The 30-second commercial break ended quickly, and cheers and whistles erupted from the stands of the New Garden.
On the sidelines, in the ESPN commentary booth, commentator Brad Nesler took off his headphones, glanced at his partner Beal Walton, and remarked, "The timing of this Converse just finished airing LeBron's promotional video, and then immediately showed footage of KG breaking his nose and winning four championships over the past eight years. The contrast is completely different."
Beal Walton glanced at Garnett, who was listening to Rick Carlisle's tactical instructions on the court, and nodded. " Nike originally wanted to use the national broadcast tonight to promote their new number one draft pick, but the Boston Celtics clearly weren't going to cooperate. In the first few minutes of the game, the Celtics completely changed their playing style, showing no mercy whatsoever."
The game resumed after the timeout.
During the timeout, Chris Paul Russ substituted the slow-moving Ilgauskas with the more mobile Chris Mihm, while also instructing the entire team to abandon offensive rebounding and immediately retreat to the three-point line if a shot misses.
But Boston's rotation players have already started playing.
With four minutes left in the first quarter, Rick Carlisle substituted Garnett and Pierce to rest, fielding a bench lineup of Tyronn Lue, Gerald Wallace, Ron Artest, Rasheed Wallace, and Mehmet Okur.
Garnett, sitting at the front of the bench with a white towel draped around his neck, stared at Gerald Wallace and Okur on the field.
During their meal at the steakhouse in the North End, Garnett laid out the unpleasant truth upfront. Tonight was the first game of the new season, and these young men were all fired up; none of them dared to falter at this crucial moment.
The Cavaliers are on offense, and Ricky Davis is one-on-one against Ron Artest on the wing.
Artest remembered Rick Carlisle's instructions, raising his hands high to avoid hand contact on his waist, relying solely on his strong lower body strength to move sideways and block Davis. Davis failed to shake off Davis's position after two consecutive changes of direction, and with only five seconds left on the shot clock, he had no choice but to force a jump and lean back for a shot.
The basketball bounced off the front of the rim, Rasheed Wallace boxed out Boozer to grab the rebound.
The moment he grabbed the rebound, Rasheed immediately passed the ball to Tyronn Lue next to him.
Meanwhile, Gerald Wallace on the left wing took long strides and sprinted along the sideline towards the frontcourt. Okur, who had just been battling for the ball under the basket, also quickly followed up to the middle.
Tyronn Lue dribbled two steps across the center line, and seeing the Cavaliers' defensive formation collapsing towards the paint to defend Gerald Wallace's cut, he flicked his wrist and delivered a bounce pass to Okur, who was following up at the top of the key.
There are 19 seconds left on the 24-second timer.
Chris Mihm, who was guarding Okur, was still hesitating on the edge of the paint whether to rush out. After receiving the ball, Okur did not make any further adjustments and jumped to shoot.
The basketball went through the net cleanly.
When Garnett saw the ball on the sidelines, he immediately stood up from the bench, waved a towel, and shouted loudly.
The bench continued the semi-transition rhythm of the starters, with Gerald Wallace running tirelessly to attack the basket, and Rasheed and Okur, two big men who can shoot three-pointers, completely opening up the Cavaliers ' interior defense.
Throughout the second quarter, the Cleveland Cavaliers found themselves in a passive situation, unable to defend one area at a time.
They wanted to play a slow, half-court game, but they couldn't penetrate from the outside and couldn't hold their own inside. Once their shots missed, Boston's fast break would immediately come. Even if they occasionally got back on defense in time and fell into half-court, the Celtics would immediately run a Boston Pick-and-Roll with a back screen, and with three passes and two layups, they could create open shots in the corner or under the basket.
When the buzzer sounded at halftime, the score on the scoreboard was 62-41.
The Boston Celtics, known for their half-court defense and low-scoring games, scored 62 points in the first half.
During halftime, the national television broadcast aired the full version of Garnett's "The Trials" commercial again, as well as Wade's promotional video documenting his daily training sessions in Chicago South Side. The two realistic black-and-white commercials sparked widespread discussion in the arena and in front of television sets.
The second half began with the teams switching sides.
At the start of the third quarter, Garnett, Pierce, Ben Wallace, Wade, and Raja Bell returned to the court as starters.
After a 15-minute break at halftime, the Celtics starting lineup was full of energy.
Just one and a half minutes into the third quarter, Big Ben blocked Boozer's layup under the basket. Garnett grabbed the rebound and immediately passed it to Wade in the frontcourt. Wade dribbled straight into the paint, drawing LeBron James and Myers to double-team him before passing the ball to Garnett, who was following up at the free-throw line.
Garnett received the ball, took a step forward, and completed a one-handed dunk with no one guarding him.
In the very next possession, Pierce capitalized on a mismatch in a half-conversion, backing down Martin Reeves of the Cleveland Cavaliers for a three-point play.
In less than six minutes, the Celtics went on a 16-4 run, pushing the point difference past the 30-point mark.
The Nike executives in the first row on the sidelines looked grim. No one expected that the opening game, which had cost a fortune to build up, would lose its suspense halfway through the third quarter.
With three minutes and fifteen seconds remaining in the third quarter, the ball was dead.
Rick Carlisle glanced at the scoreboard, 91-58, then turned and waved to the end of the bench, substituting all five starters.
Amid applause from 20,000 Boston fans, Garnett and Pierce walked off the court, high-fiving their teammates.
Sitting on the bench, Garnett took the towel handed to him by the assistant coach and wiped his face. He habitually stretched his knees and thighs, then suddenly paused.
In previous years, by the end of the third quarter, after battling the opposing center in the low post for more than 30 minutes, his legs would have started to feel heavy, and his jersey would be soaked with sweat. But tonight, he felt like he had just run a few shuttle runs, his breathing was steady, and he didn't feel any soreness in his thigh muscles.
At this moment, the chief teaching assistant handed over the technical statistics sheet for the third session that had just been printed out.
Garnett glanced down, and Pierce and Ben Wallace next to him also came over to look.
The technical statistics table clearly shows this.
Kevin Garnett: 28 minutes played, 12-for-14 shooting, 25 points, 13 rebounds, 8 assists, and 2 blocks.
Chris Paul Pierce: 27 minutes played, 10-for-15 shooting, 5-for-6 from three-point range, 28 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists.
Ben Wallace: Played 25 minutes, scored 8 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, and blocked 3 shots, including 4 baskets that came from Boston Pick-and-Roll- and-roll plays.
The three men exchanged glances, and Pierce couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"He only played 27 minutes and scored 28 points," Pierce flicked the stat sheet with his finger and raised an eyebrow at Garnett. " Kevin, you don't have to wrestle with people in the middle of the court, and all your shots are wide open. You're playing much less tiringly than before."
Garnett folded the statistics sheet and handed it back to the assistant coach, grabbed a towel from the sidelines, draped it over his shoulder, stood up, and gave Okur had just made a three-pointer, a big round of applause.
The stats didn't drop much, the point difference widened to thirty points, and they could comfortably rest on the bench in the fourth quarter. This way of winning is so much more satisfying than the old days of battling for 42 minutes straight.