Chapter 559: Home Field Advantage
And the Warriors' offense is a little embarrassing, because Klay Thompson doesn't feel good today, and Curry is being stared at by Ye Xuan, so all their offensive pressure is on Durant, looking back, they finally began to hand over the ball to Durant to play alone, and the Lakers' defensive strategy is also very simple, Solomon Hill leads the defense on the outside, if you want to break through, then we will wrap up, and if you want to shoot dry when someone is defended on the outside, then whatever you want, If you can keep scoring this way of shooting, then we're in for it. Fastest updates
And Durant's black fans on the scene did not give him a chance to relax the pressure, and he was already responsible for the team's offensive end, but behind the basket on the side of the offensive ear, there was a big Wei Shao's avatar, and the next side of the avatar was written with letters, the only All-Star player of the Thunder team. This made Durant, who has been the boss of the Thunder for nine years, feel very uncomfortable. It can also be seen from here that in the playoffs, home court advantage is still very important, in fact, it can be seen from the pressure caused by the Pelicans' home atmosphere on the Warriors in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals, which is why all teams will fight hard for home court advantage in the playoffs.
Durant attacked with the ball, and after seeing the avatar, he also shook his hand, and then the mid-range shot after this breakthrough hit the iron again, Gasol accepted the rebound, and then immediately handed the ball to Ye Xuan, Ye Xuan immediately blew the horn of the Lakers' counterattack, quickly advanced to the front court and continued to break through two steps inside, and then suddenly sent the ball to the side, Solomon Hill followed from behind, grabbed the basketball and caused a foul on Iguodala who was chasing the defense. Stepping to the free-throw line and hitting both free throws, the Lakers extended their lead further.
Just when the Lakers were about to seize the opportunity of the opponent's somewhat confused to further expand the score, Curry stood up on the Warriors' side, taking advantage of the opportunity that Ye Xuan did not have a close defense after serving in the backcourt, and quickly seized the opportunity to make a three-point shot under Green's homeopathic blocking, and his crosshairs were still very good, and he hit the three-point shot steadily.
This three-pointer also helped the Warriors barely stabilize the situation on the court, after all, if they miss consecutive shots, it is likely that the Lakers will seize the opportunity to directly expand the score to double digits. And after Curry hit this three-pointer, the Lakers' offensive rhythm also slowed down, Ye Xuan came to the front court with the ball again and was ready to force a single, the Warriors' defensive rotation had been completed, Ye Xuan forcibly broke through Iguodala, and then collided with Green who came to fill the position, if Ye Xuan hadn't rushed to brake and jump back, he would have been fouled by Green's offensive foul, and this time the shot was a little reluctant, and the basketball bounced on the basket a few times and finally bounced out, It was also the first round after the Lakers didn't score points after the start of the game.
The Warriors immediately started a counterattack, Durant grabbed the rebound and quickly advanced to the Lakers' half, in order to prevent the Warriors from playing a quick counterattack, Wade also chose to foul first very wittily, the Warriors served on the sideline in the front court, after Iguodala passed the ball to Green, he began to run wildly, Curry suddenly pulled out halfway, and then used Iguodala who ran over to make a no-ball cover, and then quickly ran to the bottom corner, in desperation, Ye Xuan could only choose to give up Curry and chase Iguodala, Curry, on the other hand, was handed over to Solomon Hill to make up for it.
In the end, Green still chose to pass the ball to Curry, and Curry did not live up to the trust of his teammates, deceived Solomon Hill with a false shot after receiving the ball, and then broke through two inwards and threw two more points to score two more points, instantly narrowing the gap to three points.
At this time, the Lakers actually needed to call a timeout to adjust, but Wharton Jr. did not call a timeout, and Kobe Bryant and others sitting next to him obviously did not think of calling a timeout, probably because these two people were players under Phil Jackson, a fake monk, before, but fortunately, there is a team brain like Ye Xuan on the court.
After controlling the ball and coming to the front court, Ye Xuan immediately changed the team's tactics, and after calling Randle to block and dismantle, Ye Xuan broke through two steps inward, and then handed the ball to Randle who was waiting on the outside line, and then Randle's side was also very decisive and directly pulled it up and shot, and Durant, who defended Randle, went directly to chase Ye Xuan, so no one could interfere with Randle's shooting, and he had been by Ye Xuan's side for more than a season, and now Randle's three-point shooting rate in the vacant position can barely be seen, This shot also made him shot.
In the next few rounds, the shooting rate of the two teams began to become more normal, and the rhythm of the game began to change into the more anxious alternating goals, and the first quarter quickly went to the ninth minute, and the Lakers began to make substitutions, and they replaced all four people except Ye Xuan, and replaced them with Speights and others to come up to replace them.
The Warriors have also begun to make personnel changes, replacing Durant, Curry and Klay Thompson with David West and Livingston. The game continued, and the Lakers obviously still wanted to play a beautiful game on their home court, so they didn't replace Ye Xuan, and after the timeout, the Lakers served on the sideline.
Ye Xuan is the only main point of attack in this lineup, so the Warriors' defense of him has become more tight, but the Lakers lineup has another advantage, that is, although Ye Xuan is the only offensive point with the ball, their lineup is not afraid of the opponent's bagging, because almost everyone on the court has the ability to shoot, especially Nick Yang, Yang Shaoxia has become more and more stable under the influence of Ye Xuan's side, and now if you want to talk about the efficiency of three-point shots, While he may not be as strong as a super three-pointer like Klay Thompson, he certainly can't be worse than Eric Gordon's three-point shot.
