Chapter 788: Chapter 788

What left the deepest impression on him after watching was still Butler.

Butler’s performance in the King Mountain Battle was brilliant, but in other games, he was relatively mediocre.

Perhaps limited by his physical condition, Butler finds it difficult to maintain a consistently high level, but the more critical the game, the better he performs.

Moreover, he is inherently a player with an extremely strong desire to win, which leads to the result that although he cannot lead a team to championship heights, he can rapidly enhance the competitiveness of his team, turning it into a formidable playoff contender.

Although the 76ers are not their main rival, if they fail to suppress them from the start and are dragged into a prolonged series, even if the Cavaliers win, it will be a tough battle.

In this regard, they share a significant similarity to the Celtics of the past.

So Hansen must, like in his rookie season against the Celtics, not allow the 76ers to see any hope.

The strategy Malone devised before the game was the same as against the Bucks: get Jokic to draw Embiid out of the three-second zone, and then have Hansen attack the basket.

After all, if Embiid is not in the paint, Saric’s ability to protect the rim is virtually nonexistent.

The 76ers’ response was to have Butler and Crowder from the wings provide help defense toward the basket.

These two not only have excellent help defense abilities but also great awareness, which led Hansen to choose more breakthrough passes at the start.

However, the Cavaliers’ outside shooting percentage tonight was average, and with Embiid able to recover to protect the rebounds, the Cavaliers’ offense was not smooth.

But this time, Hansen changed his approach; he played more decisively.

Butler was still helping defense as before, but Hansen directly chose to jump and counter him, then hit a hook from the backboard.

Although Butler is a well-sized shooting guard compared to Huoledi and Bradley, his wingspan is a drawback. Without an advantage in the confrontation, he had no solution against Hansen’s play.

And when Hansen was really decisive in attack, he had more than one way to send the ball into the basket.

In the next possession, when the helping defender became Crowder, Hansen used the Illusion Step, reset the pivot foot after pounding the ball, stopped abruptly, turned and leaned back, connecting a spin fake into a scoring move.

And when Hansen scored continuously, forcing the 76ers to double-team him early, Hansen passed the ball to Jokic at the top of the arc for organization, then used off-ball movement to create scoring opportunities as he did against the Celtics before.

Facing such a style from Hansen, or rather such scoring desire from Hansen, the 76ers were at a loss.

If they had a solution, the Celtics wouldn’t have allowed Hansen to score 86 points at the North Shore Garden Arena at their home court back then.

As Pierce said, wearing the Green Army jersey and being immersed in Green Army culture, Celtics players always have a proud mentality.

They are the team with the most championships in the league with the deepest historical background.

But that night, Hansen, at the North Shore Garden Arena and in front of more than 20,000 Green Army fans, crushed their arrogance to pieces.

Now it is the 76ers’ turn to experience that feeling.

In the first quarter, Hansen contributed 25 points alone. Under his leadership, the Cavaliers, who were still trailing at the 5-minute mark, ended the first quarter leading the 76ers by 13 points, 35 to 22.

"Embiid shouldn’t have made that move; he successfully provoked Han."

At the commentating desk, ESPN’s ace commentator Mike Brin identified the root of the problem.

When facing a gorilla, you can make some provocative moves because the gorilla will most likely only pound its chest as a warning;

But if you do that to a tiger, that’s simply inviting trouble.

Of course, Brin didn’t know that even if Embiid hadn’t made that move, Hansen would have done the same thing.

Just like seeing a tiger and living depends not on what you do but on whether the tiger is hungry.

And when the second quarter started, the cameraman captured a detailed scene on the Cavaliers’ bench.

After Malone had arranged tactics for the Cavaliers’ substitutes, Hansen gave them a pep talk and took the lead in a cheer.

When the substitutes came on in the second quarter, the Cavaliers played with high energy.

The result was that, in order to maintain the score gap, the 76ers had to keep Butler leading the team during the substitution phase.

And this was a slow death.

By the end of the third quarter, the Cavaliers had expanded their lead to almost 20 points.

The final quarter became complete garbage time.

The live broadcast frequently showed Embiid sitting on the sidelines in the fourth quarter.

Embiid looked at the court in a daze; the light in his eyes was gone.

This change is entirely understandable.

It’s like someone thought they had become stronger, confidently confronting the person who once beat them, hoping for revenge, only to find nothing had changed, and they got beaten again.

This kind of experience is a huge blow to anyone.

Of course, this is precisely what Hansen wanted to achieve.

Butler might have a resilient heart for the game, but it doesn’t mean that the young players of the 76ers possess the same qualities.

Destroying the morale of those young players in Game 1 will make the entire series much easier.

The Cavaliers ultimately triumphed over the 76ers with a score of 118 to 98, securing a strong start.

At the post-game press conference, Hansen was asked about Embiid’s pre-game remarks by a reporter.

This time, instead of mocking Embiid like before, Hansen acknowledged him.

"We need to understand that Joel is just a sophomore player, and he did what a leader should do."

The 76ers are still young as a whole. Facing a team like the Cavaliers, who have won two consecutive championships, most players will be nervous or even afraid, affecting their performance.

Butler, or players with strong mental qualities, are after all in the minority, so as a leader, it’s reasonable to say things to boost the team’s confidence.

Originally, Hansen wanted to use his experience as an example, but he swallowed the words.

After all, by his second year, he was already leading the Grizzlies in the Western Conference Finals.

Of course, more important than any of this is Hansen’s intention to avoid using too much energy against the 76ers in the series, so he knows not to corner Embiid.

If you really corner Embiid, as in the "history" when he played against Towns and it turned into a full-on brawl resulting in suspensions, it would be a loss for the Cavaliers.

Or put another way, if you can win with minimal effort, there’s no need to push the opponent into desperate measures.

Two days later, Game 2 between the Cavaliers and the 76ers continued in Cleveland.

This game had both bad and good news for the Cavaliers.

The bad news was that Hansen’s touch was much worse than in Game 1 tonight, with more reliance on breakthrough attacks and fewer shot attempts. Google seaʀᴄh 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⚫𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⚫𝔫𝔢𝔱

The good news was that the Cavaliers’ outside shooting touch was much better than in Game 1.

Combining these two pieces of news, the 76ers were in an even more challenging position than in Game 1.

Because when Hansen has a good touch, with more shots, the shooting percentage fluctuates.

But if Hansen breaks through, the shooting percentage rises directly; it’s either a basket or a foul.

More crucially, when his teammates have a good touch from outside, most of Hansen’s plays in the lane result in passes.

This is also why the 76ers were in a tougher predicament.

When Malone realized this, he placed Kuzma in the four position and the Cavaliers went directly to the One Star and Four Shooters, leaving the 76ers’ defense in disarray.

The result was that the game they held on until the third quarter last time was almost blown open by halftime in this one.

It was clear that Hansen’s efforts in Game 1 worked, and the critical hit the 76ers took left them in a daze.

The Cavaliers prevailed again with a score of 115 to 89, leading the series 2 to 0.

Barring any surprises, they should be able to eliminate the 76ers in one go and advance to the divisional finals first.