071: Tactics from Coney Island (Monthly Votes Requested!)

On November 21, 1992, a 20-year-old O'Neal descended upon Madison Square Garden, extraordinarily excited as he issued a challenge for the very first time to Patrick Ewing, already a megastar.

With brutal back-to-the-basket moves, he sent the King of New York stumbling, trampling the dignity of the old-school center with a thunderous slam dunk.

Faced with the boundless vitality of the youth, a 31-year-old Ewing could no longer contain the ferocious beast in one-on-one coverage.

Although Ewing's teammates subjected the Shark to the misery of double-teams with their iron-fisted encirclement, the scoreboard still reflected the Shark's savage figures of 18 points and 17 rebounds, overshadowing Ewing's fading glow of 15 points and 9 rebounds.

The arrogant young Shark showed no respect to his senior. During the post-game interview, he continued to bluster: "If it weren't for the double-team, I would have made Patrick look utterly disgraced one-on-one!"

At the time, the Shark could never have imagined that the arena was like a Möbius strip. The senior he stepped upon at this moment would eventually become a mirror reflecting his own future.

Thirteen years later, the trash talk spewed by another player from New York rang in the Shark's eardrums, allowing him to personally experience the bitterness of Patrick Ewing.

After the altercation subsided, Shaquille O'Neal's anger had still not cooled down.

As expected, Stan Van Gundy, whose nerves were forever tightly wound, started rambling again, outputting at high frequency like a wound-up loudspeaker.

"Everyone, please don't get angry; getting angry will earn you a technical foul! Shaq, you're being too mischievous. I told you not to throw tantrums casually, not to throw tantrums casually. Look, I haven't even finished speaking and you've thrown your towel on the ground again. Throwing away a used towel pollutes the environment. Oh dear, what if it hits a little kid?"

These nags turned into a surge of extra anger, causing O'Neal to expel thick, heavy breaths from his nostrils. He grabbed the tactical board out of Stan Van Gundy's hand, intending to smash it to vent his frustration.

However, Stan Van Gundy did not let go. "What are you doing?"

"Let go!"

"You want it? If you want it, you just have to say so. If you don't say anything, how would I know you want it? Even though you're looking at me with so much sincerity, you still have to tell me you want it. Do you really want it? Then take it."

The corner of the Shark's mouth twitched. He pulled hard on the tactical board, only to find that Stan Van Gundy still hadn't released his grip.

"You don't really want it, do you? Could it be that you actually want it?"

"Fuck!!!" The Shark directly snatched the tactical board away and slammed it fiercely onto the ground.

He simply couldn't understand why there could be such a nagging coach in this world; he always had an endless stream of words!

Wade watched the enraged Shark, his fingers gripping the fabric of his suit trousers so tightly they were almost tearing the material.

He desperately wanted to take off his suit and join the game.

Sitting helplessly on the bench and watching his team fall into a disadvantage made him restless and unable to sit still.

Yet there was no way around it. Even if he wanted to, and even if Pat Riley allowed it, there was no way he could appear in today's game.

After all, he wasn't on the roster submitted before the game.

Wade had no choice but to grab the Shark's wrist. "Shaq, they're only leading by 2 points. We all believe in you, and the entire AmericanAirlines Arena is waiting for you to tear them to pieces!"

The trust, sincerity, and respect in Wade's eyes were precisely what the Shark needed.

Looking at the young man before him who had offered him the utmost respect, O'Neal immediately felt a lot better.

This shot of adrenaline gradually quieted the low growls rumbling in the Shark's throat.

As a result, Stan Van Gundy's chubby face suddenly appeared right between them. "I told you to stay focused! Math is the foundation of basketball! They're leading by 1 point! 1 point!"

O'Neal: ...

The Shark knew he had made many mistakes in his life, but using this guy to punish him was far too cruel even for God!

The timeout ended, and the game resumed.

The Miami Heat didn't have many good solutions for Lynch. As it turned out, using Christian Laettner to guard him could only serve as a mere consolation; the former Dream Team member's sluggish footwork simply couldn't keep up with Lynch's cuts between the strong and weak sides.

Lynch's shooting touch tonight was clearly not as good as it had been in the season opener, and his pull-up jumpers off the pick-and-roll clanked off the rim many times.

Consequently, he began to play more off the ball, and the rate at which his scoring climbed was like strapping into a rocket.

Yet the Heat finally found a countermeasure as well. When both teams played with their conventional lineups, former All-Star guard Eddie Jones would use pick-and-rolls to hunt down Jamal Crawford.

