In the final two minutes of the first quarter, they had only cut the deficit by three points.
Then he played three minutes at the start of the second quarter, and they had only cut the deficit by four more.
All told, in the five minutes Wang Yi had been off the court, the Celtics had cut the deficit by only seven points.
Now they were still down by 17.
With the league having loosened its officiating standards and allowed more physical play this season, making up ground had become much harder. So a 17-point deficit was already a huge one.
That left Raptors head coach Joe Mazzulla secretly growing anxious.
They hadn't made up many points while Wang was off the court.
Wouldn't it be even harder to catch up once Wang returned?
So now, three minutes into the second quarter, when Wang was about to check back in, Mazzulla hurriedly instructed his players:
"We need to change our strategy in the second quarter. Focus on trapping Wang. If two men aren't enough, send three!"
"Whatever it takes, we absolutely can't let him score anymore!"
The assistant coach beside him hesitated for a moment, then said to Joe Mazzulla:
"Joe, our scoring trap in the first quarter made Wang burn a lot of energy. If we suddenly change our defensive strategy now, won't all that effort have been wasted?"
"I think we should keep playing man-to-man defense against him, with two-man traps at most. If he wants to score, let him keep scoring. That'll wear him down even more. You could see it when he came off the court just now—he was clearly more exhausted than in previous games. After all, this Raptors lineup is relying entirely on him tonight."
Mazzulla pondered that for a moment, then nodded.
"Hmm.