But to be honest, it's still nerve-wracking to face Thunder Ye Feng. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Although the Thunder are not the Grizzlies' hobby team, they have talent, and the grinding of these seasons has allowed them to gradually start to turn talent into power, as evidenced by the third place in the West in the regular season this season. The Thunder's hyped trio of Durant, Westbrook and Harden have all turned out or are in the process of becoming top stars in their respective positions in the league, and the pressure on the Trail Blazers is not small, and the gap between second and third in the West is completely negligible.

But in fact, the pressure is not very great, Harden plays as the team's sixth man most of the time, Batum and Hickson in the bench lineup will not be much weaker than him, and Ye Feng can also fight to a tie in the face of Durant, the only thing that worries is the point guard. Felton was reluctant to defend Lawson, Westbrook was a high-level pointguard than Lawson, and Felton couldn't do anything about him in several regular season encounters, let alone Miller.

McMillan was a little upset about this, and after thinking about it again, he continued to let Felton start, and then he could see the effect, if it really didn't work, he could go up to rookie Nolan Smith to consume Westbrook's physical strength, no matter how young people said that they still had momentum, and defense was a matter of attitude.

Ye Feng didn't give advice, because in his opinion, it was completely unnecessary. He knows a lot about his good friend Ye Feng, Westbrook is the kind of point guard with a very strong offensive desire, it can be said that he has the heart of a scoring guard, and if he can, he would rather score goals by himself.

In this way, the easiest way for the Trail Blazers is to pinch Durant, and Harden will also have to focus on taking care of it if the three are on the floor at the same time, in short, not giving Westbrook a point of play, and letting him hold the ball alone. As long as they defend well, the Thunder can win a game or two with Westbrook's extraordinary performance, but they will definitely not win the entire series unless Durant and Harden can be reactivated.

Although Ibaka, who entered the league with Ye Feng and Westbrook, is considered the fourth youngest of the Thunder, the Spanish Congolese big man is still just a potential stock, averaging 9.1 points and 7.5 rebounds per game in the regular season. So McMillan didn't target him too deliberately, so what about letting him on the outside? Can you really kill the Blazers? In this case, McMillan will admit it happily.

Therefore, before the first game, he focused on telling Felton that as long as he does his best on the defensive end, with the current level of Westbrook, as long as he doesn't die, no point guard in the league dares to say that he can prevent him 100%, and Felton is even worse.

Fortunately, Felton is not the kind of arrogant character, he is very self-aware, and it is almost an impossible task for him to defend Westbrook, so he also happily agreed to the manager's arrangement, as long as he interferes with Westbrook's ball.

In contrast, McMillan is full of confidence in Ye Feng. Although Durant is now the league's top small forward, in McMillan's opinion, Ye Feng is definitely not bad, and the ankle sprain in the finals last season did not greatly reduce his strength, on the contrary, judging from this season's performance, Ye Feng has also entered an explosive period, and a quasi-triple-double of 30+ per game is not something that can be played casually.

As soon as the first game began, McMillan sat firmly on the sidelines with a smile on the sidelines, basically Ye Feng had met his requirements, and it was obvious that the opponent was very uncomfortable when he was just facing Durant. Durant's shooting percentage is not to mention for the time being, and most of the shots he chooses in the face of Ye Feng are difficult shots, which means that Ye Feng's presence has caused him a lot of interference, forcing him to use some other ways to make up for his firepower.

But more importantly, Durant's several offenses were all singles with the ball, and there was nothing Westbrook did at all. Perhaps Westbrook's only job is to dribble the ball across half court and hand it to Durant, watching his partner play against Ye Feng.

This situation is also expected by McMillan, because no matter how Durant is also the current number one star of the Thunder, you can't completely stop him from holding the ball, as long as Ye Feng can continue to maintain this defensive intensity, then it's no problem. In fact, it doesn't matter whether Durant plays alone or Westbrook singles, the former only needs to let Ye Feng defend, and the latter only needs to defend the ball point, which is not very difficult for the Trail Blazers players.

Compared with Ye Feng's ease, Durant seemed to be stuck in a quagmire, he didn't expect Ye Feng's progress to be so great. When facing him last season, Ye Feng still needed to rely on the help of his teammates and the team's tactical system, but now one-on-one is no longer behind.

In the middle of this season, some media said that Durant was already the strongest small forward in the league after James, and he was very optimistic that he would replace James as the first person in the league in the near future. But the competition with Ye Feng's real guns in this game made him wake up to the fact that he was far from being the only one, and Ye Feng was also a strong competitor in the small forward position.

After the starting lineup was suppressed, the Thunder did not find a place on the bench lineup. Although Batum and Harden are technically different positions, both are leaders of their respective teams' bench lineups, and it is normal for them to play against each other. But Brooks ignored Hixon, and it was because of this powerful power forward that the Trail Blazers were able to maintain the upper hand even if Batum was traded by Harden.

Hickson had a double-double of 18 points and 12 rebounds in 22 minutes of playing time throughout the game, becoming the rebounding leader of the Trail Blazers. Harden and Batum both scored almost the same, Harden 21 points, Batum 17 points, the gap is not very big, but the presence of Hickson has made the Thunder's bench lineup blown up to the point that there is no scum left, and the bench lineup has lost 15 points in total scores, which is completely crushing in strength.

Although Durant scored 24 points in the starting lineup, Ye Feng made him use a full 27 shots and didn't give him many free throws. Westbrook scored 28 points and shot well from the field, but he only dished out three assists and didn't connect the team's offense at all. Basically, the Thunder lost without a fightback, 112-89, and the Trail Blazers successfully won the opening game on their home court.