Crawford was completely powerless to stop Eddie Jones's onslaught. With his slender frame, he resembled a reed in the wind during contact, left to watch helplessly as Jones took whatever he wanted.

Although Eddie Jones only averaged 12 points per game for the Heat this season, that was largely due to the compromises he had to make regarding his personal shot attempts after teaming up with the Shark and Wade.

Eddie Jones was merely the team's third option, so his basic statistics were bound to decline, but his impact on the game remained positive.

Finally granted the green light to fire away today, Eddie Jones once again showcased the foundational skills of an All-Star caliber player.

This matchup was far more intense than the previous one, as Jamal Crawford couldn't possibly play all 48 minutes. Once he went to the bench, Lynch would fall back into the vortex of double-teams.

Lenny Wilkens also attempted to reinstate Penny Hardaway, but, predictably, Penny laid a massive egg. He should have retired long ago; at this point, he was a liability on whichever team he landed.

Grant Hill's injury exposed the fragility of the Knicks' backcourt completely, raising a question among Knicks fans: What on earth is our dear general manager doing? It's been a month since Allan Houston was ruled out for the season. Where are the reinforcements? Where are the guards?

Even if the general manager took off his suit, warmed up himself, and signed a ten-day contract with the team, the fans wouldn't feel like he was sitting idly by doing nothing.

The game remained fiercely contested into the fourth quarter, and Jamal Crawford's offensive efficiency began to drop.

He had already logged too many minutes tonight and had been targeted continuously on the offensive end, which severely drained his stamina.

He started missing open shots, and his drives were repeatedly blocked due to his waning explosiveness.

Dragging his lead-filled legs, Jamal Crawford could no longer provide any tactical value on the court.

Lenny Wilkens knew he was spent; he just couldn't get it going anymore tonight.

A guard like Jamal Crawford, whose greatest strengths and glaring weaknesses were both so extreme, was ultimately only suited to be a sixth man.

With 3 minutes left in the game, the Knicks had no choice but to re-insert Sweetney—whose nickname shocked all of New York in recent days with his offensive displays, and was probably the only name in the entire league more feminine than "Tracy."

This was a move of pure desperation by Lenny Wilkens. Crawford could no longer contribute on either end of the floor, whereas Sweetney could at least offer some resistance defensively.

Thus, the Knicks' offense plunged back into a constipated mode, relying solely on occasional flashes of brilliance fueled by the raw talent of Marbury and Lynch.

Fortunately, the Shark was no longer as ferocious as he had been at the start of the game; he could no longer score as easily in the post as he did in the opening quarter.

The game devolved into a typical Eastern Conference grinder, where physical contact and defense formed the main theme of the closing stretch.

The Shark no longer possessed the dominance that ravaged the paint early on, and Lynch's shooting touch was similarly dissolved and sealed away by layers of muscle.

Every single point scored by both sides required plowing through a steel-reinforced forest of defense, and every rebound battle was accompanied by flying elbows and muffled grunts.

With 53 seconds remaining before the final buzzer, the spotlights on the dome of the AmericanAirlines Arena cast glaring patches of light across the hardwood.

Lynch violently drove into the paint and leaped up to attack the rim. Udonis Haslem's fingernails practically embedded themselves into the muscles of Lynch's forearm, while Shaq's arms bore down horizontally like a collapsing concrete wall.

The three figures tangled together mid-air. Lynch crashed heavily to the floor, and the moment the ball slipped from his grasp, the referee's sharp whistle pierced through the roaring din of the crowd.

Lynch lay flat on the court, gasping for breath. The final minutes of this duel gave Lynch an early taste of what playoff basketball felt like.

Because of the bad blood between the two teams, the Heat guarded Lynch in the closing moments with practically playoff-level intensity.

Lynch indeed found the going tough, going several possessions without scoring a single field goal.

Marbury and Ariza appeared in Lynch's field of vision with beads of sweat glistening on their brows, reaching out to pull him up.

"You okay?" Marbury asked.

"Better than ever." Lynch wiped away the sweat that was blurring his vision, looked up, and glanced at the scoreboard on the jumbotron.

The Knicks were already leading by 4 points; if he made both free throws, the game would basically be secured.

Moreover, Lynch's personal scoring had reached 38 points. Although his scoring had hit a wall in the latter half of the fourth quarter, Lynch had been operating smoothly on offense throughout the earlier portions of the game.

