In the 1987-1988 season, Byron Scott went from being an ordinary starter to the team's main scorer, averaging 21.7 points per game and shooting 52.7% from the field! James Worthy started 72 games and averaged 19.7 points per game, Johnson was 19.6 points and 11.9 assists, Uncle Jia is a full 40 years old, he was born when China has not been liberated, he averaged 14.6 points and 6.0 rebounds per game this year, Michael Thompson, a former champion who was traded to the team last year, played 80 games as a substitute this season, averaging 11.6 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, and AC Green played a full 82 games, averaging 11.4 points and 8.7 rebounds per game. This season's Lakers have been soaring, scoring a 62-20 record in the regular season and reaching the playoffs as the No. 1 in the West!

In the first round, the Lakers easily eliminated the San Antonio Spurs, who had been inactive in the playoffs for many years.

In the second round against the Salt Lake City Jazz who have a Utah double, it is worth mentioning that this year Magic Johnson did not win the honor of the assist king, and the robber is John Stockton of the Jazz team, playing the Jazz Lakers still has a psychological advantage, they have four wins and one loss against the Jazz in the regular season, and the loss is still because of the absence of the Magic, the Jazz have reached the playoffs for the past three years, but this is the first time to reach the second round, It was also the 24-year-old Karl Malone who reached the second round of the playoffs for the first time since joining the Jazz three years ago, and the Jazz team standing on the floor of the second round could not play, in the first game, only 8 points were scored in the first quarter, and the old and spicy Lakers would not give the young Jazz any chance, they scored 24 points in a single quarter, and finally the first Lakers won the victory.

In the second game, Jerry Sloan, the head coach of the Jazz team who just took office this year, adopted an incomparably simple and effective rhythm of the game, that is, running, all kinds of counterruns without sparing physical strength, breaking through, breaking through after splitting the ball, and rushing to kill the Lakers' inside, why? Because at that time, Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was 41 years old! Guarding the Jazz's interior is the "block maniac" Mark Eaton, the Jazz saw that the Lakers' interior physical strength could not keep up, and frantically rushed to kill the interior, Eaton, who is 220 cm tall, completely dominated the game with his own defense, he sent a full 7 blocks in the first half, and the defense of Abdul-Jabbar only scored 10 points and 6 rebounds on 3 of 13 shots, although Byron Scott scored 26 points, and the Magic also had 19 points, 10 assists and 7 rebounds, but the Lakers still scored 97: 101 lost the second game.

The whole league knows that the Jazz's killer feature is blocking and dismantling, but in the second game, the Jazz gave up their usual positional blocking and dismantling offense, but tried to play fast offense, and the sudden change of formation caught the Lakers off guard, and in the third game, Lakers head coach Pat Riley still had no way to save it, and the rhythm of the game was almost exactly the same as the second game! Eaton beat the 41-year-old Uncle Jia fat, Eaton contributed 10 points, 14 rebounds and 6 blocks in the whole game, forcing Abdul-Jabbar to shoot 3 of 14 and only scored 6 points and 5 rebounds, although Scott scored 29 points, but still could not take away the victory, the Lakers lost another game 89:96, after three games, the Lakers are already 1:2 behind, the situation is critical!

At the critical moment, the big-hearted James Worthy began to save the team, he played 29 points and 6 rebounds in the crucial fourth game, the Magic tried his best to score 24 points and 9 assists, the Lakers tied the score 113-110, they were able to win this game, and there is one more person who has to mention, he is Michael Thompson, the father of Klay Thompson, who was only traded to the Lakers in February this year and became a member of the Lakers' bench, Thompson was the champion in 1978, playing as a center, but by now, the 33-year-old Thompson is already unbearable, despite this, he still contributed all his strength in this round of the series, he contributed 7 points and 10 rebounds in the crucial fourth game, and 6 fouls became the only player in the game to complete the graduation, it was his fouls again and again, disrupting the Jazz's fast break again and again, allowing Karl Malone to go to the free throw line again and again, Malone made just 5 of 10 free throws...... Klay Thompson was not yet born at the time......

