Swept the Pistons 4-0, and the Hawks became the first team to advance in the second round!

For the Hawks and Pistons series, the focus of fans has long been less on winning and losing, but on the daily choking of Larry Brown and Stephen Jackson.

Even the Hawks' side has been ignored, and the most watched side of the East right now is not the Hawks who first advanced to the division finals, nor the 2-2 scorching series between the Pacers and the Nets, and the fans' focus on the Eastern Conference playoffs is all on the Pistons' soap opera.

The series between the Nets and the Pacers was very anxious and getting more and more ugly, except for the first game with Kidd and Carter, who won the game with a gorgeous counterattack on the road, and in the next three games, the score was lower than the first, and both teams began to defend stubbornly.

In the second game, the Pacers held their home court 85-77, and in the third game, the Nets returned to New Jersey and contributed an even more ugly drama with the visiting Pacers, 75-71, and the Pacers came to the road and regained the home-court advantage.

In Game 4, the defensive battle between the two teams reached its peak, and the Nets defeated the Pacers 72-65 to tie the score at 2-2, and the battle of Tianwang Mountain will begin on May 9.

On the west side, the scene of the two-round series is much better, relatively speaking, the gap between the strength of the Lakers and the Spurs in the series is a little more obvious, the Spurs lost Bowen, one less outside single defense leader, Malik Rose is very good, and the substitute guard swingman Turkoglou and Devin Brown also tried their best to take turns to defend Kobe, but the effect was not good, when they met the Spurs, Kobe exploded, and the first four games were 3 to 1, and the magic 0.4 seconds was not visible.

The Timberwolves and Kings played as anxiously as the Nets and Pacers, and the two teams tied 2-2, and it was also the home-court advantage that you fought for each other, and the Kings snatched the Timberwolves' home-court advantage in the first game.

In the second game, the Timberwolves played a tough game, but fortunately, Garnett made a key block at the last moment, fanned Biby's three-point shot, and narrowly beat the Kings.

In the third game, the Timberwolves relied on the alien Kassel's stunner to snatch back the home court advantage and won 114-113.

In the fourth game, the Kings were behind in the first three quarters of the home court, because the Timberwolves sacrificed a defensive battle, and Shengsheng made the two teams score no more than 60 points in the third quarter, and finally the Kings finally broke out in the fourth quarter, scoring 24 points in a single quarter, and the Timberwolves only scored 14 points in the last quarter, and were overtaken by the Kings, and the Kings reversed the Timberwolves 83-76, and tied the score 2-2, and were about to go to the Timberwolves' home court to play the battle of Tianwang Mountain.

The game between the Kings and the Timberwolves was very interesting, and throughout the series, the top three players in points per game were all Timberwolves players, but the six players from the fourth to the ninth place in points per game were all Kings players, and the three-headed monster and team basketball were contested.

The three-round series still looks suspenseful, even for the Spurs, people feel that there is still suspense, Duncan's consecutive MVP in the past two years and last season's single-handedly defeating all opponents to win the championship are indeed too shocking.

……

……

On May 8, early in the morning of the second day after playing the Pistons, Liu Mang followed the Hawks out of Detroit at the speed of light, and after returning to Atlanta, the Hawks began to prepare for the next opponent.

Because all the energy was on the Pistons team in the past few days, even if Liu Mang knew that the Pistons team had no fighting spirit, but the lack of fighting spirit did not mean that the other party did not play well, but there was no desire to win, but the tactical implementation was still very perfect, especially for his pinching point, Liu Mang clearly felt that the opponent's pinching strategy focused on his point did not relax a little, but because there was no fighting spirit, the defensive rotation that continued to be layered in the back was not so active.

In order to avoid capsizing in the gutter, Liu Mang has not relaxed his vigilance against the Pistons, and it is even more impossible for other players, playing in the playoffs, the opponent is still a team with 54 wins, how dare you be careless, the energy of the Hawks coaching staff has been focused on the Pistons.

When it was time to prepare for the second round opponent, I found that the semifinals of another division in the east were so anxious!