Two made free throws meant Lynch would once again shatter the Shark's dignity.

Lynch received the ball from the referee at the free-throw line, struggling to regulate his heavy breathing.

For someone as athletically gifted as Lynch, this was the first time he had felt so exhausted during a game.

Today, Lynch had to shoulder a heavy offensive load while simultaneously rotating to double-team the Shark on defense at any moment. Combined with the playoff-level physicality, the stamina drain was incomparable to any previous game he had played.

Not even in the EuroLeague finals had Lynch ever felt this tired.

He was glad to encounter such a game during the regular season, as it gave him a mental gauge for what the playoffs would entail.

Right now, this was the dividing line between 38 and 40 points, the final grain of weight on the scales of victory, yet his fingertips were trembling slightly from excessive physical contact.

Shaking his head to clear away these distracting thoughts, Lynch released his first free throw.

Lynch's free-throw shooting percentage this season was as high as 85%, but this first attempt rattled out of the rim!

The continuous physical battering had robbed him of his soft touch, and the metallic clank of the missed shot instantly transformed O'Neal into an enraged brown bear.

"40 points? The win? You're not taking a damn thing!"

The beast beat his chest and roared, while the stands erupted with boos.

His teammates stepped forward one after another to high-five Lynch.

"Don't worry, you'll lead us to the win!"

Inside, Lynch wasn't panicked. After all, the team was still in the lead, so it was no big deal.

Taking more time to reset for his second free throw, Lynch calmly drained it.

However, making only one of two free throws still left the door open for the Heat.

The lead was cut to just 5 points, with 49 seconds left on the clock.

Stan Van Gundy placed his hand on the shoulder of Eddie Jones, who had put on a stellar performance tonight with 22 points.

His resilient gaze seemed to already spell out the answer to the Heat's reverse of fortune.

Lenny Wilkens also predicted that the final shot would most likely be given to Eddie Jones.

He instructed Ariza to stick to him in pursuit: "I don't care what method you use, even if your legs run off, you cannot give him an opening to shoot!"

"He won't! I swear on the tattoo on my chest! I'll never give him a chance!" Trevor Ariza replied resolutely.

The Heat inbounded the ball from the sideline, and the final sequence of offense and defense commenced.

Trevor Ariza stayed glued to Eddie Jones just as he had promised.

This agile, giant "Spider-Man" was a nightmare for any guard, and Eddie Jones couldn't even manage to catch the ball for a stretch.

Suddenly, Udonis Haslem loomed like a brick wall, and Ariza's jaw smashed brutally into the other man's rock-hard shoulder, the taste of blood exploding in his mouth.

Eddie Jones still managed to create half a step of separation and successfully received the pass.

Yet the moment he secured the ball, Trevor Ariza applied suffocating full-body pressure, making it exceptionally difficult for Eddie Jones to put the ball on the floor.

"Come on, baby, come on!" Ariza swallowed the blood in his mouth and continued to lock down Eddie Jones.

Eddie Jones waved his arms, signaling for everyone to clear out. It looked as though he was truly going to take over this possession.

Just as the shot clock wound down to its final 8 seconds, Eddie Jones displayed superstar potential—he zipped a pass out to Damon Jones, who was looping up to the right 45-degree arc!

Stan Van Gundy's initial strategy had been to feed Damon Jones all along; he knew Eddie would be heavily targeted tonight, so he deliberately used him as a decoy to execute the final play.

The ruse worked. No one expected Eddie to pass the ball back out.

Damon Jones, the overlooked sniper, caught the ball with the posture of a gunslinger drawing his iron in a Western film.

Seeing Damon Jones catch and elevate, Stephon Marbury widened his eyes in despair.

The basketball sailed over the Son of New York's outstretched fingers and flew toward the rim. It didn't even graze the iron as it swished through the net—a gentle slaughter belonging exclusively to sharpshooters.

The scoreboard numbers shifted to 101-103. Twenty thousand bodies inside the AmericanAirlines Arena sprang from their seats simultaneously, the roaring wave of cheers causing the retired jerseys suspended in the rafters to tremble.

Damon Jones held his follow-through, frozen under the spotlight like a Renaissance sculpture. Stan Van Gundy curled the corner of his mouth as he looked at a crestfallen Marbury, muttering under his breath, "Focus, focus, I told you, stay focused."

Another timeout was called—during the clutch moments of a basketball game, if the score remained razor-thin, it easily devolved into a turn-based video game.

