Malone, who was already limping when he got off the court behind O'Neal, reached out to call for the help of the team doctor, it seems that Malone has a knee problem again, as for Devin George, who was the last to go down behind O'Neal, after seeing O'Neal's angry appearance, he was directly stunned there, and he didn't dare to move, Devin George is not a big guy like Malone and Peyton, and he didn't dare to be like Kobe, completely ignoring O'Neal's anger.

Glancing at Larry Bird, who was pulling Jermaine O'Neal not far away, Phil Jackson shook his head and walked towards O'Neal's side, looking at Larry Bird's appearance, in the remaining games of the third quarter, the Pacers will definitely continue to use the main lineup, and Phil Jackson, who originally planned to send a bench lineup to let O'Neal rest for a while, immediately gave up the plan to change to the bench lineup. Phil Jackson, who just patted O'Neal on the shoulder and was about to comfort O'Neal, quickly walked towards Kobe Bryant, who was already sitting on the bench, as if he suddenly remembered something.

"Jermaine, no matter whether that big fat man has a basketball in his hand or not, you have to stick to him tightly and block the route of other Lakers players passing the ball to him, as long as that big fat man can't catch the ball, he won't pose any threat to us!" In the third quarter of the official timeout, Larry Burr pulled Jermaine O'Neal to teach him face-to-face, because in this game, the Pacers have always implemented a defensive strategy that is not wrapped, so as a single defense O'Neal player, whether it is Mutombo or Jermaine O'Neal, is undoubtedly the hardest for the Pacers team, although O'Neal's state has begun to decline, but the current O'Neal is still not Jermaine O'Neal or Mutombo alone can withstand and restrict. Therefore, in the interval between timeouts, Larry Bird also continued to cheer for Jermaine O'Neal, Jermaine O'Neal has outstanding physical talent, although there is still a certain gap compared to Shaq O'Neal, but it is enough to rank in the top ten in all the interior lines in the entire league, but his willpower has always been a little worse, and he has always had a childish spirit, which is also the biggest obstacle to Jermaine O'Neal's growth, if he can have the strong willpower of Mutombo, it is absolutely possible to become a first-line supergiant in the league.

"Meng, your physical strength is okay, right?" At the same time, at the other end of the Pacers bench, assistant coach Lester Connell held the tactical board, half-squatted in front of Meng Xu, and asked Meng Xu's physical condition, although he rested for a long time in the second quarter, but at the beginning of the third quarter, Meng Xu continued to press Payton on the defensive end, and the consumption of physical strength was still very large, and on the offensive end, as the tactical core of the Pacers, after Jermaine O'Neal basically gave up the offense to defend O'Neal with all his might, Hamilton fell into the entanglement with Kobe Bryant, Meng Xu has become the only strong point of the Pacers on the offensive end, so due to the huge responsibility on both offensive and defensive ends, Meng Xu's physical consumption speed is also very fast.

"I'm fine." After taking the water cup handed over at the end of the bench and drinking it all in one go, Meng Xu nodded at Lester Connell, because in the first few rounds of the playoffs, except for a few key games, Meng Xu has always been playing in the past, and the playing time has always been controlled by Larry Bird for about 30 minutes, so after entering the finals, Meng Xu's physical reserves are still in a very good stage.

"The Lakers have reached the end of their strong crossbow, especially the big fat man, his physical strength is now in question, so after the timeout, we have to speed up the pace of the game, as fast as we can, and don't fight with them. At the same time, you also have to pay more attention to the protection of the backcourt rebounding, we only have Jermaine on the court now。。。。。。 After getting Meng Xu's reply, Lester Connell raised the tactical board in his hand, and while introducing it to Meng Xu, he held a marker pen and wrote on it.

Because Hamilton's tight defense against Kobe Bryant has always been unsatisfactory, and the full-court tight defense is extremely physically demanding, so in the second half of the third quarter, the Pacers, who had already overtaken the score, gave up the tight defense against the Lakers, and the two sides once again entered a regular offensive and defensive battle. However, unlike the first half, the Pacers did not play a positional battle with the Lakers, but continued to speed up the pace of the game, and the Pacers' intention was very obvious, or to continue to consume O'Neal.

Although the Pacers' pressing defense stopped, because there were four swing men with excellent mobility on the court, the Pacers had a very wide range of defense on the periphery, and the speed of the help defense was also very fast, without the need to wrap O'Neal, the Pacers could invest more energy and manpower to defend the Lakers' outside line, although after the Pacers gave up pressing, O'Neal regained his dominance on the offensive end, constantly eating Jermaine O'Neal, but several outside lines of the Lakers, Now there is no way to provide O'Neal with any help on the offensive end other than passing the ball to O'Neal.

"Erwin, it looks like the Lakers can't do anything about it in this game." The third quarter of the game between the Pacers and the Lakers is now coming to an end, but the situation on the court is diametrically opposed to what most people expected before the game, and this game does not look like a Finals at all, the Lakers are almost hung up by the Pacers on the court, O'Neal, who has been overconsumed in the first half, as the Pacers continue to speed up in the third quarter, in the switchback run again and again, O'Neal's physical problems have become more and more obvious.

"Phil Jackson was completely at a disadvantage in terms of on-the-spot command today, and every time he made his adjustments, he seemed to have fallen into a trap set in advance by Larry Bird." I have to say that Larry Bird's arrangement for today's game is indeed very good, and the calm Larry Bird sitting on the bench is in stark contrast to Phil Jackson, who is not far away.

"This is the triumph of talent, although the Lakers seem to be stronger than the Pacers, but in the face of younger, more athletic Pacers, if the Lakers can't find a strategy to suppress the Pacers, then the Lakers will not just lose this game." Jeff Van Gundy pondered for a moment, and then Michaels and Magic Johnson continued, trying to suppress the Pacers' athletic talent? Unless O'Neal can be 5 years younger and Payton and Malone can be 10 years younger, it will be too difficult for these Lakers starters, who have reached an average age of 32 years old, to suppress the Pacers with an average age of less than 25 years old in terms of athletic talent.

73-82, the Lakers, who entered the third quarter with a 6-point lead, trailed the Pacers by 9 points at the end of the third quarter, so when the players on both sides came off the court, the entire bankers life arena became extremely crazy, and the waves of cheers were like celebrating victory.