Liu Mang felt that he was promoted too early!

Since the first round was all played in only nine days, the second round started too early, and the league hoped that the finals could start from June 1 to 4, so the second round returned to the schedule of two days off on the alternating home and away games, that is, the series between the Nets and the Pacers that was tied 2-2 on May 6, and it may not be played until the 15th at the latest, and the Hawks may have to rest for up to ten days! The latest start time of the next round may be delayed until the 18th!

Rest is good, it is a great benefit to the recovery of veterans such as Stockton, Ratliff, Ostertag, etc., but for young players, it is good to rest for three or four days, and ten days may be gone!

……

Liu Mang felt that he had to do something, thought about it, had a plan, first slept well, and on the second and third days, like other teammates, he also trained at home or in the stadium, Liu Mang chose to train at home and play games with Dinah and inexplicably learn flower arrangement, Alexia flower arrangement, and spent the first three days after the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Counting the day the Hawks came back from Detroit, the 8th and 9th, it was the Hawks coaching staff who gave the players a holiday, and the 10th only had regular training, that is, an hour and a half in the afternoon and two tactical classes, and nothing else.

The progress of the remaining three series, as Liu Mang expected, was very anxious.

The Timberwolves lost 76-80 at home to the Kings in the Battle of Kings Mountain, and the defensive battle between the two teams was a stalemate.

The Nets suddenly started a violent offensive mode, not only Liu Mang can learn from the Nets, Kidd also learned from the Hawks' ever-changing style of play, came to a dangerous move, opened the offensive battle, and really gave the Nets success, 121 to 113, in the battle of Tianwang Mountain, once again grabbed the home court advantage on the road.

The two most anxious series went in completely opposite directions, thinking that the Timberwolves and Kings were going to break out an offensive battle, and ended up slamming the defense to the end.

And when they all thought that the Nets and Pacers were going to play a more miserable defensive battle, the two teams scored more than 120 to more than 110.

And on the side of the Lakers and the Spurs, the Spurs should not be underestimated, it seems that they lost three of the first four games and lost a home court, but when they went to the away Staples Center in the fifth game, they played quite well, and the Spurs' tactics in this game changed abruptly, learning from the Hawks' regular season to deal with the Lakers, the United defensive perimeter, Nestrovich and Duncan took turns to defend O'Neal, lock the outside, and let O'Neal play alone.

Although Duncan was blown up by O'Neal in 14 of 21 shots in the third quarter, and O'Neal slashed 35 points and 11 boards on the inside after the first three quarters, but in the fourth quarter, O'Neal was completely out of strength, and both offensive and defensive ends began to fall off a cliff, and only 38 points and 15 boards were played at the end of the game, and only 3 points were scored in the final quarter.

And Duncan also responded with a 33 points and 13 boards, and at the same time, the Spurs gave Kobe Bryant the worst performance of the series, only 15 shots, 7 of 15 and 18 points, Kobe Bryant's shooting efficiency in this game is still good, playing the Spurs is always so good, but there are 6 turnovers!

Relying on this aggressive defensive strategy, relying on Duncan and Nesterovic to kill and O'Neal one-on-one one-on-one defense consumed O'Neal's physical strength, the Spurs successfully pulled the big score to 2-3.

It is possible to steal seven in all three series, and Liu Mang has expected this situation, so on the night of the 10th, after the Spurs and Lakers played 2-3 and all three series were 2-3, he had already sent a message to his teammates that it was time to take some responsibility.

Mainly, Liu Mang waited for three days, and none of these teammates were like a senior, not even Stockton did it, only he Liu did it!

……

……

"Ace, now it's a bit of a boss." Stockton patted Liu Mang's shoulder with satisfaction.

“…… I said, John, shouldn't this be an old man like you? Liu Mang rolled his eyes.

"Theoretically, it's like that, if I'm a veteran player in the team and with my 20-year career experience, it's fine, but I'm a new veteran and it's not the right thing for me to do." Stockton explained.

