With a score of 2-0, the Chicago team arrived in Boston with absolute arrogance and the air of victors.
For this young Celtics, they only have a mere forty-eight hours to adjust.
Two hours before the start of the third game, the Boston team bus slowly pulled into the underground parking lot of FleetCenter Arena. The door opened, Lin Qi stepped off first, expressionless, followed by Adelman and the entire Boston youth team, all with cold expressions and clenched teeth, remaining silent.
However, when they reached the entrance to the home team's private player tunnel, everyone stopped in their tracks.
Right in the center of the entrance, a black Ferrari 512 TR with extremely aggressive lines and a cold gleam was parked horizontally.
Michael Jordan, dressed in a custom-made gray suit and wearing dark sunglasses, casually straddled the hood of the Ferrari.
With his hands in his pockets and a lit Cuba cigar dangling from his mouth, he stood surrounded by four bodyguards in black, resembling a mafia the Godfather surveying his territory. The strong smell of tobacco permeated the enclosed underground Stephen Curry.
More than twenty Celtics players walked right past him. Jordan didn't even flinch; he simply raised his chin slightly, and through his sunglasses, swept his cold, condescending gaze over every young Boston face that passed by.
Before the game even started, Michael Jordan had already lit his victory cigar. He was declaring in the most silent yet cruel way: I am already the champion, and playing with you guys tonight is just a formality.
An hour later, the home team's locker room at the FleetCenter Arena was deathly silent. The players silently wrapped their ankle braces, and the air felt thick and suffocating.
Bang!
Suddenly, the locker room door was violently pushed open from the outside and slammed heavily against the wall.
Everyone instinctively looked up, and the moment they saw who it was, everyone in the room froze in place.
Michael Jordan, accompanied by four bodyguards in black, swaggered into the Celtics ' Big Ben. The Cuba cigar in his mouth was still smoking, and the pungent smell of nicotine instantly filled the small locker room.
Jordan stood in the center of the room, not even bothering to take off his sunglasses. He glanced around at the group of young, angry, yet somewhat bewildered Boston faces, and finally, his gaze fixed on Garnett's face.
Jordan slowly took off his cigar and asked in a casual, condescending tone:
"Who are you planning to send to guard against me tonight?"
Utter arrogance. In someone else's home locker room, smoking a Victory cigar and asking who would guard him, is the purest and most undisguised insult.
Garnett's forehead veins bulged instantly, his teeth clenched so tightly they cracked, and the bench beneath him creaked as he trembled. He was about to stand up and attack.
" Michael, this is Boston, you've come to the wrong place. Take your cigarettes and get out." Head coach Adelman, his face ashen, stood up and blocked Garnett's path, starting to shoo him away.
Jordan smirked, revealing a faint, contemptuous sneer. He casually flicked a bit of cigar ash onto the carpet in the Boston Celtics ' locker room, then turned and strode away with his bodyguards.
The gate closed again, but the lingering smell of cigars was like a series of resounding slaps to the face of every Boston player.
Garnett kicked the tactical board in front of him away.
Tonight, Lin Qi didn't go to the VIP box, but instead sat in the first row directly behind the home team's bench. Because of his "salary slip" comments in the previous game, league commissioner David Stern issued him a huge fine of $50,000 overnight. But tonight, he didn't even wear a tie, and his shirt was unbuttoned, coldly watching the entire Chicago Bulls team enter the arena.
As the two teams entered the arena, the lights of the Boston FleetCenter Arena instantly blazed on. Twenty thousand Boston Celtics fans, known as the " Boston Thugs," stood in uniform green T-shirts. Even more impressive were the huge close-up images of Lin Qi's face during Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, where he angrily confronted the referees. Their deafening roars nearly cracked the arena's steel roof structure.
If the officiating today doesn't satisfy the Boston, the referees might be in serious trouble.
Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals turned into a brutal meat grinder from the very first second.
Both teams skipped any tactical probing and turned the basketball game into a mixed martial arts match. Mutombo and Dennis Rodman battled fiercely under the basket, their arms intertwined like iron chains during a positioning contest, both crashing out of bounds, getting up, dusting themselves off, and continuing their collisions; Eddie Jones, while guarding Jordan throughout the game, even had his Celtics green jersey ripped open to his waist during an off-ball movement.
During a drive, Jordan elbowed Jones in the ribs, then forced his way in over the defense. As he retreated on defense, he passed Lin Qi, tilted his head, and stuck out his tongue provocatively. "Is this the defense you're so proud of? So soft!"
Lin Qi, standing on the sidelines, didn't even blink, simply replying coldly, "The game has only just begun, Michael."
At halftime, the score was 41-42. The two teams engaged in a near-primitive physical battle, resulting in the most suffocating and thrilling low score of this series.
In the second half, the Chicago Bulls made their first change. Pippen used a screen at the top of the key, faked out Horry, and drove hard to the basket from the middle, trying to regain control of the game with a powerful dunk.
But this time, he was wrong.
Garnett moved across like a high-speed black wall in an instant. Without dodging, he straightened his chest and crashed head-on into Pippen as he charged forward!
BOOM!
The dull thud of a physical struggle echoed throughout the arena. Pippen lost his balance in mid-air due to the immense force of the impact, and the ball slipped from his grasp. The instant Garnett landed, he scooped up the ball with his long arms, and like a hungry wolf unleashed from its chains, he dribbled at full speed toward the Chicago Bulls' half of the court.
Dennis Rodman frantically retreated on defense, spreading his arms menacingly, ready to commit a malicious foul by pulling Garnett down from the air.
But Garnett was now completely in a killing frenzy.
Just past the three-point line, he took two strides with his terrifyingly long legs, reaching the edge of the Crash area. Facing Dennis Rodman's all-out block, he raised the ball high in the air, his entire body leaning back, taut like a fully drawn bow.
boom----!
A near-suicidal dunk over Rodman! The basketball, along with Dennis Rodman's arm, was slammed into the basket!
The rim groaned in agony under the immense pressure. Dennis Rodman was sent flying out of bounds by the overwhelming force, sliding three meters awkwardly across the floor.
The entire FleetCenter instantly went paralyzed, and 20,000 men simultaneously rose to their feet in a frenzy. Garnett landed, pounding his chest frantically with both hands, his back arched, and let out a heart-wrenching, beast-like roar at Dennis Rodman, who was still on the floor!
This dunk completely dispelled the pent-up frustration and humiliation that Boston had been holding in for two whole games!
The Celtics, riding high on momentum, never gave the Chicago Bulls another chance. In the fourth quarter, Michael Jordan's stamina finally began to wane under the relentless, physical attacks and grueling play from the Boston, and his signature pull-up jumper bounced off the rim three times in a row. Meanwhile, Garnett delivered three massive blocks in the quarter, holding Pippen to just 12 points for the entire game.
The Boston Celtics, gritting their teeth, managed to snatch a victory from the invincible Chicago Bulls dynasty, 88-81 at home.
The score was tied at 2-1.