Chapter 498: Two Resounding Victories, the Dirty Jazz
After the game, the moment Chen Yan finished showering, reporters swarmed him.
He immediately felt the difference between the Playoffs and the regular season. It was not just the opponents who turned up the pressure. Even the media did. They entered the locker room earlier, crowded closer, and left far less room for mistakes.
Chen Yan sat at his locker with a towel wrapped around his waist. A year ago, he might have been slightly uncomfortable in a scene like this. Now, he looked completely at ease, like a veteran who had seen it all.
"Chen, tonight you finished with 33 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds, and 2 steals. Are you satisfied with your performance?" one reporter asked.
"If I said I was not satisfied, I would be lying," Chen Yan replied. "But what satisfies me more is the team win, not my individual numbers."
"Do you think the Suns can sweep this series?"
"Come on, man. This is only Game 1. The battle has just started. I cannot promise fans anything right now. I can only say that my teammates and I will give everything we have in every game."
Chen Yan had no intention of stepping into that trap. He was not going to say anything reckless about already thinking ahead to the next round. McGrady had already shown the basketball world how that kind of talk could come back to haunt you.
"Will Amare Stoudemire return in this playoff series?"
"Personally, I cannot wait to play with him again. He is a huge part of this team and a major force in the paint. But his return is not up to me. That depends on the coach and the medical staff."
Chen Yan answered patiently, clearly in a good mood after Phoenix opened the series with a win.
On the other side, Sloan made his stance clear at the postgame press conference.
"Our players were too soft tonight," he said. "We have to play tougher. That is the biggest secret to winning in the Playoffs."
As an old school coach, Sloan's basketball philosophy had barely changed in decades. In his mind, playoff basketball demanded edge, force, and a little dirt under the fingernails. Teams that played too clean got sent home.
A little later, Deron Williams offered a noticeably different take.
"We played hard," Deron said. "Our offense and defense both got contained tonight. If we want to take one back, we have to adjust."
It was a subtle contradiction, but still a contradiction.
By this point, the cracks in the Sloan Deron relationship were already obvious. During the fourth quarter of Game 1, the 2 had argued on the sideline. Deron felt Sloan was over controlling the offense. Sloan believed Deron had made poor decisions. Neither side was particularly interested in hiding it anymore.
…
After a day of rest, Game 2 began.
Sloan made another adjustment to the starting lineup, inserting Kirilenko and Millsap.
The intent was obvious. He wanted more length on the perimeter, more mobility across the floor, and more resistance against Phoenix's backcourt. The Suns had won too comfortably in Game 1, and Sloan had no interest in letting the Jazz look soft again.
This new group made an immediate impact on the defensive end.
With mobile forwards and bigs who could move their feet, Utah came out flying. Their message was simple. Shut down the Suns on the perimeter.
Nash and Chen Yan could only catch the ball comfortably near the midcourt logo. Even Phoenix's bigs had to come higher just to receive entry passes. Without Stoudemire, the Suns had almost no real interior scoring threat, so Utah pushed its coverage far out. At times, 3 Jazz defenders were practically working beyond the 3 point line.
That kind of pressure was rare, even by the standards of future small ball basketball.
Phoenix looked rattled by the sudden tactical shift and opened the game with a 3 minute scoring drought.
D'Antoni had to call timeout.
After the break, he adjusted fast, bringing in Azubuike for Raja Bell and Novak for Barnes.
Then he played directly into Utah's coverage.
Chen Yan started drawing double teams at the top of the arc. Novak's presence outside pulled another defender away from the lane. Suddenly, there was open space for Azubuike to attack.
He made an impact right away.
On his first touch after the timeout, Azubuike drove hard to the rim and finished through contact for a 3 point play.
A moment later, Novak drilled a clean 3 off a pass from Chen Yan.
That was one of the reasons Phoenix had championship level qualities. Even when the stars were being squeezed, the role players still had the nerve to attack and the confidence to shoot.
On the next trip, Phoenix turned a Jazz miss into transition. Chen Yan grabbed the rebound, hit a dazzling change of direction into a behind the back dribble to shake Kirilenko, and then attacked the paint in one burst.
Deron slid over, clearly trying to draw the charge.
But Chen Yan's first step was too explosive.
Deron had not established his position when the collision came. Chen Yan went through him, tossed the ball up, and watched it fall.
Swish.
The whistle came with it.
And one.
Chen Yan converted the free throw and tied the game.
That possession did more than erase the deficit. It brought the Suns back emotionally. The energy in the building flipped again.
Utah responded by bringing out its real weapon.
The Jazz had started well, and they were not ready to let the game slip. Deron and Boozer went immediately to their trademark pick and roll. This time, Deron did not simply hit Boozer on the pop. He attacked off the handoff, used his drive to bend the defense inward, and created room for Boozer to settle into a smooth jumper from the elbow.