In the key battle of Tianwang Mountain, the Lakers won the game 111-109 in a thrilling manner, Worthy scored 27 points, Scott scored 24 points, Johnson scored 20 points and 13 assists, and the last person to forget is Michael Thompson, who came off the bench for 26 minutes and shot 7 of 9 to score 18 points and 11 rebounds, although Abdul-Jabbar did not play well in the face of "Mammoth" Mark Eaton in this series, but Michael Thompson made up for it perfectly, of course, this one also fulfilled John Stockton, He scored 23 points, 24 assists, 5 steals, and 3 turnovers in the game, but he still fell short, the main reason for the Jazz team's loss was the small number of players, Jerry Sloan insisted on a six-man rotation, resulting in the players lacking physical strength at the last moments, and the ball was naturally weak.

Game 6 made a small man, his name is Bob Hansen, is an undrafted pick, he was called by the Jazz five years ago, from an unknown water cooler manager who played less than 8 minutes to grow into a reliable sixth man, is the little man who averaged less than 7 points per game in his career, and created a tragedy of nearly 30 points for the Lakers in Game 6 of the 1988 Finals, Magic only scored a pitiful 10 points on 3-of-12 shooting, while Hansen, who shot 10 from the field in 11 shots, scored a full 25 points! In addition, there were 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals, and there was not a single turnover in the whole game! In fact, Hansen has been trusted by Jerry Sloan throughout the series, but Hansen played particularly well in this game.

The Lakers lost to the Jazz 80-108, Abdul-Jabbar only scored 10 points, Scott only got 16 points back from 16 shots, Worthy only scored 4 points on 2-of-6 shooting, and the Jazz scored 20+ three-point points, and Stockton sent 17 assists again!

The Lakers grabbed the seven-game battle, Johnson and Stockton exploded each other, the former had 23 points, 16 assists, 9 rebounds and 3 turnovers, the latter had 29 points, 20 assists, 5 steals and 5 turnovers, Karl Malone scored 31 points and 15 rebounds, Lakers Scott scored 29 points on 12-of-19 shooting, and the Lakers defeated the Jazz 109-98, Worthy became a key factor, he scored 23 points in the game and scored frequently at critical moments, giving the Jazz a fatal blow. In this game, the Jazz still lost to physical strength, and the entire team only got a total of 12 minutes of playing time on the bench except for the starters......

After the draw in Salt Lake City, standing in front of the Lakers on the floor of the Western Conference Finals was the Dallas Mavericks who reached the Western Conference Finals for the first time in team history, at that time, the Mavericks had three All-Star players, Roledo Blackman, Mark Aguirre and James Donaldson, Blackman is a four-time All-Star player with gorgeous individual skills and a very tough defense, in the Mavericks before Nowitzki, Blackman was the boss of the team, Aguirre is a stable and efficient scorer, Scoring an average of 20+5 per game in seven seasons in his career, Donaldson is basically a weakened version of Mark Eaton, averaging 8.6 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game in his career, my biggest impression of this brother is that he is said to have married a wife from Jilin, I don't know if it's true or not, but he likes China a lot, and often comes to China for friendly basketball visits to teach children to play ball or something.

