Bishop of the Devil

Richard didn't care much about this one point behind. He was most worried about the situation in the second half.

The two sides had a series of bloody battles, and with the score tight, the players on the field were already a little red-eyed.

In the middle of the third quarter, Artest was a little anxious when Laga Bell was guarding him, and he directly swung his elbow at Laga Bell's waist.

And Lagabell was not a master who could suffer a loss. He immediately fought back, jumped up and choked Artest directly, and the two sides fought together.

Fortunately, both parties are basically Richard's disciples. Otherwise, it is not impossible for an incident at the Auburn Hills Palace to take place tonight.

Players from both sides pulled their teammates apart to prevent the situation from escalating further.

Richard stood on the sidelines, but he didn't lose his mind because of this matter.

Now that we have reached the life-and-death part of the finals, it is normal for players from both sides to be emotional and have conflicts on the court.

Richard is not ready to fight with his old club because of this conflict.

The referees' hearts were pounding just now, and they were afraid that another large-scale brawl would break out tonight.

But seeing the players on both sides being pulled apart, I was relieved at the moment.

"Dudududu!" The referee blew the whistle repeatedly and sent Artest and Lagabell out of the game for the fight.

The two of them each played a big hit, and no one was taking sides, and they were all sent off.

As for subsequent penalties, the referees have no control over them. That is a matter for the NBA Management Committee...

Richard's heart skipped a beat as Laga Bell was ejected. This made the Pistons a little passive.

The main reason is that the Trail Blazers have a lot of people they can use. Without Artest, they can use Kirilenko.

On the Piston side...

Richard frowned, going to Prince? !

Prince was not reused by Richard this season, and Richard had selfish motives for doing so.

He originally planned to hide Prince for a while and then capture Prince in the expansion draft later.

Although Prince is not a superstar-level player, he is quite easy to use. If you get it in your hands in the future and train it carefully, he will definitely become a qualified second or third player.

Richard has naturally talked to Prince about this matter, and Prince has no objections to this. Anyway, as a player who entered the league with the first pick, he is unlikely to get too many performance opportunities...

Now that Richard told him from the bottom of his heart that he would arrange a better future for him in the future, he naturally had no objections.

But now as Laga Bell was sent off, Richard suddenly had the idea of ​​​​wanting Prince to play.

Although Joe is currently good in singles, his ability to find open shots for three-pointers is not as good as Prince's, and his basic defensive skills are not as solid as Prince's.

During the regular season, Richard would give singles Joe a lot of playing time to practice, but in this finals stage, he was a little afraid to take risks.

…

"Tyshawn, get ready to go on stage!" Richard turned to Prince and said.

Singles Joe on the side was stunned. He didn't expect that when Laga Belle was sent off, it would be Prince who came on the stage, not him!

Hasn't Prince been abandoned by Coach Richard? How could he appear at such a critical moment...

Single Joe had a hundred doubts in his mind, but he definitely didn't dare to ask Richard at the moment.

…

What Richard didn't expect was that the Blazers didn't play Kirilenko, but Stackhouse!

This made Richard happy. Zhang Weiping made an operation error!

This is the best time for their Pistons to grab points...

Stackhouse was a bit wet, at least in Richard's opinion, it was an operational error for Zhang Weiping to go to Stackhouse in such an anxious situation.

Maybe Zhang Weiping is also thinking of using Stackhouse to increase the offensive firepower of the Trail Blazers' backcourt.

But as everyone knows, this arrangement is not worth the gain!

In the current extremely fierce confrontation in the finals, with Stackhouse's defensive strength, the Pistons will definitely attack Stackhouse at this point.

In Richard's opinion, Zhang Weiping should actually be replaced by Kirilenko now!

There was no need for Richard to greet him. When the Pistons saw Stackhouse on the court, they immediately created various opportunities to beat Stackhouse alone.

In just a few minutes, by the end of the third quarter, the Pistons were already leading by five points.

When Stackhouse came on, the effect was immediate.

His offensive level is of course better than Artest, but his defense is even worse than Artest. Although he scored some points after his debut, the Blazers lost more because of his poor defense. The score is absolutely worth the loss.

…

Relying on this five-point difference, the Pistons continued to play steadily and finally won the game.

Although Zhang Weiping had already abandoned Stackhouse in the fourth quarter and replaced him with Kirilenko.

But the hole dug by Stackhouse before was not so easy to fill when the strength of both sides was basically equal.

In the end, the Pistons won by 4 points at their home court, which was considered a narrow victory.

The game had just ended, and the players on both sides were very tired.

The starting players of both sides in this game basically played for more than forty minutes.

Especially the inside lineup, the two from Auburn even played for forty-five minutes!

Yao Ming played 43 minutes, while Clark played the entire game without even a second of rest time.

If you don’t fight now, wait until later!

Prince, who replaced Laga Bell, also took on Bell's blame very well. His performance on both ends of the court was quite good.

Originally, Pistons fans were still worried about whether they would lose without Laga Bell.

Now it seems that they are a little unfounded. How could Richard not have a back-up plan?

If Prince, the player, hadn't made his debut tonight and had a brilliant performance on both offense and defense, I'm afraid Pistons fans would have almost forgotten about this rookie produced by Purdue.

When he first joined the Pistons, Prince could still get some training opportunities, but after the All-Star break and Singles Joe joined, Prince basically disappeared.

Everyone thought that Richard had completely abandoned the Purdue player. Maybe there was some conflict between him and Prince, or maybe Prince's performance made Richard dissatisfied...

Anyway, after the All-Star Game, I didn’t see Prince much on the court.

Now Richard suddenly brought out Prince, immediately putting those rumors to rest.

If Prince was really abandoned, he wouldn't be at such a critical juncture.

…

Originally, Pistons fans were worried that the Pistons' bench lineup was not as deep as the Trail Blazers and would suffer in this regard.

But now it seems that their bench lineup is no worse than the Trail Blazers, and may even be better...

In the first game of the Finals, the final score between the two sides was 92:88, and the Pistons only won by four points.

Judging from this score, the defense of both sides is really scary. You must know that these two teams averaged 105-110 points per game during the regular season.

They are definitely the two teams with the strongest offensive firepower in the league, but after meeting, neither team scored more than 100 points.

After the game, NBA officials also gave the ratings of this game. Sure enough, as the media speculated, this first game of the finals directly broke the previous ratings record.

…

But just after announcing the good news, the NBA immediately announced another piece of news that made fans on both sides uneasy.

Artest was suspended for three games and fined $15,000.

Lagabell was suspended for three games and fined $15,000.

For a time, fans from both sides were dissatisfied.

Trail Blazers fans feel that although Artest made a mistake in the first place, his elbow will not result in a two-game suspension. At best, it will be a technical foul.

It was Lagaber who really deserved to be suspended. He was the one who escalated the situation and started the fight.

…

Pistons fans are naturally dissatisfied with this result.

In their view, this was Artest's first provocation, and Lagabell just retaliated passively...

Anyway, the public is right and the mother-in-law is right, and they all feel that their team has suffered a loss.

However, the players on both sides did not pay much attention to this matter, because the NBA Management Committee seemed to be fair enough, and the number of suspended games and fines for both sides were the same.

It's hard to say who is to blame for the conflict on the field. Now, the penalty of a big board each can be accepted by both players anyway.

Even the two players who were fined were quite calm and did not seem to feel that the NBA was favoring anyone...