Chapter 666: Turning Advantage into Victory
Spurs this season are full of ambition.
From the operation of the summer, the team's training, the run-in during the season, and the steady progress of the playoffs, the Spurs have taken every step of the way.
Although the GDP is a year older, it is still in good shape.
Duncan was even better in form, having worked hard in the summer.
Ginobili has also recovered from his injury and has been in good form throughout the season.
Only Parker has declined, but Mills' efficiency and consistency have made up for Parker's shortcomings.
And the 13-year Parker-centered style of play turned into a comprehensive team style of play in 14 years, making the Spurs' offense and defense even more terrifying.
Dior, a dead fat man, is like a fish in water in the Spurs' system and has become an important X-factor, and Belinelli and Split have inherited the high-quality performance of the Spurs International Legion.
The most important growth has come from Leonard, who has become an elite-level small forward in his third season in the league, showing great potential.
So before the start of this series, Popovich and the Spurs were very confident.
The regular season is just a formality, but the playoffs are the real battleground.
After the first three games, the Spurs have already gained a psychological and tactical advantage.
Despite losing Game 4, the Spurs still feel like they can end the series in Game 6.
But I didn't expect Leonard, a guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes, to mutiny?
Suddenly, there was a conflict with Popovich without warning.
And Popovich's temper suddenly became irritable.
It's not like him, and although Popovich loves to swear, most of the time he is patient with his players.
Especially for Leonard, he has been carefully guiding for the past three years.
No one knows exactly what's going on.
Leonard returned to the court at the end of the third quarter.
But the overall momentum of the Spurs has been robbed.
The Clippers, on the other hand, were in high spirits and regained their sense on the offensive end.
Their attacks were like a tidal wave.
Li Liang fully integrated into the offense of the Clippers and became a stealing element.
Leonard seemed to have come to his senses and began to follow Popovich's instructions to keep an eye on Li Liang, but it was too late, and the entire Clippers' offense had already begun.
In this game, Barnes hit five three-pointers from the outside and exploded completely.
Inside Griffin scored 27 points, Paul 19 and Li Liang 21.
At one point in the fourth quarter, the Clippers stretched the margin to more than 15 points, approaching 20 points.
The tough and tenacious Spurs inexplicably collapsed.
The so-called thousand-mile embankment was destroyed in the anthill, Li Liang himself didn't expect that this natural odor agent would have such a big impact.
In fact, the main reason is that Spurs are a team team.
If you use this stuff for the Lakers back then, and give Kobe and O'Neal a little bit, it's like useless.
The relationship between the two was already poor, and they were going to fight off the court, so they turned a blind eye on the court and played well.
The Lakers play superstar basketball, and if the two superstars ignore it, they can crush the opponent as well.
The Spurs can't do it, in the perfect group created by Popovich, there can be no thorns, there can be no big contradictions, so that the system can work perfectly.
So after winning the championship in '03, Popovich had to send Jackson away, so it didn't work well when Van Axel came to the Spurs in 2006.
The series was supposed to be under the control of Popovich and the Spurs, but it turned out to be a ......
It's the most powerful fart ever.
In fact, Li Liang didn't fart at all.
At the end of the fourth quarter, at 109:97, the Clippers defeated the Spurs by 12 points at home and got the series match point.
The Clippers are one step away from the Finals.
Clippers fans were in ecstasy, and after the game, the fans were reluctant to leave.
Truth be told, Los Angeles is the city that belongs to the Lakers.
Of course, it cannot be ruled out that there are indeed die-hard Clippers fans, but they are certainly much fewer than Lakers fans, and they have been pressed by Lakers fans for a long time.
That came to a head last season, when Li Liang led the Lakers to a sieve in the Los Angeles derby in the semifinals.
However, how much the Clippers fans hated Li Liang at that time, how much they loved him at this time.
When Li Liang left the stadium, countless fans shouted "Bruce Lee", and the fans on both sides of the tunnel reached over one after another, just wanting to high-five Li Liang.
Ambitious.
It's as if the series is over.
After the game, the Clippers' locker room was noticeably much more cheerful.
At the end of the third game, everyone seemed to be suffocated in water.
Now, I can finally come out and take a good breath.
Regained the right to breathe.
However, Li Liang, like the previous two games, refused to be interviewed after the game, went into the bathroom alone, turned on the faucet, and let the cold water drench himself from head to toe.
Calm down, Li Liang has to stay calm until the series is completely over.
You can't get carried away by victory.
Li Liangneng has a hunch that as long as he passes the Western Conference Finals, it will not be too much of a problem to play the Heat in the Finals.
Even if James has three heads and six arms, he can't change the fact that the overall decline of the Heat is at present.
And just after the fifth game between the Clippers and the Spurs ended, the Heat did as expected, and took the series after returning to Miami in the fifth game.
They easily defeated the Brooklyn Nets by 100:87, 13 points at the American Airlines Center, winning the Eastern Conference championship for the fourth consecutive year and reaching the Finals.
LeBron James is already waiting for Li Liang on the stage of the finals.
……
Two days later, on the final day of May, the Clippers arrived in San Antonio for Game 6 of their Finals run.
This could be a game to end the series.
After the fifth game, everyone wondered why Popovich had pressed Leonard to the bench for so long.
Popovich explained in his post-match press conference that Leonard was not very well.
However, Spurs sources pointed out that "Popovich and Leonard inexplicably clashed and contradicted in Game 5, but the contradictions have now been resolved." ”
The conflict was indeed resolved temporarily, and Leonard apologized to Popovich after the game, saying that he was carried away and did not follow the coach's instructions.
Popovich forgave Leonard and apologized for his rudeness.
The entire Spurs team said that they would not give up hope of hitting the Finals by focusing on Game 6.
Relatively speaking, Clippers Rivers is like frantically pouring chicken soup on the players, and taking out his experience in '08, constantly cheering for the players on the plane, on the training ground, and in the locker room.
Li Liang was about to vomit.
How the hell did the team win, don't you have a little pressure in mind?
Actually, he really didn't, anyway, he won all the way.
Sometimes Li Liang feels that being a coach is really happy.
Coaches like Rivers, Mike Brown, and Tyronn Lue don't have to worry too much, so won't this game be won?
However, Li Liang, with a salary of five million, became a father and a mother, and also a stepmother, engaged in sabotage work behind enemy lines, and helped the Clippers win the fifth battle relatively smoothly, and made great contributions, but no one knew except himself.
It's really an underground worker working silently on the front behind enemy lines, a man who has changed the pattern of the alliance.
Before going to San Antonio, Li Liang re-simulated the game between the Spurs and the Clippers in David Stern's simulator.
Surprisingly, the Clippers had quite a big chance of winning Game 6.
It seems that there is indeed a problem on the Spurs' side, and the series is indeed on the Clippers' side.
What Li Liang has to do is to turn his advantage into a victory and help the Clippers reach the finals in one fell swoop!
Then, blow James up again!