Lenny Wilkens felt a headache coming on; his depleted offensive resources made it difficult for him to draw up any truly intricate plays.

The entire Heat team knew that the Knicks' deck of offensive cards only had two cards left; as long as they locked down Lynch and Marbury, the Knicks had no act left to perform.

No matter the play, just glue the defenders to those two.

Ultimately, Lenny Wilkens decided to re-insert Jamal Crawford and Penny Hardaway, testing whether the Heat dared to gamble on those two's shooting.

The Knicks' closing lineup transformed into Marbury, Crawford, Penny, Lynch, and Kurt Thomas.

In theory, four of them—excluding Kurt Thomas—carried a shooting threat.

Right, only in theory.

Because nobody knew whether Crawford could find his shooting touch, nor did anyone know if Penny would suddenly relocate his accuracy.

They weren't genuine offensive threats; they were merely slightly better options than Ariza and Sweetney, who posed absolutely no shooting threat whatsoever.

Lynch inbounded the ball from the sideline. Jamal Crawford darted rapidly through a cluster of defenders, but ultimately it was Stephon Marbury who looped out beyond the three-point line to receive the pass.

However, Marbury wasn't the designated finisher; the moment Lynch inbounded the ball, he cut straight toward the basket. Marbury fired a bounce pass his way, and Lynch elevated for a layup.

Just as the basketball was about to leave his fingertips, Shaquille O'Neal flew out of nowhere, putting every ounce of his strength into swatting at the ball.

He absolutely refused to lose to this number 20 again, and he certainly wouldn't let him drop 40 points on him once more!

He wasn't some useless Patrick Ewing; he wouldn't allow any youngster to trample over his pride!

"The ball goes out of bounds, Shaq with the massive block! He has kept the Miami hope alive!" ESPN broadcaster Mike Breen gripped his microphone. Had the Shark finally seized his own destiny with his bare hands?

The Shark raised both arms high, his roar tearing through the cheering waves and straight into Pat Riley's ears.

Shaq deserved immense praise this season; right down to the final moments of the game, he was still playing serious defense.

If that five-foot-shorter Michael Jordan of theirs could stay healthy come playoff time, the Miami Heat might genuinely raise the first championship trophy in franchise history!

"Fuck!" Lynch slammed his fist into the padding of the basketball standard, having assumed the Shark wouldn't have time to rotate and help.

Lenny Wilkens had no timeouts left at this point, leaving the Knicks players to solve this final offensive possession on their own.

Marbury walked over and grabbed Lynch by the arm. "Now's not the time to vent."

Those words allowed Lynch to regain his composure. He was young, but after all, he possessed enough high-level professional basketball experience to snap back to sanity quickly.

"Let's run a direct alley-oop next." Lynch pitched his first idea, knowing the Heat wouldn't afford him a clean jump shot, and his current shooting touch wasn't guaranteed anyway.

"No way," Marbury shook his mouth. "Shaq is just waiting in the middle to intercept the pass. That old shark is sitting there with his jaws wide open waiting for us to feed him."

"Then you take the shot?"

"I've got two guys draped all over me, and they're completely ignoring the damn Penny!"

The referee had already picked up the ball out of bounds, signaling for the Knicks to hurry up and inbound it.

Marbury gave Lynch one final tug: "An alley-oop, but not a normal one. Listen..."

After hearing Marbury's strategy, Lynch wore a blank expression.

Yet he had to admit he was merely putting on a brave face.

This damn play was the sort of thing every textbook-reliant coach would despise.

Yet right now, if they wanted to put the game away, conventional methods clearly weren't cutting it.

In the end, it was Stephon Marbury who walked over to the sideline to inbound the ball.

Lenny Wilkens stood anxiously on the sidelines with his arms crossed over his chest. What are they doing? Why is Marbury inbounding?

By now, the entire world knew the recipient of the pass would undoubtedly be Lynch.

Sure enough, Haslem and Butler morphed into a pair of human chains, wrapping tightly around Lynch. Poor Penny looked like some low-tier guy forgotten by everyone in the living room during a party, watching enviously as a player like Lynch dragged two defenders into the bedroom.

Lynch faked a screen for Jamal Crawford, but the exact microsecond Marbury was about to release the pass, he bolted straight toward the rim. At the same time, the Coney Island streetball prodigy hurled the ball high into the air.

"End of the line!" the Shark growled, sprinting rapidly along the ball's trajectory and leaping with all his might.

