Dark horses who are moving forward at full speed, the Pacers counterattack advantage?

As the most popular star in this playoffs, Halliburton is the heart of the Pacers. As a star guard, everyone knows that he can carry the team's banner, but from another perspective, it is difficult for him to become a super scorer such as Kobe and Jordan overnight, but even so, when Halliburton continues to play his own characteristics, the Pacers do have the possibility of defeating any opponent.

Looking back at this season's playoffs, we need to be clear that for Halliburton, even if it is difficult to play crazy scoring performances, there seems to be no difficult shooting choices for him. Nor is anyone able to maintain an absolute lead over the Pacers, who have staged enough reversal moments this season.

While staying at home with the advantage of 2-1, people couldn't help but start to have some questions: How will they win two more games in this ecological team that relies on the operation of all players and everyone participates in the game? More specifically, if the Thunder can replicate the situation of encircling Halliburton in the second game, how many chances will the Pacers still have to win the championship?

Although you have the advantage, this question is strange because it is based on a simplified assumption. For NBA superstars, our conventional philosophy is to produce enough terrifying personal data to prove yourself.

But Halliburton has never been a star who is famous for his personal data. But despite this, he is still the Pacers' biggest star, and he can't be avoided whether it is personal score or assist. This also means that as long as the team performs abnormally, the criticism arrow will definitely point to Halliburton. In the second game of the Pacers' defeat, Halliburton scored 17 points in the whole game, but only scored 5 points in the first three quarters, and the Thunder had already established a 23-point lead. He made only 1 of 5 shots in the first half, and did not regain his touch until the second half of the game. He finally made 6 of 8 shots in the second half, but the team was unable to catch up with the score. He sent 6 assists in the whole game, but also made 5 mistakes, which is the most messy game he has in the playoffs this season.

Of course, before Halliburton, there is also a Carlisle who has coached for 23 years and has experienced countless tests. After the Pacers' defeat in the second game, facing the footage of the post-match reporter, Carlisle stood up and blocked his beloved disciple:

"The game is not only about the score, but about Halliburton's score and assists to evaluate his performance, or evaluate any other player. This is not the operating model of our team. We are an ecosystem. , it must work together. Of course, we have to get enough points to win, but the score comes from who and how it comes from is not the point. "

This is exactly the contradiction between this Pacers as a top team, a championship-winning team built around a low-use, selfless star. Their biggest asset is not the superstar, but the smooth team offense transmitted under overall collaboration, making the opponent's defensive elusive because they have no single arrow to lock in.

And when the system runs smoothly, the offensive efficiency of this system is extremely high, which is enough to make up for the team's disadvantage of lacking traditional super scorers. But when it stagnates, we see the Pacers’ Second Battle.

This is also the charm of Halliburton. He can always use a burst of explosive harvesting games, making people forget all the performances. It is similar to the first game of the finals, and it relies on winning three-pointers to finish the game in the last 0.3 seconds. But the fact is that even though the series already has the advantage, Halliburton's performance in the first two games was actually not reasonable. Before playing the third game with a highlight, Halliburton accumulated 8 mistakes, which was the most cumulative mistakes in the two games since March last year. He only sent 12 assists in total, even less than the single assist data in the Sixth Game of the Eastern Conference Finals.

This part is attributed to the Thunder's suffocating team defense. They continue to arrange top defenders such as Dort, Wallace, and Jewish to take turns, and will hardly give Halliburton a moment of relaxation. Fortunately, the trader got rid of the slump in the third game, scored 11 assists and 4 three-pointers, once again proving that he was the top star in this year's playoffs and successfully led the Pacers to a series lead.

And after this, there will inevitably be more criticism and extreme remarks, and more people will call for Halliburton to stand up and use more attacks to make more aggressive attacks. This is also what fans hope most, but as mentioned above, Halliburton is not Kobe, and this has never been his style of game, nor is it the reason why he became a star, nor is it the way the Pacers can play 50-win seasons.

Halliburton averaged only 18.6 points per game this season, the second lowest among all players selected for the best team; while his usage rate is only 21.6%, ranking 82nd among all qualified players; he never takes the lead in the game with big plans, and if he is expected to make a comeback at the moment, it will undoubtedly go in the opposite direction.

Looking back at the playoffs this season, Halliburton has won four wins, and his calmness and determination at critical moments are amazing enough; referring to the data, when he scored 20 points in a single game, the Pacers' record is 32 wins and 4 losses, while when it is below 20 points, it is 27 wins and 28 losses. So far in the playoffs, Halliburton has played more than 30 points in a single game in the playoffs three times, but these are not his biggest signatures.

Except for the last few minutes of the first finals, the Thunder took control of the situation for most of the first two games. Alexander was fully fired, scoring 72 points in the first two games, making him the player with the highest score in the first two games in NBA Finals history. From some perspectives, this is the most standard model for superstars, but now his team has become the backward side.

As the fourth seed in the east, the walker is the one who is despised. They are not optimistic about defeating the 64-win Cavaliers, nor are they considered to be able to defeat the stronger Knicks. But they still won the first game of the finals with a 0.3-second victory, and relied on the core and surprise players to win the advantage of the series.

This is the Pacers, this is Halliburton, he never should and will never be the type of Alexander, but this team has the value of conduction and the whole team can shoot. From Siakam, Turner, Nembhard to Nesmith, McConnell, Toppin, everyone in the Pacers have their own position.

There is no doubt that Halliburton is the most important and critical soul figure of the Pacers. He may create miracles on one night. If the Pacers want to win the championship, he may need to have a few more miracle moments, but it is indeed unrealistic to expect him to suddenly transform into a pure scorer. This is not Halliburton, nor is the Pacers’ championship formula.

For the Pacers, what they rely on is never a superstar system, it is a team that is different from any previous champion team.