It was obvious that his coaching staff had just given him a reminder: he had to stay away from Wang Yi when he shot.
When the Raptors came back on offense, the Pistons didn't go back to man-to-man defense. Instead, they immediately switched to a zone.
The reason they hadn't used a zone before was the presence of Wang Yi, their ultimate weapon.
The entire league had reached a consensus: playing zone against the Raptors was just asking for trouble.
That was because Wang Yi's three-point percentage this season had already reached 47.5%.
If you played zone, Wang Yi would just drain a few threes from outside. Could you handle that?
At the start of the game, Billups had also told his team to play man-to-man defense.
In particular, he wanted at least two players stationed near the sideline where Wang Yi spent most of his time, ready to stop him from attacking.
But Wang Yi didn't seem to have much desire to score in this game. They were already three and a half quarters in, and he had taken only seven shots.
Instead, he'd mostly been having Pang Bo and Zhang Jiacheng run Pick and Rolls.
Since Wang Yi didn't seem eager to score, Billups figured they could try a zone.
That would make it much harder for Zhang Jiacheng and Pang Bo to run their Pick and Roll.
Sure enough, Zhang Jiacheng and Pang Bo were at the top of the key, about to run a Pick and Roll, when they saw the opposing team set up in a zone.
They immediately abandoned the Pick and Roll. It wouldn't matter how many screens they set when all five defenders were still near the paint. They simply couldn't create an opening.
Wang Yi saw the opposing team switch to