Chapter 2240 - 44: Critical Weakness

Chapter 2240: Chapter 44: Critical Weakness

Yao Ming used his height advantage to win the opening tip, Allen Iverson took the ball, and the first offensive possession of the 2007 Finals began.

Still on the road, Allen Iverson couldn’t help but think back to that legendary Game 1 in Los Angeles in the 2001 Finals. Unfortunately, the NBA Finals aren’t decided in a single game, which deprives the League of a lot of myths and heroes.

Glory’s opening was very by-the-book: Yao Ming and Gan Guoyang came up to set consecutive screens, Allen Iverson swung the ball to Bell and then cut off the ball.

Bell fed the ball down low to Gan Guoyang; the moment Gan Guoyang touched it, the Cavaliers immediately sent a triple-team to swarm him.

Carl looked dead set on trapping Gan Guoyang; he’d rather let everyone else take shots than let Gan Guoyang get going.

A Finals-version Ah Gan with his firepower fully unleashed is terrifying. Even at 42, you still have to guard him like crazy.

Gan Guoyang immediately swung the ball to Allen Iverson curling up to the top of the arc; Iverson caught it and drained a mid-range jumper.

The very first points of this year’s Finals.

Right after that, Gooden "knocked over" Gan Guoyang on offense, and the ref called an offensive foul on the Cavaliers.

Carl stood up and spread his hands at the referee in protest.

"Flop! Who the hell can knock Ah Gan down! Other than his wife!"

Carl isn’t a coach who likes to talk trash.

But like he said, when it’s Ah Gan you’re dealing with, you have to be on point in every single detail.

Gan Guoyang heard Carl and laughed, got up and said, "You know too much, Rick!"

Glory seized the chance; in transition, Gan Guoyang got another touch on the low block.

He went high-low inside to Yao Ming; Yao caught it and calmly scored with a hook shot for another 2 points.

The Cavaliers’ defense was being manipulated heavily right from the start; they lacked the confidence to shut down the Radiant Players one-on-one.

LeBron James got his first touch on offense, with Gerald Wallace guarding him single coverage.

Right side, 45 degrees, beyond the three-point line, Glory didn’t use any special defensive gimmicks.

Wallace even gave James two steps, daring him to shoot the three.

James of course didn’t pull up; with Wallace well-positioned, he chose to bulldoze his way in.

Relying on his powerful body, James drove into the lane and tried to finish through contact, but Yao Ming shut him down.

Gan Guoyang came over from the side to disrupt and grabbed the rebound, while Wallace kept bodying him the whole way.

Just like that, James’ very first Finals attack was snuffed out, and he realized Glory’s interior defense was not something the Bulls could compare to.

Even though the Bulls have Ben Wallace and Okafor, both of those guys are on the smaller side for interior bigs.

Big Ben played two seasons with the Pistons, and when his contract was up, unhappy with the offer the Pistons gave him, he chose to jump ship to the Bulls.

During his Trail Blazers days, Big Ben’s salary level had never been high; he was counting on landing one big contract while he was still relatively young and not too old, with decent athleticism.

This season he’s already 32, and his height limitation is getting more and more exposed as his leaping and lateral quickness decline.

Okafor, on the other hand, is only in his third year and still not fully polished. Against the Celtics’ Duncan, he played fearless, like a young calf not afraid of tigers, and put up a high-level performance.

But on the defensive end, facing LeBron James’ constant assaults, he just couldn’t hold his ground.

Whereas the Three Second Zone for Glory is patrolled by Yao Ming and Gan Guoyang, that’s a whole different weight class entirely.

James felt like he’d crashed into a wall, and even if he wanted to pass out, he basically couldn’t see any teammates.

That made him feel pretty bad. James is a very smart player—once he senses trouble, he’ll work his brain to find solutions.

Glory quickly got their third bucket: Allen Iverson used pure speed to blow by Arenas.

He sliced into the paint and finished an easy layup; the Cavaliers’ rim protection on the inside was nothing special either.

Brad Miller is fine in single coverage, but his slow feet are a hard cap, and Gooden, locked in on Gan Guoyang, is putting all his attention on him—he has no Kung Fu left to worry about the basket.

Glory jumped out to a quick 6–0 lead, and the Cavaliers, in their very first Finals, quickly found themselves on the back foot.

Arenas stepped up, attacked with the ball, and, pushing through Raja Bell’s defense, stopped on a dime for a jumper and scored two.

In the Eastern Conference Finals, facing the Bulls’ tight defensive system and high-contact defense, Arenas’ performance was pretty mediocre.

By comparison, Glory’s perimeter defensive intensity isn’t that high, and they’re more lenient toward perimeter isolation off the dribble.

Glory’s core defensive strategy is still locking down the paint—loose outside, tight inside, able to attack and defend, highly flexible.

That gave Arenas plenty of room to operate.

Of course, Arenas himself is a pretty big hole on defense.

On one simple pick-and-roll between Gan Guoyang and Bell, an opening appeared right away.

Gan Guoyang cut to the rim to catch Bell’s lob pass, exploded into the Three Second Zone and hammered home a left-handed dunk!

