54 wins! Fourth in the West!

At the start of the season, no one expected the Trail Blazers to be able to play like that, especially after they traded a starter and a major bench for a rookie. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info but the facts are in front of you, the same record as the Spurs and Nuggets, and the home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, all of which are Portland's.

In fact, many experts don't understand this team very well, and the starting five are a little longer than Blake's playing years, but it's not much better, and this is only his sixth season since entering the NBA in 2003, not to mention Roy and Ade, two rookies in the class of 2006. As for Ye Feng and Oden? Forget it, it's still their rookie season. Just such a bunch of raw melons and eggs, how did they achieve such an awesome record?

Rockets' coach Adelman is the most unhappy one, just a win difference, the Rockets will become fifth in the West, although the first round can take revenge, but the home court advantage in the playoffs is still very important, even if not every team that occupies the home court advantage will inevitably win the entire series, one more home court advantage will add a guarantee. After all, the playoff format is 2-2-1-1-1-1, which means that two games are played at the home of the top team, and then two games are played at the home of the lower team, and the last three games are separated by the home stadium of the two teams, which shows that the home court still has some advantages.

There is no reason why the Rockets fell to fifth, the top eight in the playoffs are actually divided into two tiers, with the top spot in each region plus the second place in the division with the best record taking the top four, and the fifth through eighth places are sorted by record. The Spurs and Trail Blazers also have 54 wins, and the Rockets only need two more wins to properly occupy the top four in the West and then squeeze the Trail Blazers into fifth. But who told yourselves not to be angry? Just stay in the fifth position!

For the upcoming playoffs, the whole Trail Blazers team was excited, so excited that McMillan had to hold an internal meeting to appease the screaming cubs. No way, in the playoffs, as long as it's not bent on rebuilding, which team wants to toss outside the top eight? What's more, now that he is still advancing to the playoffs as the No. 4 seed in the West, it is understandable to be a little excited. You must know that many people on the team have never tasted the playoffs, and only Blake has played in the playoffs with the Wizards and Nuggets among the cores, but it only adds up to nine games.

Any team aspiring to win a championship will value the experience of the playoffs or even the Finals, otherwise there wouldn't be so many old guys in the twilight of their careers who would easily get a pension contract. In fact, their role on the court is very small, and they play more than 10 minutes per game, but their experience is an immeasurable asset, including how to deal with the game, how to adjust the mentality, and other things, which is what they need most for rookies who have not experienced the playoffs.

It's a pity that the Trail Blazers don't have such players for the time being, it can be said that in terms of playoff experience, they should be the weakest existence in the top 16 teams in the East and West this season, at least one of them, they are full of longing for the playoffs, but they don't understand that the playoffs are a more terrifying meat grinder than the regular season, if you can get a good ranking in the regular season by relying on tribute, then you can only rely on iron-blooded defense in the playoffs. Prior to this, almost every championship team wasn't a bias (maybe the 2004 Pistons had a little bit), they were among the league's top performers on both the offensive and defensive ends, and the phrase "offense wins the box office, defense wins the championship" is not an empty phrase.

Fortunately, there is also an experienced person in the team, and that is their head coach McMillan. Since joining the Seattle SuperSonics in 1986, McMillan has played in 98 games for eleven seasons with the team, and he is technically the team's most experienced playoff player. Let's see when he entered the playoffs, except for the 1989-90 season, from 1986 to 1998, McMillan worked hard in the playoffs almost every year, at that time, there was a powerful Bulls dynasty, a meteoric Rockets dynasty, four centers, and a 96 golden generation...... It can be said that the intensity of the playoffs at that time was much higher than it is now.

And the 90s of the 20th century should be regarded as the last era in the NBA that regards defense as life, not to mention anything else, the Heat and the Knicks, two teams with a tough style and tenacious style, have made the other 28 teams in the league suffer, not to mention Jordan and Pippen, the duo who are historical at both offensive and defensive ends, and the most terrifying block master Olajuwon on the Rockets interior. As for the playoffs now? There are only occasional teams that have played a tough defense that dreams of returning to the previous dynasty, and other teams are relatively not so advanced in this regard.

With a few days to go before the end of the final regular season game and the start of the first playoff game, McMillan wanted to give everyone a break, but he didn't want to be too presumptuous, and if he couldn't get nervous, the whole season's efforts would be in vain. His approach was simple, brutal but effective: reduce the number and frequency of training and increase the intensity. This so-called increased intensity is not fun, McMillan asked his players to be a little more ruthless and harder in training, not afraid of injury, and to use their greatest courage to take out the people opposite...... Well, although the other side is still his own teammates.

This kind of training doesn't allow the kids to quickly adapt to the intensity of the playoffs, but it's better than nothing, and reducing the number of sessions will also give them more time to rest. One of the benefits of home-court advantage is that the Trail Blazers' players can wait for the Rockets in Portland to come to the door, in other words, they have more time to prepare for the playoffs and certainly more time to rest.

Ye Feng didn't feel much about the head coach's adaptive training, and with his physical strength was not enough to lose at this intensity, he only occasionally thought about the situation in this year's playoffs and their opponent, the Houston Rockets. The Rockets have finally gotten rid of their old enemies this year, and they have to meet the Jazz every time they reach the playoffs nine times out of ten, and they have lost more than they won, and they are very happy to meet the Trail Blazers this time, and they feel that they can finally enter the second round of the playoffs.

But who can say for sure what the future holds?