"You're afraid, you're backing down, you're afraid, is this still not Staples?"

"I need to see your fighting spirit, I need to see your spirit, but all I can see now is your cowardice, this is not the Lakers, it's not the Los Angeles team."

At halftime, Lakers head coach Van Lauderway lost his temper in the locker room.

The Dutchman has always looked suave in the past, after all, he is the head coach of a giant team, so Van Lauderwe's every move represents the image of the whole of Los Angeles, but the game has been played so far, Van Lauderway can't help it anymore, some of the team has been completely crushed by the Runners, and they are basically messing around now.

Although the Lakers won the last game, it inevitably caused problems for some of the Lakers, and in the eyes of some young players, the result of the previous game was like a stone in their hearts, making them feel like they were stealing the victory from the Runners.

Although there was a famous saying in this plane, that is, "The championship will not be blamed in any way." ”

But any young player with a sense of shame is inevitably stimulated by the last game.

This is actually the reason why only veterans play well in this game of the Lakers, veterans don't care how the game is won, they just want to win the championship, and then get a big contract while they can still play.

"The past is gone, and in this day and age, all that matters is results, and if we don't make it to the finals and win the championship this season, it's a losing season. Nobody cares how we win, all that matters is the result. ”

Van Lauderwey's words resonated with some of the veterans, but some of the newcomers in the squad are still not back to normal.

At the start of the second half, Van Laudway consciously brought on a few veterans and put a few new players with good projection ability on the bench.

Although the score was pulled by double digits, the Lakers' veterans did not rush to launch an onslaught, on the contrary, they used their experience and "small means" to make the Runners' two attacks useless.

After stabilizing the defense, the veteran finally fired on the offensive end.

After the start of the second half, there were some changes in the referee's penalty scale, and the league explained to the referee on duty today, asking him to control the game and not to have a one-sided situation, so after the start of the second half, the Lakers, who were twelve points behind the runners, began to receive some obvious care.

But fortunately, the Runners have already predicted this situation, and Wang Lei reminded the players at halftime to pay attention to emotions and foul problems in the second half.

So when the referee's decision showed a more obvious bias, the Runners immediately slowed down their offense, and then began to switch defenses, pressing the Lakers' space on the inside and relaxing the defense on the outside.

The Lakers' veterans were indeed smart, and they consciously pushed towards the Runners' interior after the start of the second half, but now they happened to meet the Runners' joint defense, so the offensive efficiency has dropped significantly.

On offense, the Runners slowed down, but their outside shots didn't stop, and although their shooting percentage dropped, Turgun and Stephen Chambers, who came out in the second half, both scored three-pointers.

So the scores between the two sides are not obviously close in this situation, and the Lakers' veterans are also a little overwhelmed by the situation.

At this time, the referee on duty is actually very difficult to do, because he feels that he has done it enough obviously, if it goes too far, the game may really become a scandal, so this is the only thing he can help the Lakers now, and the league must not want such a very high-profile Western Conference Finals to become a laughing stock in the eyes of others.

In the face of the Runners' shrinking defense, the Lakers' veterans tried to shoot three-pointers, but they were not players who could shoot three-pointers before, which forced Van Lauderway to bring in a rookie to play the run-and-shoot.

Now that there is a problem with the mentality of the newcomers, and the veterans can't play in the face of joint defense, the game is becoming more and more difficult for the Lakers.

As the pace of the game slowed down, the Staples fans were not happy, and now their own team was both behind and playing so ugly, with all the outside shots being iron, and the inside attack was all free throws, which was not the game they wanted to see.

At the end of the third quarter, the difference between the two sides was only reduced by two points, but it still hovered around 10 points.

As both sides began to rotate, the Lakers' veterans suddenly burst into a wave of energy.

Point guard Lloris bullied Francis Leonardo of the Runners in the first half, and now he's ready to play Francis in the second half.

Several of the Lakers' veterans burst out late in the third quarter, using their experience to attack the interior frequently.

The Runners' young rotation players were clearly unprepared, and their defense was having a lot of problems.

At the end of the third quarter, the Lakers narrowed the gap to six points.

However, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Wang Lei decisively replaced Turgun as a scoring guard in advance, and Blair also played, and he was arranged by Wang Lei in the big forward position.

As soon as Turgun came on the court, he first made two defensive fouls for Charles Mobley, who replaced the veteran Lloris, so that Mobley, who had four individual fouls, began to hold back a little when defending Turgon.

Next was Blair, who played a tacit coordination with Turgon, and in just four minutes, Blair scored 11 points with a burst shot to help the Runners seal the game in one fell swoop.

In the last four minutes of the game, the Lakers, who were thirteen points behind the runners, tried to make a final comeback, but two unreasonable three-pointers from Turgun made the Lakers' final comeback come to naught.

119-108, the Eventual Runners won the first Western Conference Finals game in Staples.

The Lakers' players suffered a huge blow to their confidence after such a defeat, after all, this is their home court, and there is also the help of the referee, but even this cannot beat the Runners, on the contrary, the opponent won by eleven points, which is really a blow to the Lakers, even Van Lauderway himself has lost some confidence in this series at this time, but Van Lauderway still believes that the run-and-gun tactics will definitely become the mainstream of play in the future.