He had anticipated this maneuver all along, knowing full well that Marbury and Lynch might attempt an alley-oop.

Yet the moment the Shark soared into the air, he discovered his fingertips were still a full arm's length short of the basketball—he admitted his leaping ability was far below his physical peak, but the height of this pass... forget peak Shaq, even peak MJ couldn't have reached it!

Indeed, the pass was thrown far too high; no basketball player on planet Earth could possibly have reeled it in.

Nor did Lynch catch it, causing Knicks fans in front of their televisions to cover their heads in disappointment.

If this shot failed to convert, the Heat would have a prime opportunity for a game-tying or game-winning possession.

Considering both Eddie and Damon Jones were scorching hot, the Knicks' position was perilous.

The basketball soared high over the court, slamming violently against the backboard before rebounding outward with blistering speed.

Yet Lynch, suspended mid-air, happened to catch the rebound off the glass!

A backboard self-alley-oop—a strategy only a Coney Island streetballer could dream up, and a play only a monster like Lynch could execute.

Fans inside the AmericanAirlines Arena instantly held their breath. The Shark, having just landed back on the floor, hadn't even had time to pivot and see what had happened before hearing a deafening crash from the rim.

"Boom!"

He spun around to see Lynch hanging by both arms from the rim.

Mike Breen yanked off his tie, his vocal cords tearing as he roared: "Off-the-board alley-oop! Lynch with 41 points tonight, breaking his career high! That's his second 40-point explosion over Shaq! This is the greatest sideline inbound alley-oop in history! Good God! Good God! God must have taken off the Heat's retired number 23 jersey tonight and slipped into number 20 instead!"

Lynch successfully stretched the lead back out to 4 points, leaving the Miami Heat with zero time remaining.

The Shark stood frozen in the paint, refusing to look up at the jumbotron, refusing to watch the replay, and refusing to glance at Lynch's stat line.

That son of a bitch had genuinely dropped 40 points on his head yet again!

The scene of him stepping over Patrick Ewing to ascend the throne 13 years prior flashed across his retinas.

Back then, he couldn't understand why Patrick Ewing had been so cowardly, losing even the fierce glint in his eyes.

And at this moment, he finally understood the bitter twilight in his old rival's eyes—when the hurricane of a new era washes ashore, not even a shark can hold back the tide.

The game was over; the Heat's desperation three-point heave missed, and everything came to a close.

The New York Knicks plunged the South Coast into dead silence, halting their three-game losing streak right in its tracks.

Shaquille O'Neal didn't shake hands with a single Knicks player, marching straight down the player tunnel.

The new era had arrived, and the playoffs would be his final shred of fig leaf.

---

"Yes, Lynch is God, and I won't take back a single word I've said. Stephon's pass was brilliant, but Lynch's hang time was goddamn otherworldly. I might be the only broadcaster in history to witness this live in an NBA arena; nobody will ever replicate what we saw tonight!" — Mike Breen's post-game evaluation of Lynch.

"Shaq better stop running his mouth about the playoffs. If they actually meet, his remaining dignity is going to be completely destroyed." — Mike Breen referencing the Shark.

"That's right, that move came straight from the Coney Island asphalt. I'm just glad we dismantled the men from Miami in true New York fashion." — Stephon Marbury speaking on his final assist.

"We secured another victory, but that still doesn't mask a lingering problem: we need reinforcements at the two-guard spot." — Lenny Wilkens mentioning the need for roster upgrades to the media for the very first time.

"Lynch, you've notched 40 points in back-to-back matchups against Shaq. Was it because you were angered by that fabricated story he circulated to smear your name before the game?"

"I'm not mad; I just think Shaq is pathetic for resorting to tactics like that to disparage an opponent. By the way, let me tell you guys, I bet all those stories he spread about the Admiral were made up too. He's just a giant baby."

"How do you view the vacancy at the shooting guard position? Has Isiah reached out to you about it?"

"That's Isiah's job; I have no desire to bother him."

"Let's talk more about Shaq. Do you genuinely hope to run into the Miami Heat in the postseason? You know, Shaq has said more than once that he'll make you cry in the playoffs."

"Why wouldn't I hope for it? I've already beaten the Heat twice this season; who wouldn't want to run into an opponent in the playoffs that they know they can beat?"

"Let's not forget, though, Miami still has Dwyane."

"Dwyane is great, but Shaq is just a pigeon!" (NBA slang referring to a weak, easily targeted defender)

--- Lynch speaking in his post-game sideline interview.