Chapter 70

After about 5 minutes of play in the third quarter, Zhou Yi was substituted out by Will Bynum. Even before he left the court, Zhou Yi had already recorded a double-double—11 points and 10 assists—much to head coach John Kuester’s satisfaction. After Zhou Yi left, Rajon Rondo suddenly stepped up. Together with Paul Pierce, they launched an 8-2 scoring run that quickly narrowed the score gap to 13 points. At that moment, another Pistons rookie, Greg Monroe, stepped forward and managed to score 4 points despite facing Kevin Garnett’s defense, helping stabilize the Pistons’ position. Doug Rivers called a timeout and then used Glenn Davis to replace Kevin Garnett. The game continued in this manner, with the Celtics failing to come up with any effective tactics to quickly close the score gap. However, they were lucky in the second half of the third quarter. Why? Because in that period, the Pistons suddenly lost their shooting touch and kept missing shots. Although the Celtics’ shooting percentage wasn’t high either, they took advantage of the situation by launching an 11-3 run that narrowed the gap to 11 points again. Seeing this, Pistons head coach John Kuester quickly called a timeout and replaced Tracy McGrady with Zhou Yi, as well as Tyshawn Prince with James Posey. Even after Zhou Yi entered the game, he couldn’t solve the problem of the Pistons’ sudden loss of shooting form. Nevertheless, his 2+1 at the last moment helped the Pistons maintain a double-digit lead. At the end of the third quarter, the Pistons led the Celtics 85-74 by 11 points, thanks to Zhou Yi’s 2+1 at the final moment, heading into the final quarter of the game.