As the players moved, Point Guard Bryce James didn't waste any time, either. He immediately drove into the paint, drew the defense, and passed directly to Wang Yi, who was wide open in the right corner.
Wang Yi caught the ball and shot immediately, before he'd even steadied himself, drifting beyond the right baseline as he released it.
After the drifting shot, he lost his balance and fell to the floor.
Yet the ball still streaked across the sky like a precision-guided missile.
With a thunderous swish, it dropped into the basket. Another three-pointer, and the lead was now nine points.
There was only one minute left in the game.
Nine points in a minute wasn't a lot, but it wasn't a little, either.
On the one hand, if you wanted to make up the difference with two-pointers, it would take a while.
On the other, it would only take three threes.
Of course, that was assuming you could stop the Lakers from scoring and hold them to zero points.
In NBA history, there had been cases of teams coming back from nine points down in the final minute.
The problem was, now you not only had to score, but also had to stop the Lakers from scoring.
But the Lakers had Wang Yi—and he was in excellent form, with a scorching hot hand.
Under these circumstances, stopping the Lakers from scoring was almost impossible.
Seeing this, Pistons Head Coach Billups had no choice but to call another timeout.
During the timeout, he addressed his players:
"From here on, we have to defend Wang Yi's three. Donnie can take the two, but we absolutely have to keep him from shooting threes. We can't let him take another one."
"On the other end, we need to shoot threes. Time is working