"But why didn't I call them that bastards, they were all just going to come back for regular training? There is no sense of crisis at all! Liu Mang thinks that these teammates, why don't they have a sense of crisis?

Liu Mang sent a text message to all his teammates last night, gathered at eight o'clock this morning, and he didn't reply to the text message he received in doubt, his attitude was relatively hard, and everyone came this morning.

Liu Mang came the earliest, he discussed with Coach Kruger in advance, and trainers, shooting assistants, physiotherapists and others also came to the stadium in advance to cooperate with Liu Mang.

Regarding Liu Mang's need to take on the responsibility of the team, Coach Kruger wished that Liu Mang would come more and cultivate Liu Mang's awareness of being the boss.

After the teammates came, they knew that Liu Mang was going to organize a more compact training, and seeing Liu Mang's rare seriousness, the sense of oppression brought by the power of the head of state, the teammates also became serious, and they were preparing for the warm-up before training, and went to see the training that the trainers planned for themselves one by one.

The amount of training did not reach the point of exaggeration, just let the players have a 40-minute half-time match every other day, and the amount of training on the rest day was also raised, but because it was not an official game but just training, the real consumption of mental energy and energy was not as big as the real game, and it was easier to recover.

Liu Mang gathered his teammates, and in order to maintain the combat effectiveness of his teammates and prevent his teammates from playing away, his teammates also responded positively.

Liu Mang was very satisfied that his teammates did not complain after receiving the task of increasing the amount of training, but he still asked his teacher a little puzzled.

Stockton didn't answer, and asked rhetorically, "Ace, who are you talking about?" ”

"Who? Jason, Sharif, Rashid, they ......" Liu Mang counted the star players of his own team.

"Ace, did you understand something wrong?" Stockton laughed.

"Misunderstood something? What's up? Liu Mang didn't understand.

"They're just role players, and you want a role player to have too good a sense of crisis?" Stockton said very calmly that Liu Mang wanted to cover his teacher's mouth.

After looking around, there was no one else, Liu Mang breathed a sigh of relief, and shouted at Stockton: "John, are you going to cause conflicts within the team?" ”

"Ace," Stockton didn't feel like he was saying anything wrong, "do you think anyone else on this team is going to be a superstar besides you?" ”

Superstar?

Liu Mang looked at the group of teammates, the most talented may be Rahim and Kwame Brown, it seems that neither of them has a chance to become a superstar, Rahim is already in his prime, and Kwame Brown's ball quotient is another problem.

Rasheed Wallace and Jason Terry...... There's not much room for improvement, and Ratleaf is getting old...... Boozer was strong at his peak, but it didn't matter if he was a superstar, he didn't have the ability to change a team on his own.

Korver, no matter how late he is, is only an All-Star fringe player......

Stockton continued: "These guys, before you came to the Eagles, before you grew up, they were nothing, it was because of you that they got to where they are now, like these teammates on our team, I've seen too many players who are as talented as them but can't make a move even when they get together, Glen Robinson, Sean Kemp, Vin Baker, Antonio McDyce...... Too many talented people, but no superstar possibility, our teammates right now are really good, but without you, they're nothing. ”

Stockton's eyes are quite vicious! Liu Mang was frightened by Stockton's words, but he didn't expect his teacher's analysis to be so in place!

"In addition to strength, in addition to talent, the brain is also very important," Stockton said to Liu Mang, Liu Mang also listened honestly, Stockton was very satisfied, and continued: "Your teammates have put the scepter that commands them into your hands, they can't think of so much, and even if they think of it, they don't have your power to command everyone, you are the future superstar of this team, these things are what you have to bear, your needs, let your teammates meet, let your teammates sacrifice for you, Rather than waiting for your teammates to react on their own. ”

Stockton's words touched Liu Mang a lot, and he didn't think about this idea.

It's so selfish to talk about it!

But superstar, which is not selfish?

The future Big Three of the Heat, isn't it also Wade and Bosh who sacrificed to achieve James?

After listening to Stockton's explanation of superstars, Liu Mang subconsciously popped out a sentence: "Teammates come and go, only the championship is eternal?" ”