This round is the cooperation between Ye Xuan and Nick Young, Ye Xuan used Speight's cover to break through to the inside, Livingston immediately rushed over to make up for the defense, and Green on the inside also came over to prepare for the bag, and Ye Xuan was a non-looking pass, sending the ball from Green's waist to the outside of the three-point line, Yang Shaoxia received the ball and shot three points and hit it steadily.
The offense on the Warriors' side is more embarrassing, because they do feel a little worse today, David West first received the ball on the inside and prepared to single Speights, but he didn't carry it in twice, so he had to turn around and make a backward jumper, but he didn't expect Ye Xuan, who was rushed out next to him, directly blocked the ball from his hand and stealed, and this time Ye Xuan pushed a fast attack, the only thing that could interfere with Ye Xuan was Livingston near the top of the arc just now, However, it was still a little too difficult for him to defend against Ye Xuan's fast attack, Ye Xuan only took less than a second to complete the overtaking, and then easily made a layup to complete the fast attack.
In the next few rounds, the Warriors' offense was not able to make any progress, except for Green who hit a two-point shot and then Livingston got two free throws on his back, the Warriors did not score any more points in the few minutes after the main team was replaced, and the Lakers, under the leadership of Ye Xuan, played a wave of 11:4 in less than 3 minutes.
At the end of the first quarter of the game, Ye Xuan had already helped the Lakers take a 12-point lead, and the Warriors' 24-point score in a single quarter of the game could not be said to be too low, but compared with the Lakers' 36 points in a single quarter, it was still a little dwarfed, and Ye Xuan's side played twelve minutes in the first quarter of the game, and got 14 points, 6 assists plus 3 rebounds and 2 steals, which really made the Warriors a little frightened, because they had also seen Ye Xuan's violent form in the regular season, and now although Ye Xuan is not a scoring form, But they have already scored 14 points, which is not good news for the Warriors.
The second quarter of the game started quickly, the Lakers temporarily replaced Ye Xuan to rest, and then replaced Wade, while the Warriors quickly replaced Curry to play for a while, after all, Curry can avoid Ye Xuan, and there is not much time to play steadily. And Curry did play relatively well without Ye Xuan's restrictions, and Curry is one of the few players in the Warriors who has a good hand, in the three minutes when Ye Xuan was replaced to rest, Curry hit two three-pointers and one two-point alone, although the point difference did not narrow much because of Wade's two consecutive breakthroughs and a mid-range shot, but it also helped the Warriors stabilize their position, and then the Warriors replaced Klay Thompson and Durant and others.
At this time, the main forces of the two teams came back one after another, and it was just the middle of the second quarter, and the posture that the two teams opened up seemed to be about to have a final showdown, but at this time, Ye Xuan cleverly used his home advantage, first forced a breakthrough to cause Klay Thompson's second foul, and then successfully stole a cross pass from Green when the opponent was attacking, and deceived the foul of Klay Thompson who was chasing the defense again when he was about to go down. In fact, these two balls belong to Ye Xuan on his own initiative, and the referee can blow the ball or not, but because it is the home court of the Lakers, the probability of blowing is greater, and Ye Xuan happens to be a superstar player, and the star whistle plus the home whistle directly made Thompson carry three fouls when the game was less than half of the game in the second quarter.
Kerr didn't dare to hold it up at this time, so he could only replace Klay Thompson in advance, and then use Ian Clarke on top. Ye Xuan walked to the free throw line again, although the game had only been played for less than 20 minutes, Ye Xuan had already got 7 free throw opportunities, and after hitting the free throw steadily, Ye Xuan's score had quietly come to 18 points.
The game continued, the advantage of the Lakers side is very obvious, on the one hand, because the opponent's hand is indeed a little weak, so the Lakers have always been in the lead, and on the other hand, in terms of the number of timeouts, the Lakers are very much ahead, which may also be thanks to the Buddhist coaching of Wharton Jr., so it is rarely called the kind of timeout that interrupts the rhythm of the opponent, so far in this game, the Lakers have only called a timeout, while the Warriors have called 3 timeouts.
Of course, there is also the most critical problem, that is, the Warriors now seem to be in foul trouble, the Warriors side except for Durant and Curry, several other people have encountered foul trouble, Green is now in two fouls, Iguodala is also two fouls, Klay Thompson three fouls have been replaced and rested, and Durant and Curry have no foul trouble, but they also have a foul.
The Warriors have a total of 15 fouls combined, while the Lakers have only 7 fouls, and this difference in the number of fouls will be more obvious in the third and fourth quarters. This is actually because of the Lakers' home-court advantage, the home team will have some advantages in the whistle, and the Lakers' tactics today are very aggressive, so it is natural to let the opponent's foul count go up.
After Klay Thompson was replaced, the rhythm of the game in the second quarter completely fell into the control of the Lakers, although Klay Thompson's tactical position is not very high in the Warriors, but when it comes to explosive scoring ability, then it is definitely Klay Thompson who is the strongest, even the three-point Curry is not as strong as Klay Thompson in terms of scoring explosiveness, otherwise how could people suddenly exert power in the third quarter of last year's Western Conference Finals, What about the Thunder who helped the Warriors directly overtake Durant's team in a single quarter? Otherwise, how could he have scored 60 points in just 29 minutes in the regular season this season? There is also a performance of 37 points in a single quarter, which is also very surprising.
After Klay Thompson was forced to replace, it would be very difficult for the Warriors to chase points like crazy, unless Curry could find a way to stagger with Ye Xuan at this time, otherwise, he basically couldn't find too many offensive opportunities, let alone lead the team to achieve a comeback. At the end of the second quarter, the Lakers' score had quietly come to 67 points, while the Warriors' score had just broken through 50 points, and the Lakers led by fifteen points at halftime 67:52 and entered the halftime.