Chapter 519: The Champion Temperament Emerges
I have to say that the Lakers are playing very reasonably now, although Ye Xuan's physical strength has dropped to a point where the shooting percentage has begun to be affected, he can still use the pass to open up the situation for the team, and his defense is still very reliable, after suddenly shifting his attention to defense, Curry, the Warriors' strong chasing point, is also locked, and now the only thing the Warriors can count on is Thompson to stand up again.
But it's a pity that Tang Shen basically didn't play a few good games this season, and now it's been a month of regular season, Tang Shen's overall three-point shooting rate is less than 30%, and he was still the top five super shooters in the league last season, and this season he can't even shoot, I have to say that the Warriors still have a long way to go on the road to run-in.
Because Thompson hit two consecutive iron shots again on the Warriors' side, the suspense of the game slowly disappeared, and Ye Xuan's consecutive free throws at the last moment not only helped the Lakers hold on to the final victory, but also improved his own scoring again. Eventually, the game was over, and the Warriors lost again to the Lakers, who had beaten them in their last game, on their home court.
On the Lakers' side, while giving the Warriors two consecutive defeats, they also won two in a row, and the most important thing is that they defeated their opponents in two consecutive meetings with the Warriors, which is very helpful for the future Western Conference rankings and the psychological advantage of the playoffs. Ye Xuan became the protagonist of the news again after the end of this game, because he created a miracle in this game, not to mention the 73-point score, he also sent 10 assists at the same time, and the Lakers only scored 121 points in the whole game, of which at least more than 90 points were related to Ye Xuan, that is, almost all the points scored by Ye Xuan when he played were directly or indirectly obtained by Ye Xuan.
After this game, those media also began to brag about Ye Xuan frantically, what is the first person in ancient and modern times, and the name of the best scorer in history are all called out, and Ye Xuan himself feels ashamed when he listens to it. However, I have to say that the fighting power shown by the Lakers in this game is indeed very remarkable, not only defeating the Super Four, but also their choice at critical moments is also very reasonable, which is something that a championship team must have.
After the game, the evaluation of the Lakers by various experts is also rising, and the Lakers' original record of about fourth in the West predicted at the beginning of the season suddenly became the first in the West, and the weakness shown by the Warriors in the face of the Lakers was also caught by experts.
After the end of the game with the Warriors, the Lakers' record has quietly come to 14-3, while the Pelicans have a 13-2 record due to two fewer games, and they are still ranked first in the West by virtue of their winning percentage. However, the next meeting between the two teams is coming soon, which makes the Lakers look forward to it from top to bottom, after all, as long as they defeat their opponents in the matchup, they can return to the first place in the West.
Of course, before the Pelicans game, the Lakers still need to play another game against the Hawks, and they are still playing on the road, and they are still far away in Atlanta, so this is not an easy battle for the Lakers.
Facing the Eagles again, Ye Xuan finally had the opportunity to catch up with Howard, this time Ye Xuan finally pulled Lao Ke out, plus Gasol and Wade, and had a meal with Howard together, not to mention how embarrassing the atmosphere in the middle was, if it weren't for Ye Xuan's gag in the middle, Lao Ke would probably be able to fly and bite. However, the final result was good, under the mediation of Ye Xuan and Wade, the two finally chose to reconcile, which was much shorter than the time it took for Lao Ke and O'Neill to reconcile, of course, this is mainly because Lao Ke is now gradually changing his stubborn character.
In fact, Howard is indeed not very happy with the Hawks, the team's tactics are still the Spurs' team tactics, and his performance under this tactical system is not ideal, and the opportunities he can get are very limited, so even if his efficiency is very high, he still only has about 10 shots per game, and the Warcraft is not happy in Atlanta.
This game is different, because the Lakers' interior line is relatively weak, and the sister-in-law is not that kind of muscular inside, so Mike Budenholzer also deliberately let Howard to carry out the main offense, of course, the effect of this tactic is relatively good, but unfortunately, the Lakers' advantage in other positions is very large, which makes the Hawks almost only have the power to parry, and there is no chance to fight back. In the end, the Lakers easily defeated the Hawks 117-102 on the road, Ye Xuan finally kept a low profile in this game, playing 29 minutes and scoring 28 points, 11 assists, 5 rebounds and 4 steals, the data is very gorgeous. However, the most gorgeous data in this game, to say Howard, because the tactics were finally biased in his favor, he also got 22 shots in this game, and the Warcraft did not live up to the team's trust, slashing 34 points plus 19 rebounds, but unfortunately the team's outside firepower today is a little dumb, so it will make the excellent performance of the Warcraft in this game useless.
After this game, the Lakers finally returned to Los Angeles, and they will face the Pelicans, who are the first in the West, a day later, which will be a very crucial game, and the outcome of this game will be a problem for the next period of time.
But just when everyone thought it was a close match, there was bad news from the Pelicans - their star Anthony Davis had back muscle soreness in the last two back-to-back games, although it was not an injury, but for the sake of insurance, they chose to rest Anthony Davis, and the balance of the game instantly tilted in favor of the Lakers.
