In the eyes of many local Saskatchewan fans, the Houston Rockets are not a more qualified playoff opponent for the Runners, and in their senses, they always feel that their young team is the best.

If nothing else, the Runners' current style of play with its own unique style of play has made many local Sappah fans proud, and they call their team the leader, believing that their team has brought a new basketball concept to the entire NBA league.

The Houston Rockets, on the other hand, are an extremely conservative team in the West.

Although the Rockets improved their regular season finish to fourth in the West this season, the conservative Rockets are still not valued by many people as the entire league promotes change, which can be seen in the ratings of their first-round games.

Although the Rockets called the Jazz to a tiebreaker in the first round of the playoffs, even Game 7 couldn't match the ratings of any of the four games in which the Runners swept the Spurs.

In fact, the attitude of the fans basically determines the future development direction of this league.

Fans like to see fast-paced games, they like to see great scoring and goals, and they like to see stars with better images, all of which are available now, so the league will support the Runners in a role similar to that of outsiders.

And a team like the Rockets will suffer more or less, not only in terms of competition, but also in terms of team development.

In fact, the Rockets themselves do not have much belief in winning the second round of the playoffs.

Compared to the Spurs, who were swept out of the first round by the Runners, the Rockets always felt that they lacked enough competitiveness, which was actually the consensus of their team.

From head coach John Schmidt to team captain Nate Phillips, and many people up and down the Rockets came to Sacramento with a very low-key mentality.

They didn't have time to enjoy the sunshine of early summer in Saucheng, after all, they had just finished a seven-game battle, and now they were facing the most powerful runners in the league, and everyone on the Rockets was silently recovering and waiting for the game to begin.

However, when the first game of the series, which was described by the Saucasa media and many outside media as no suspense, began, the Rockets and the Runners, as well as the 20,000 fans present, were a little dumbfounded.

The Runners, who had played super in Game 3 of the first round of the playoffs, seemed to have forgotten to bring their hands in today's game.

From the very beginning of the race, the whole team of the runners made various mistakes inexplicably.

First, Turgun made a mistake on the dribble, and the ball hit his foot and bounced off the sideline.

Then Elvin Butler actually poked the ball into his own basket when he was protecting the backcourt rebound.

In the ensuing attack, Sallihi made a series of walking violations, and Blair fell inexplicably.

Even Wang Lei, who was on the sidelines, almost fell to the ground and was injured because of an empty water bottle that was randomly swinging.

In this extremely bizarre situation, the Rockets, known for their team's offensive and defensive iron, actually led the Runners by as many as eight points at the end of the first quarter.

After ten minutes of the game, Wang Lei himself didn't understand why, the team that was originally in good shape suddenly had a trough in state.

Not to mention those inexplicable mistakes, even the player's feel and mentality have also undergone an extreme change after falling behind by nearly ten points.

Turgun was also very out of shape today, he seemed to have lost his normal heart, he always wanted to bring up the rhythm when he should be playing steadily, and he could slow down when he should play fast.

It's just that Turgun is not in good shape, and the sudden downturn of Salehi, Blair and others made Wang Lei extremely puzzled, is this really the so-called character theory, is it because of the inexplicable outbreak in the third game with the Spurs, and then what will be played in today's game?

The strange situation not only made Wang Lei feel puzzled, but even their opponent Team Rocket was a little frightened.

Although the head coach of the Rockets, Johann Schmidt, is a German, but his personality is not as old-fashioned as the average German, on the contrary, his personality is somewhat romantic, and he even speculates whether this is a deliberate conspiracy made up by the Oriental man of the opponent Runners, so as to make the Runners players completely explode with anger in the next game!

I have to say that Johann Schmidt is a very strange guy, with his character, he can actually build such a team that has always been iron-blooded defense, which may be the so-called German genetic tradition.

The team fell into an inexplicable state, and Wang Lei was also a little confused at this time, but he decisively replaced all the starters after calm consideration, and then sent a few young players who played more passionately and two veterans who were responsible for the retirement in the team.

This seems to be a bit of a stabilisation of the Runners' situation.

The Rockets also slowed down slightly after the start of the second quarter to ensure a success rate, so the Runners maintained a single-digit deficit.

However, in the next game, the state of the runners is still very sluggish, lacking the three cores, and the current lineup of the runners cannot prevent the opponent's team attack.

Wang Lei also wanted to replace Turgun and others in the next game, but they were still in a slump after they played.

Turgun even had an unprecedented three-point deficit in an open position, which is absolutely extremely rare.

Many Saskatchewan fans present even felt that their team was cursed by the hateful Rockets who invited a wizard, otherwise how could there be so many inexplicable mistakes.

Wang Lei is basically out of control when the game is played like this, and what he has to do now is to figure out why the team is in such a situation at home, or he has to figure out if someone is really messing around.

In such a state, the Runners' first loss in the playoffs came very reasonably, and they were eventually defeated by the Rockets 98-89 with 89 points, which is probably the lowest score the Runners have scored this season.

Wang Lei has nothing to say about such a failure, and the team can't figure out why such a thing happened.

The attitude of the Rockets is also very peculiar, their head coach and captain have said that it is not a normal game, but the Rockets will bravely face all the arrangements of the Runners.

The "romantic" German Johann Schmidt always thought that the Runners were scheming at something.