The third section begins.
The Boston Celtics had a completely different attitude when they returned to the court.
They were no longer the team that was constantly suppressed in the first half, but a group of avengers who had completely broken free of their mental constraints.
Garnett called for the ball on the left low post. The moment he got the ball, Detroit's double team closed in. The defender's body was almost entirely hanging on his shoulder, his elbow pressing hard against Garnett's lower back, but Donaghy on the baseline had the whistle in his mouth and was as quiet as if he were dead.
Garnett didn't even bother to glance at the referee again. He suddenly lowered his shoulder and made a convincing feint to drive towards the middle. The next second, his slender body was like a tightly wound spring suddenly released, and he used his pivot foot to unleash a huge, lightning-fast baseline spin!
With his incredibly long and terrifying stride, Garnett cleanly and decisively bypassed the double team in a single step. He strode into the paint, leaping up to face the player helping him defend the basket. At the peak of his hang time, he stretched out his body like a fully drawn bow, gliding past the blocker to the other side of the rim, and with a single, powerful swing, slammed the ball into the hoop with a brutal reverse dunk!
"Clang!!!"
The powerful dunk made the entire rim tremble violently.
Garnett turned around immediately after landing. There was no emotional outburst, nor any celebration as usual; his expressionless face held only the purest killing intent.
Like a wolf that has already smelled blood, he quickly backed away to take his position.
Boston's counterattack storm officially began from this moment.
On the defensive end, Gary Payton became a true nightmare for the Detroit team.
The Pistons' point guard had barely managed to advance the ball past half-court. Gary Payton spread his arms wide, his defensive move extremely clean, even deliberately maintaining a half-step safe distance from his opponent. Donaghy was watching the two, and if there was even the slightest tug at their clothes, he would blow his whistle without hesitation.
But Gary Payton didn't give him that chance at all.
The Pistons' point guard spotted an opening in Gary Payton's balance and was about to lower his body to execute a crossover dribble. In that extremely brief moment, as the basketball left his fingertips and began to fall to the floor...
Gary Payton's left hand suddenly shot out.
Without any physical contact, without the slightest hesitation, and before the other player could even register his movement, Gary Payton simply and precisely poked the basketball.
"Snap."
A crisp, clean crack.
The Pistons point guard didn't even realize what had happened. His body was still moving to change direction, and his right hand instinctively reached for the ball, only to grab air. By the time he turned around in surprise, the basketball was already firmly in Gary Payton's hand.
Two rounds in a row, from the same spot, clean fouls! Donaghy had the whistle in his mouth, but couldn't find even half an excuse to call a foul.
After intercepting the ball, Gary Payton sprinted down the flanks, while Pierce and Eddie Jones charged forward at full speed from both sides!
The Celtics used their absolute speed and killing intent to tear apart the Pistons' hasty defensive formation time and time again.
Gary Payton drove to the free-throw line, not even looking at the defender, and casually tossed his wrist towards the basket.
Eddie Jones, who was following up on the right wing, soared into the air! In mid-air, he caught the falling basketball with one arm, turning the anger that had been building up throughout the second half into a brutal tomahawk dunk, slamming himself and the ball into the basket!
In the next possession, the Pistons rushed a shot under suffocating defensive pressure and missed. Garnett boxed out for the rebound, and the Celtics once again surged past half-court.
This time, the ball was in Pierce's hands.
Pierce received the ball a step beyond the three-point line.
Stackhouse lunged fiercely. The instant Pierce took his jump shot, Stackhouse not only struck Pierce's right wrist hard, but also crashed into Pierce's hips without slowing down.
This was an extremely rough defensive foul. But Donaghy, standing on the baseline, just watched it all with a cold eye, without even touching the whistle.
In the violent Crash, Pierce completely lost his balance in mid-air. But he clenched his teeth, demonstrating extremely strong core strength. His lower body had already lost control and leaned backward in the confrontation, but his upper body and shooting hand shape remained stable. In the last instant before losing his balance, he used muscle memory to forcefully push the ball out.
"Bang!"
Pierce crashed heavily to the floor and slid more than two meters backward.
All eyes on the court were fixed on the basketball that arced through the air.
The force was noticeably greater; Stackhouse had even turned around to position himself for the rebound.
"Bang!"
The basketball slammed heavily into the upper right corner of the white square on the backboard.
However, just when the Detroit players thought their defense had succeeded, the ball, with a strange backspin, grazed the rim and fell precisely into the basket.
This completely unreasonable bank shot three-pointer sent a chill down the spines of all the Pistons players and dealt a heavy blow to their morale.
Pierce got up from the floor. He turned and looked at Donaghy, who was standing a few steps away.
Pierce spread his hands, a mocking sneer curling at the corner of his mouth.
Faced with overwhelming superiority, the referee's whistle becomes pale, powerless, and ridiculous.
Donaghy realized with despair that he couldn't simply invalidate every incredible shot that went in despite being fouled. Nor could he use the whistle to stop the Boston team from repeatedly finishing with clean steals and easy dunks.
The Celtics unleashed a breathtaking 36-12 run in the third quarter. They not only bridged the gap created by the referees with sheer brute force, but also shattered Detroit's mental defenses.
By the fourth quarter, the game had completely devolved into a one-sided massacre by Boston.
No matter how Donaghy tried to disrupt the game's rhythm with sporadic whistles, Boston's defense kept the Detroit firmly pinned down. For three consecutive possessions, the Pistons, under relentless pressure, didn't even have a chance to shoot before being forced into 24-second violations.
With three minutes remaining in the game, the Pistons' head coach had no choice but to substitute all his starters, officially conceding defeat.
A deathly silence fell over the entire the Palace of Auburn Hills. Large numbers of Pistons fans, their faces blank, left early.
Final buzzer sound. Boston Celtics 112-84 Detroit Pistons.
There was no miracle, and Donaghy's biased refereeing couldn't save them. Boston, stepping over the ruins of Detroit, swept the series 3-0, ending the series.
The post-game celebrations were reserved for the locker room. Lin Qi, without even saying goodbye, walked alone through the long player tunnel and left the arena through a side door.
A black Lincoln Navigator sped into the Detroit night, heading straight for the airport.
The carriage was so quiet that only the muffled tire noise could be heard. Lin Qi opened the briefcase beside him and took out a top-secret report, fifty pages thick, with a black disk attached to it. Inside were Donaghy's overseas account statements and deadly phone recordings.
By the dim light of the streetlights rushing past the window, Lin Qi coldly looked at these things, then snapped the latch shut.
The series belonging to Detroit is over.
But for David Stern and the entire league leadership, the real nightmare will begin tomorrow morning on Fifth Avenue in New York, a nightmare he will personally set in motion.
The players' game is over. Now it's his turn to play.