Chapter 549: A Stark Contrast
The Magic finally found some offense.
Alston came off a screen at the top of the arc, drove into the lane, drew the double team, and kicked the ball to the corner.
Turkoglu caught it and knocked down the shot.
3 to 7.
That was a textbook Magic possession. The ball handler collapsed the defense, and the perimeter shooter cashed in.
It looked simple, but it was deadly. Orlando had ridden that exact formula past Cleveland and into the NBA Finals.
Phoenix inbounded quickly. Even after giving up the basket, their rhythm never wavered.
Chen Yan caught the ball 2 steps beyond the 45 degree angle on the right side of the 3 point line, dribbled once with his left hand, then snapped the ball behind his back into his right hand and attacked.
Courtney Lee was beaten by half a step immediately. By the time he tried to recover, it was already too late.
Chen Yan drove into the paint, leaned into Lee's body, and finished the layup.
3 to 9.
That was Chen Yan's 7th point of the game.
Lee got pinned behind Chen Yan's shoulder on the play and did not dare make another move. One wrong reach and that basket could have become a 2 plus 1.
Orlando went back on offense and tried to recreate the previous possession, with Alston driving and looking to spray the ball to the perimeter.
This time, though, he drove too deep. His vision got cut off, and instead of finding an immediate outlet, he had to dribble all the way along the baseline and loop back out to reset.
The Magic swung the ball around, only for it to end up right back in Alston's hands. Their offense had already drifted off script, and their strengths never really came into play.
With the shot clock winding down, Alston gave up on the pass and took the possession into his own hands.
He strung together several between the legs dribbles, showing off his polished handle, but that kind of flashy rhythm dribble was rarely effective in the NBA. NBA guards were too disciplined to be fooled by pure showmanship.
With 3 seconds left on the shot clock, Alston rose for a pull up from the high post.
Nash's contest bothered him, and the jumper bounced off the rim.
Stoudemire secured the rebound over Howard and fired the ball ahead to the frontcourt.
Phoenix was off and running again.
Chen Yan received the outlet and immediately left Courtney Lee behind, with only Alston and Turkoglu still in front of him.
He had enough speed to put his head down and force the issue, but he still made the better play, slipping a bounce pass to the trailing Grant Hill.
It looked casual, but it was a high level read, the kind of pass that only came from a player seeing the floor clearly at full speed.
Hill caught it in stride and laid it in.
3 to 11.
Mike broke it down on the broadcast.
"The Suns are right where they want to be. They're scoring in transition, they're playing downhill, and the game is already starting to look like one of their regular season nights."
Jackson saw the same problem from Orlando's side.
"The Magic still don't have a clear rhythm. Their offense has no shape to it, and their defense keeps giving up transition points. Van Gundy's gotta stop this before it gets ugly."
No sooner had he said it than Stan Van Gundy called timeout.
He wore a dark expression as he walked into the huddle. The Magic's opening stretch had looked amateurish, and he was clearly unhappy.
Out of the timeout, Orlando made a slight adjustment.
Van Gundy told his perimeter shooters to fire confidently whenever they got daylight, especially off the pick and roll, while Howard was told to focus almost entirely on crashing the offensive glass.
Originally, Van Gundy had wanted Howard to use his size and explosiveness to establish an interior advantage against Phoenix's smaller front line.
What he had overlooked was the Suns' mobility.
Almost every time Howard began to isolate, a second defender was already on the way. And because Howard was not a natural reader of the floor, those surprise doubles often took him completely out of the possession, leaving him to force low percentage shots instead of finding open teammates.
Orlando restarted play with Howard screening for Turkoglu, then immediately diving toward the rim to hunt the rebound.
Turkoglu attacked off the screen, and on the weak side, Courtney Lee used an off ball screen to shake Chen Yan and cut toward the basket.
Turkoglu hit him right away. That was the kind of read he could make. Lee took the pass and finished the layup.
5 to 11.
Phoenix came right back.
Nash got into the frontcourt and waved Stoudemire over.
Stoudemire screened Alston, and Lewis was a step slow helping over, so Nash rose without hesitation and drilled the 3.
Swish.
5 to 14.
By this point, several Suns perimeter players had already scored. Their offense was hitting from every direction.
Alston hurried the ball across midcourt, used a screen, crossed back toward the middle, and then slung a pass to Turkoglu on the far side.
Alston's job in this offense was similar to Derek Fisher's role with the Lakers. He brought the ball up, made the simple pass, and took the open shot when it was there. He was not the true engine.
Turkoglu caught it in triple threat. Grant Hill stayed chest to chest, because everyone knew Turkoglu was really the Magic's perimeter organizer.
Howard stepped up to set another screen.
Turkoglu jabbed, then drove the opposite direction of the screen.
That little counter move got Hill leaning the wrong way. Turkoglu dribbled into the elbow area and pulled up with no defender in front of him.
The jumper dropped cleanly.
7 to 14.
As the players got back on defense, Chen Yan drifted over and delivered a little verbal jab.
"Nice shot. You should be making the most money on this team. What are you now, 3rd? 4th?"
Turkoglu's face did not change, but the words landed.
Before every playoff series, Chen Yan made a point of learning the details, contracts included. He had used that information before to get inside opponents' heads, and now he was doing it again.
Turkoglu answered flatly.
"That's none of your business."
Chen Yan shrugged and walked away.
"Sometimes it's about money. Sometimes it's about respect."
That was enough.
And it worked.
Turkoglu really had been unhappy with his contract for a long time. He had already planned to opt out after the Finals and test free agency. Chen Yan's words hit the nerve directly.
He could have accepted making less than Howard. That much, at least, made sense.
But Lewis made more than he did, and Nelson, who had barely played in the playoffs and had only rushed back for the Finals, was also ahead of him financially.
That had always bothered him. Chen Yan had simply lit the match.
"Hey, Hedo. Guard your man."
Van Gundy barked from the sideline, snapping Turkoglu back to reality.
He had zoned out for a moment and completely lost his assignment.
Hill cut free into the lane. Howard stepped over to help, and Hill calmly dumped the ball off to Stoudemire under the rim.
Stoudemire hammered it home.
7 to 16.
Turkoglu shook his head and forced himself to refocus.
Whatever happened in the summer, he still had to play well now. Finals numbers mattered at the negotiating table.
On the next Orlando possession, Turkoglu fed Howard again.
Howard dribbled once, took 2 lateral steps, and forced up a short hook.
Everything about the move looked stiff. The moment the ball touched his hands, everyone in the building knew how the possession was going to end.
Stoudemire got there in time to contest, and the ball bounced away.
That was the contrast in this game.
Phoenix's offense flowed. Orlando's offense stalled.
The difference showed up most clearly on the scoreboard.
By the end of the 1st quarter, the Suns led 32 to 19, a full 13 point advantage.
.....
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