23 to 23.
The first quarter ended dead even.
Okur had only played 1 minute at the very end of the quarter. Sloan had essentially parked him on the bench, using him as a situational piece rather than a regular rotation big.
The logic was obvious.
If Chen Yan loved dragging Okur out onto the perimeter and hunting him, then the simplest answer was to stop playing Okur.
Now that he was off the court, where was the target?
It was a brutally practical adjustment. Okur had become a functional player, and for Utah, his best function tonight was apparently not playing.
…
In the second quarter, Chen Yan stayed on the floor to lead the second unit.
Utah kept the same defensive emphasis. Everything started with stopping Chen Yan.
That created a lot of space in the lane.
With the Jazz defense extended so high, the paint kept opening up behind it. Grant Hill and Barea repeatedly drove into that space, either scoring themselves or forcing fouls.
To casual viewers, it might have looked like the bench was carrying Chen Yan.
Anyone who really understood the game knew what was happening.
This was Chen Yan gravity.
His presence was warping the entire floor and handing teammates cleaner driving lanes and easier reads.
Phoenix's bench kept scoring off penetration. Utah had to change again, this time shifting into zone.
Chen Yan recognized it immediately and answered with 2 straight 3s from outside.
Sloan was livid on the sideline.
Chen Yan was exactly the kind of player who could punish even one moment of hesitation. Give him a breath of space, and he would bury you.
After that, Sloan went to a familiar playoff tactic, the same kind of treatment he once used against McGrady.
Brewer, Kirilenko, and Harpring took turns hammering Chen Yan.
They leaned, bumped, grabbed, and crowded him possession after possession, playing with an edge that was clearly encouraged from the bench.
That style came with a cost.
By halftime, Brewer already had 4 fouls. Kirilenko had 3. Harpring had 3.
If this had been in Utah, maybe the whistle would have stayed quieter. But this was Phoenix. Letting the Jazz turn the game into a wrestling match would have set the entire arena on fire.
Even under that constant targeting, Chen Yan never cooled off. It took more effort than usual, but he kept producing.
By the end of the 3rd quarter, Brewer had fouled out.
Guarding Chen Yan one on one was already exhausting. Doing it while being told to pressure him aggressively every trip was even worse.
Kirilenko's foul count also climbed quickly, leaving Utah to throw Korver, C.J. Miles, and even Deron onto Chen Yan in different stretches.
Utah paid for its physical defense in the first 3 quarters.
By the time the 4th began, the quality of that pressure had clearly dropped. Less than 4 minutes into the quarter, the gap was back to 10.
Then things got uglier.
Deron got caught on a fake from Chen Yan and, in frustration, reached out and yanked his wrist.
The referee immediately whistled it as a flagrant foul.
Pulling a player's wrist while he is attacking at speed is dangerous. That kind of play can easily lead to a dislocation or worse.
From there, the Jazz completely lost their composure.
They no longer looked like the poised, disciplined team that used to give Houston nightmares. Against Phoenix, they seemed agitated, emotional, and increasingly reckless.
Boozer started throwing elbows on offense and got called for it.
Utah's shooting percentage collapsed in the 4th.
Phoenix, meanwhile, shot 67 percent in the quarter and closed the game with authority.
Final score, 111 to 91.
The Suns rolled again at home.
Chen Yan had to work harder than in Game 1, but he still finished with 39 points on 12 of 22 shooting.
Barkley summed it up cleanly after the game.
"For a scorer like Chen Yan, all you can do is try to limit him. You are not stopping him."
Nash was excellent too, finishing with 16 points and 14 assists while controlling the rhythm.
Azubuike gave Phoenix a huge lift with 18 points off the bench.
Utah's 2 big names put up numbers. Boozer had 29 points and 13 rebounds. Deron had 18 points and 16 assists.
But Deron's efficiency was poor. He shot just 6 of 14, and many of his offensive choices felt forced. After another game like that, it was easy to imagine his conflict with Sloan getting even worse.
With Phoenix winning 2 straight blowouts, the outside verdict on Utah was brutal.
They lost the games, and they lost face.
Their defense crossed the line too often. There was too much grabbing, tugging, holding, swiping, and cheap contact.
Sloan defended his players afterward, insisting that toughness and grit were part of Utah's identity and that there had been nothing wrong with how they played.
Public opinion disagreed.
The next day, the reaction was overwhelmingly one sided. Beyond the Phoenix media, outlets from New York, Miami, Houston, and other cities all ripped into Utah, saying the Jazz had played dirty.
That reputation was hardly new.
Utah's habit of playing on the edge had been discussed for years. Kobe had once blasted Sloan's teams in public, saying they were too dirty and that this style of basketball should be pushed out of the league.
For Kobe, of all people, to say that carried weight.
He loved physical basketball.
So if even he thought the Jazz were dirty, that said plenty.
.....
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