Xiao Hua was also angry when he heard the news, at the beginning, this kind of key game rotation will only be used by the Spurs team who can't do anything about it, so it is irrelevant, but now I didn't expect the Pelicans to start to follow the cat, if there is one less absolute main force in this kind of key game, the enjoyment of the game will drop a lot, so his income will also be greatly affected, so Xiao Hua has begun to brew the introduction of some policies, When the team is allowed to rotate players, they need to report upwards, and rotations are not allowed without approval.
But anyway, in this game, the Pelicans are basically out of play without the interior pillar, which is equivalent to giving up the first place in the West to the Lakers, but this is actually fair, the last time the two teams met, Ye Xuan's side was still banned, and you have one less main player in this game, and everyone is drawn.
The result of the game is naturally that the Lakers won the game, and they are back to the first place in the West, of course, the most important thing is that the Lakers will be relatively easy in the next period of time, although it will still be a difficult week next week, but after next week, the Lakers' opponents will instantly drop a notch, which will allow the Lakers to get a lot of rest for a long time.
In the first game of December, the Lakers welcomed the Bulls, still like the last meeting, the Bulls still have no power to parry, after easily defeating the opponent, the Lakers also ushered in their first victory in December, the Bulls after a wave of consecutive wins at the beginning of the season, now gradually showing a decline, now after losing to the Lakers, still fell to the eighth place in the East, and is about to fall out of the playoffs.
But these things the Lakers don't care, they need to focus on their next opponent, December 3rd, they will welcome the Raptors led by the garbage brothers at home, the reason why DeRozan and Lowry are garbage brothers, is because they start to decline every time they enter the playoffs, and they basically lose every playoff game without temper, so everyone will jokingly call them garbage brothers.
Despite their poor form in the playoffs, they were still very good in the regular season, and the Raptors played against the sky last season, and this young team has never played 50+ wins before - not only broke the record for the best record in team history in the regular season, but also reached the division semifinals.
The Raptors can play such a result by solid defense. The Raptors are not a very aggressive team, and although their scoring efficiency is good, ranking 5th in the league with 110.0 points per 100 possessions, they are only averaging 102.7 points per game in the league because their game pace is the second-lowest in the league.
The Raptors' offensive style is not heavy on quality, and there are more singles. They rank 14th in the league in three-point shooting and 5th in the league in three-point shooting, but their interior offense is weak, mainly relying on their strong killing ability from the outside. The Raptors averaged 26.7 free throws per game last season, third in the league, and second in the league with 20.8 free throws. But it's embarrassing to be the second-to-last assists per game in the league — Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan both average more than 10 assists per game.
The Raptors have played very well this season, breaking team records in both the regular season and the playoffs, and in the face of such results, the Raptors' operation has only one result - don't fix anything that is not broken. So, of course, the Raptors' offseason operation is to try not to move the overall pattern of the team as much as possible, and just make some necessary tinkering.
The biggest loss of the Raptors offseason was the loss of playoff hero Biyombo, who played in 82 games last season and averaged 5.5 points per game to ignore, but his 8.0 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game are pretty good, after all, he only played 22 minutes.
After losing Biyombo, the Raptors also made up for it, BA 2K17 gave the Raptors 87 points, Lowry 86 points, Valanciunas 82 points, and the fourth place is Sallinger - 77 points. Sallinger's playing time with the Celtics last season was compressed, and his average points per game declined, but his average rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks per game did not decrease but increased, which shows that Sallinger's ability has indeed improved - 15.7 points, 12.7 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.4 steals and 0.9 blocks per 36 minutes, which is already a star-level inside.
Of course, the most important thing is that the Raptors kept DeRozan, the price of 139 million for 5 years is not low, which is still discounted by DeRozan on his own initiative (in order to keep Biyombo), but objectively speaking, DeRozan also likes the Raptors very much, and he even rejected the Lakers' offer. The Raptors played very well last season, and this is inextricably linked to the backcourt two-shot. DeRozan averaged 23.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game, and Lowry averaged 21.2 points, 4.7 rebounds, 6.4 assists and 2.1 steals per game. Now that DeRozan has stayed with the team, there is no reason for the two to drop their performance in the new season, at least to maintain their original level of performance.
And the Raptors' overall roster has not changed, which should make the Raptors' overall performance not inferior to last year. The only problem is that Sallinger is more demanding on offense than Biyombo and less focused on his defensive contributions. So DeRozan and Carroll have a heavier task, and the team may need to balance between the two guns, Valanciunas and Sallinger on the offensive end.
Of course, none of this is particularly important to the Lakers, because the Raptors' garbage brothers almost never won a victory when they met Ye Xuan's team, and their engine Lowry rarely had a disadvantage in the matchup, after all, he was also a point guard known for his strength at the beginning, but when facing Ye Xuan, Lowry felt that there was no place to show his skills, which was very uncomfortable.
So every time the Raptors face Ye Xuan's team, whether it is the Pacers in 15 years or the Pacers in 16 years, they play very hard, and DeRozan also feels the same here, his natural enemy is Solomon Hill, Hill's defensive style is just able to contain DeRozan's style of play very well, which makes DeRozan very difficult when attacking, This is also the reason why in the 14-15 season, even against the Pacers who were missing the pickled peppers, they still couldn't beat the Pacers.
And now against the Lakers, the nemesis of the two of them have transferred to the Lakers, which makes the Raptors very helpless, and the two main forces are once again very uncomfortable to be restricted, and the Raptors can play in this situation, and they probably know.