At that time, the Mavericks were completely different from the Jazz team at that time, the Mavericks played a lot of people, everyone was in charge of a share, and the comprehensive ability was very outstanding, the first two games, the Lakers successfully won the game, and in the third game, a player named Roy Tapree of the Mavericks suddenly broke out, Tapree was the player who won the Mavericks with the seventh pick in the first round last year, and was the main rotation substitute for the Mavericks' interior line, averaging 13 points and 11 rebounds per game this season, and won the sixth man of the season, He played 21 points and 20 rebounds in this game, including 11 frontcourt rebounds, and finally helped the Mavericks beat the Lakers 106-94, speaking of this Tapley, it is also a sigh, he is a genius ruined by drugs, he averaged 20+11 performance per game at his peak, and after playing in the NBA for five seasons, he was banned by the NBA for three years because he failed three urine tests in the season, until the 1994-1995 season when the Mavericks reappeared and recruited him, As a result, he only played for one season, the urine test was not passed, the NBA announced a lifetime ban on him, and Taprey had to wander overseas to play, and in 2000 he played for Beijing Aoshen.

In the fourth game, the Mavericks won another game 118-104, and the big score was equalized, and this time it was the turn of Derrick Hubble for the Mavericks to break out, and he scored 35 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists on 12-of-21 shooting in the whole game, without even a single turnover!

In the fifth game, the Lakers won the battle of Tianwang Mountain 119:102, although Aguirre scored 31 points, but the Lakers scored six double-doubles, Worthy once again played a big heart performance in the key battle, scoring 28 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals and 3 blocks on 12-of-18 shooting, and only 1 turnover! Abdul-Jabbar scored 21 points and 5 rebounds on 10-of-16 shooting, Elvin Johnson scored 15 points, 20 assists and 6 rebounds, and under the leadership of the Magic, the Lakers shot as much as 60% from the field!

In the sixth game, the Lakers lost to the Mavericks 103:105, the Mavericks played a critical attack as a team, and the whole team scored six double-doubles, three of them double-doubled, the Lakers' Johnson was under the Mavericks' key defense, although he got 19 points and 12 assists, but he had 8 turnovers that directly led to the team's loss, the Lakers and the Mavericks once again entered the seven-tiebreaker, and the Mavericks once again played six double-double data, but the final victory belonged to the Lakers, James Worthy, who can always play super-god in key games, once again played god-level statistics, scoring 28 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists on 13-of-20 shooting, and still without a single turnover! Johnson's performance in this game was also almost perfect, scoring 24 points, 11 assists and 9 rebounds on 9-of-15 shooting, and the Lakers defeated the Mavericks 117-102 to advance to the Finals again!

This time the team standing opposite the Lakers is no longer Bird's Celtics, but the Detroit Pistons who defeated the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pistons at that time were called the "Bad Boy Army", they used direct, rough defense to disrupt the opponent's offensive rhythm, pulling, dragging, kicking, kicking, as long as they can prevent the opponent from scoring, they do everything, the Eastern Conference playoffs, strong Michael Jordan, Larry Bird can't step over the Pistons, one by one was beaten all over the face, Then kicked out of the playoffs by the Pistons, Isaiah Thomas in the Pistons, Dennis Rodman (Rodman in the Pistons period was not yet an apprentice, relatively restrained) is secretly stealing, from time to time to give you a leg, give a dark elbow, others such as Vinnie Johnson, Adrian Dantley, John Sely, Rick Mahon are all big-shouldered, muscular, resentful, unconvinced thugs, especially the last Rick Mahon, that is simply a semi-professional basketball player, Professional boxers don't need makeup to play underworld thugs or bodyguards directly, not to mention that there was also a No. 1 martial arts master in NBA history in the Pistons team at that time, and there was no one of the most underwhelmed players in NBA history, Bill Lambir, and only Joe Dumas was relatively "out of the mud without staining" in the whole team.

In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pistons defeated the Celtics 4-2, Bird and McHale combined for 47 points per game, 20 rebounds and 10 assists could not win against the Pistons, after the game, Bird hugged the smiling assassin Isaiah Thomas and whispered in his ear,

"Please replace us, beat the Lakers, beat Elvin Johnson."

After the hug, Bird turned and walked towards the locker room, and a dark voice sounded behind him-

"It's okay, we're going to beat Johnson like we beat you."

Inexplicably, Bird got goosebumps all over his body......