Gan Guoyang’s Finals scoring tally added another mark.

Carl’s carefully constructed defensive system looked shredded and fragile right out of the gate.

The Cavaliers’ compact, high-rotation defensive scheme was repeatedly punctured by Glory’s slick teamwork.

Carl, however, didn’t panic; he had already anticipated that, at the start, the Cavaliers would fall behind because of their lack of experience and shaky mentality.

Before the Finals, Carl’s strategy was to use the team’s youth to fully wear down Glory on both ends of the floor.

He knew Ah Gan’s back wasn’t good, and that Yao Ming and Allen Iverson always had lingering injury risks.

The Cavaliers were much younger; they had to work on draining Glory’s stamina and drag the series into deep waters.

It had only just started, no need to rush.

Gooden received a pass from James, used his footwork to shake off Gan Guoyang, drove inside and scored.

Against everyone other than James, Glory adopted a semi-sagging defensive stance.

Gan Guoyang came out to set a fake pick for Allen Iverson, Allen Iverson accelerated and once again slashed to the rim for a layup.

Allen Iverson opened the game in great form.

James tried to put the ball on the floor and drive, but the middle was clogged again.

He took an awkward turnaround jumper, missed, and Gan Guoyang pulled down the rebound.

Allen Iverson stormed out in transition like the wind, drove inside, shook off Brad Miller, and finished the layup!

It was still Arenas who stepped up, working a screen action with Brad Miller and knocking down a mid-range jumper.

Glory’s defense shrank in, forming a set shell; jumpers were the best way to do damage—attacking the rim was completely shut down.

Because Allen Iverson scored in succession, James tried to step up and guard Allen Iverson one-on-one.

As a result, a simple fake pick-and-roll screen by Gan Guoyang completely opened up the interior.

Allen Iverson again lobbed the ball from outside to inside, and Gan Guoyang caught it and dunked easily.

If James locked in on him one-on-one, he really could stay in front of a mid-30s Allen Iverson and use his size and explosion to suppress him.

But the moment you applied a bit of tactical trickery, James was lost.

It was obvious that Glory had done a very thorough scouting job on the Cavaliers before the series; they had accounted for every detail and matchup.

Porter knew Rick Carlisle was an outstanding coach, and this would be his last trip to the Finals.

So during that more-than-a-week break, Porter, Spo and the others spent a huge amount of time watching film, using computer software to chart and analyze the Cavaliers’ tactical tendencies, usage distribution, shooting spots and spacing, and compiled an extremely detailed and rich tactical map aimed at the Cavaliers, especially their hard flaws.

Just for James, this core of the Cavaliers, several hard weaknesses were listed.

One was his inconsistent shooting—at times he could shoot at an elite level, but most of the time his long-range shots were wildly off.

And James was prone to losing confidence in his own shot; once he lost his feel, he would abandon it.

Another was that on defense he lacked a big-picture view and tactical awareness; his on-ball defense was very strong, but his ability to read and solve tactics was at a high-school level.

A few simple sets could neutralize his defense, making it impossible for him to fully utilize his freakish physical tools.

With the core having two major flaws, one on offense and one on defense, the Cavaliers’ roster construction and tactical allocation had to spend a lot of resources filling gaps at other positions.

Arenas’s shooting on the Cavaliers had been trained to a terrifying level, and inside, the Cavaliers had long wanted to bring in Big Ben, but they just didn’t have the cap room.

So they brought in veterans like Fenli and Wei Bo, both of whom had once been All-Stars who could carry a team.

Even so, Carlisle still felt it wasn’t quite enough, but there was no room left for further reinforcement.

Five minutes into the first quarter, Glory had taken a 12–6 lead on the road, and the Cavaliers still hadn’t called a timeout.

Arenas drove with the ball into the paint and kicked it out to the wing, where Gooden caught it and hit a mid-range jumper.

Gooden instead became a relatively stable scoring option for the Cavaliers to start the game; Ah Gan didn’t really pay him much attention.

Arenas’s drives and pull-ups were currently the Cavaliers’ most important weapon.

After that, the Cavaliers finally got a stop, as Allen Iverson bricked a mid-range jumper.

James grabbed the rebound and pushed in transition, but Gerald Wallace stuck to him like a shadow, not giving James any chance to build up speed.

James had another glaring technical flaw: his stop-and-pop jumper and his ability to create separation from a standstill were poor.

Once someone crowded him, he had to swing the ball out to reset and start the offense again.

He needed space, needed a runway to gather and accelerate, and in transition, Glory would not give him that space.

But once it fell into a half-court set, that space appeared—go ahead and charge.

Drive to the rim? Sorry, Ah Gan and Yao Ming are waiting for you.

Pull-up threes, stop-and-pop jumpers?

Sorry, not really his thing.

James was playing in a very awkward state.

He chose to dump the ball inside, trying to assist Miller.

But Miller’s layup was blocked from behind by Gan Guoyang.

In the ensuing scramble, the ball went out of bounds along the baseline—Glory ball.

Carl finally called a timeout.

The score margin wasn’t big, but Carl could see that the gap between the two sides was much larger than the scoreboard showed.