All the players had seen Wang Yi's strange smile on the big screen just moments ago.
A sense of dread had crept into their hearts.
They were still leading by one point.
But no one felt the slightest excitement. Instead, they were all tense, worried, and afraid.
At last, both teams returned to the court.
The Spurs' strategy was to run as much of the 24-second clock as possible.
They wanted to let the clock wind down to the final few seconds. If they could score, great. If not, they would still have burned a lot of time, leaving the Raptors only six seconds.
The Raptors took the court with their five-defender lineup.
Wang Yi;
Tagore;
Locke;
Dauding and Tang Bo.
James said, "It's the five-defender lineup again. It played a huge role for the Raptors in the Eastern Conference Finals. It's no exaggeration to say that without it, they wouldn't have beaten the Knicks and made it to the Finals."
"And now, at the most crucial moment of Game 1 of the Finals, the Raptors have brought out that five-defender lineup again."
"Let's see how effective it is this time."
The Spurs wanted to run down as much time as possible, so they didn't inbound the ball in the frontcourt. Instead, they passed it in from the backcourt.
Lillard brought the ball up.
Mad Tiger Tagore kept putting his body on Lillard, making his dribble awkward and unsteady.
He also kept reaching out to disrupt Lillard's dribble.
Lillard nearly lost the ball.
When he was younger, he might have been able to get past Tagore with his footwork and fakes.
But now he was nearing retirement, and his feet had slowed. On top of that, he was badly worn down, making it difficult to get past Tagore.
Seeing this,