Chapter 421: Winning streak and qualifying

The Trail Blazers have always been impressed by their sharp offense and selfless team spirit, but their defense is also tough. Pen | fun | pavilion www. biquge。 Info Against a team like the Thunder, they can still keep their opponents under 90 points per game, and there are very few teams in the league that are confident that they can do so.

The most terrifying thing is that they have Matthews and Ye Feng on the outside, and both Camby and Oden on the bench are good at protecting the rim on the inside, and they together create a good atmosphere and drive their teammates to contribute on the defensive end.

Originally, Felton and Aldridge were not good defensive players, but their physical qualities were not bad, and defense was a matter of attitude. As long as you are willing to defend, no matter how you do, you can not do well, after all, there are no weak players who can join the NBA. Led by Ye Feng, the defensive ability of the two has been greatly improved, and Felton's defense of Lawson in the first round of the playoffs and Aldridge's defense of Ibaka in the third game just concluded are good examples.

Although the Thunder are strong and athletic, Ye Feng and Matthews are both masters who can fight on the court for more than 40 minutes, although Camby is old, but Oden's performance after recovering from injury is very convincing, if it is not for the protection of him, McMillan wants him to play as a starter.

Even so, McMillan made Camby a fake starter, meaning he started but didn't need to play the other starters for as long. Originally, it was supposed to be replaced in the second half of the first quarter, but McMillan planned to bring in Oden just over the middle of the first quarter and let him guard the basket. Correspondingly, he has also increased Roy's playing time, and in his opinion, it is time for the two big players to make a difference.

Oden's performance is beginning to be recognized by insiders, and while some still compare him to Durant, who was the star of the year, many have begun to praise him for regaining his former dominance in the college arena. It's true that Durant is still very good, but Oden has a double-double every game and has at least two blocks, and everyone believes that if it weren't for the original injury, he would have been the league's top center.

Ye Feng, as the organizer of the team's offense, also likes to play blocking and dismantling with Oden, although Oden's mid-range shooting can only be regarded as average, but his blocking and dismantling is very threatening, the Thunder's starting center is the former Celtics starting center Perkins, this is an inside meat shield center, the bounce is almost none, and the independent offensive ability is also very average, for the Thunder, his only role is to block the route of the attackers and prevent them from attacking the basket directly.

But this also means that his movement speed is very slow, and both Oden and Ye Feng can easily solve him, although Matthews is not up to the point of bypassing Perkins to attack the basket, but he is a good pull-up jumper, and if he doesn't have a hard fight with Perkins, he can use the jump shot to solve the problem.

Thanks to the tough defense of the Trail Blazers, they won two games in a row after winning Game 3 and easily defeated the Thunder with a score of 4-1 to advance to the Western Conference Finals. But the other set of matchups hasn't been seen yet, so it's okay, at least there's a little more break, isn't it?

The Trail Blazers' easy 4-1 win surprised many, and the Thunder's five games were less than 100 games in four games, and two games were below 90 points, which shows how strong the Trail Blazers' defense is. You must know that there are only two games in the entire regular season in which the Thunder have scored less than 100 points, averaging 108.3 points per game, let alone scoring less than 90 points in a single game. But the fact that the Trailblazers did just that, which is undoubtedly a big surprise.

The Spurs, on the other hand, are in a tight battle with the Grizzlies. For the Spurs' aging core lineup, meeting a team like the Grizzlies is really enough of a headache for them, the Grizzlies' style of play is very old-fashioned, and they still use the interior as the core. The interior combination of Gasol Jr. and Randolph actually didn't suffer much in the face of Duncan, especially Randolph, who played well in the Trail Blazers at the beginning of the 21st century, is still young, plus Conley, an alumnus of powerful small forward Guy and Oden, the Spurs are really difficult to deal with.

For the Grizzlies team, the Spurs don't want to fight defense, which is in the hands of the Grizzlies, and both sides will fight defense, just see who scores less. The league is deeply disgusted by this series, after all, there are no fans who want to watch this style of game, there is no way to guarantee ratings, and even tickets cannot be sold. Memphis is relatively better, and San Antonio is a small ball city, barely filling the arena seats, and that's when the Spurs are giving away a lot of tickets.

So when the Trail Blazers defeated the Thunder to advance first, the Spurs were still fighting hard with the Grizzlies, and the battle of Tianwang Mountain was about to begin. Ye Feng has been paying attention to this group of matchups, and in his opinion, although the Spurs have a higher chance of winning, even if they can advance, they will have to take off a layer of skin, which is undoubtedly good news for the Trail Blazers. Coupled with the fact that the Trail Blazers have been given plenty of rest, the probability of advancing is definitely higher than that of the fatigued Spurs.

The two semifinals in the East were also deadlocked, with the Bulls facing the veteran-old Celtics to a draw. Although the Bulls' lineup is full of momentum, but the gap between their experience and the Celtics cannot be counted, if the Celtics were still the Celtics in previous years, the Bulls would have been bitten to the scum. It is precisely because the Celtics Big Three are aging that the Bulls have a chance to compete with them.

The Heat were supposed to have their way through, but they were met with stubborn resistance from the Pacers. Although it looks like they are already leading 3-1, the Heat have not won these three games easily, and they have won by only 10 points combined, which is not at all what they should be. Surprisingly, James' performance in these games was also average, and under the rotation of Granger and George, James was also a little powerless.

Of course, no one believed that the Heat would lose this series, and the whole team was desperate to seek revenge on the Trail Blazers, but the strength of the Pacers' resistance was beyond their expectations. And the Heat have a lot of stars, without James, Wade and Bosh, the Pacers' defense can't be exhaustive.

Now that the Trail Blazers are the first team to advance to the Division Finals, they just need to do recovery training while waiting to see the show, and the intensity of the second round of this year's playoffs is really high, except that the Thunder are the most tragic one.