The Clippers were eliminated from the tournament, and the Western Conference Finals matchup became Lakers vs Warriors.

It has been seven years since the 2014-15 season, when Curry's Warriors reached the Western Conference Finals for the first time and won the Finals.

Seven years is enough time to undergo a lot of vicissitudes of life, and the once powerful teams in the league have completely changed, including the Warriors, who have changed from the three championships in four years to the team that only Curry, Thompson, and Green are left.

Among the active players in the league who can achieve such achievements as the Warriors, only the league evergreen LeBron, who has led the team to the Finals for seven consecutive years and won the championship three times. James.

No one expected that with the departure of Durant, the Warriors, who almost fell from the clouds to the bottom, could still maintain a strong competitive level.

In another time and space, Leonard's championship season with the Dragons was also because the Warriors were full of injuries, and Durant and Thompson were both seriously injured to pick up a championship trophy.

Now facing the Warriors, Leonard is also injured, which can be regarded as a report and a report, right?

Wang Feng thought with peace of mind.

But in fact, in this time and space, the direct beneficiaries of Durant's 19-year injury were Wang Feng and the Lakers, who were playing the Western Conference with the Warriors at that time.

It was because of Durant's injury that the Lakers eliminated the Warriors in that series to reach the Finals, and defeated Leonard's Toronto Dragons to win Wang Feng's first championship trophy as a core.

Two years have passed, and today, they are both teams in the Western Finals, but the situation of the two teams cannot be the same.

The Lakers are strong and strong, Wang Feng is in full swing, and Jimmy. Butler also made his debut after recovering from injury in the final game of the second round.

On the other hand, the Warriors, after seven fierce battles with the Clippers, are not in good shape.

Although they won the game because of Leonard's injury, the Warriors also suffered a lot of attrition, especially the team's No. 2 player, Klai. Thompson has always insisted on playing with injuries.

Because of Wang Feng, Thompson was lucky to avoid a major injury that seriously affected his career, and the catastrophe was avoided, but in the past two seasons, Thompson has had various minor problems, and the regular season attendance rate is only about 80% every season, which is not as high as Curry.

However, it is better to get a small injury or illness than to be directly reimbursed for two years.

It's just that this result directly benefited the opponent Lakers.

Butler is recovering very well and has fully recovered, except that he has not played for a few months, and there is no difference from half a year ago.

The outside world feels that the Lakers are the one who will win the outcome of the Lakers and Warriors in the Western Conference Finals.

The same is true for the odds of the game, with the Lakers at much lower odds to reach the Finals than the Warriors.

People are right.

On May 14, in the G1 game of the Western Conference finals series, the Lakers easily won the first victory on the Warriors' home court.

The Lakers' starting five are Wang Feng, Butler, Ingram, Kuzma and Lopez.

The Warriors are Curry, Thompson, Alec. Burks, Green and center Willie. Crawley. Stein.

In the Warriors' starting lineup, Burks and Stein are just ordinary rotation role players with limited strength, but there is no way, this is already the most suitable lineup that the Warriors can put together at the moment.

The current Warriors' tactics are somewhat similar to the Warriors in the first 14-15 season, the Death Five lineup has not yet been fully completed, and there is no Cosmos Warrior who later joined Durant, and the offensive tactics mainly revolve around the Splash Brothers or Curry's super outside projection ability.

The same goes for the Warriors' tactics against the Lakers.

However, from the beginning, the Warriors' tactics could not be implemented, because the Lakers directly arranged Wang Feng to mark Curry.

Curry's offensive ability is undoubted, averaging 30+ points per game this season, which is the second consecutive year that he has averaged 30+ points per game in the regular season, and he is one of the most offensive players in the league today.

But Wang Feng's defensive ability is too strong.

And Curry does not have any advantage over Wang Feng, and his height, weight, bounce, strength, and even the speed at which the guard relies to survive are all in the backward stage.

What's worse is that Curry's best three-point long-range shot was defeated by Wang Feng's defensive shock badge.

As long as Wang Feng can form an effective interference in time before Curry's shot, even if it is just dangling in front of Curry's eyes, the effect of the badge will be activated, greatly reducing Curry's shooting rate.

In addition, Curry's other big killer move, with the help of the opponent's cover, is not easy to use in Wang Feng's place.

It is also a purple Hall of Fame-level pick-and-roll dodge badge that can help Wang Feng quickly bypass any defense, even with Curry's shooting speed, he can't dodge Wang Feng's defense.

Curry was limited by Wang Feng, Thompson was not in good shape due to injury, and the only one of the Big Three who was in good shape was Drummond, who was not good at offense. Green, how is this game still going to be played?

In the first quarter, the Lakers scored 33 points, while the Warriors scored only 25 points.

In the second quarter of the game, the Lakers scored another 31 points and the Warriors scored 23 points.

At halftime, the score of the two teams was 64:48, and the difference had reached 16 points.

The Splash Brothers shot 4-of-13 and 3-of-10 shooting, and the shooting percentage was not on the line, but Green, who had performed poorly in the previous rounds of the series and was like an undercover agent, shot 4-of-6, including 3-of-5 three-pointers and 4-of-4 free throws to score 15 points.

But with Green's ability, doing so is already the limit.

The game entered the third quarter of the second half, and the score difference was further widened, reaching more than 20 points.

Such a huge point difference disappointed the Warriors' home fans. Cole also felt very helpless.

It is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice.

Unexpectedly, once a big family, King Curry Durant took turns to blow up, and he would encounter this dilemma one day.

Curry was suppressed by Wang Feng throughout the whole process, and what he needed was a player who could share the pressure on the offensive end and attract Wang Feng's attention.

Thompson himself is competent, but he can't do anything because of an injury, and the team can't find a second player who can take on this responsibility, what can be done?

……

A few minutes into the fourth quarter, the Warriors took the initiative to replace all the main players and gave up struggling.

At 116:94, the Lakers won by 22 points at the Warriors' home court.

In this game, Butler, who returned from injury, showed his skills, shooting 12 of 22 in the game, cutting 31 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists, scoring the highest score in the game.

Wang Feng did not steal the limelight with Butler, and focused more on dealing with Curry on the court, successfully locking Curry to death, resulting in 7 of 19 shots in the whole game, with a shooting rate of 36.8%, and only 19.

And Wang Feng lightly handed over a luxury triple-double of 24 points, 18 rebounds and 14 assists.

In just one game, the Warriors exposed a lot of problems.

The team's original defensive performance is gone, the offense relies heavily on Curry, and more importantly, an existing flaw is now even more serious - rebounding protection.

The Warriors, who are accustomed to using the Death Five, are not good at protecting rebounds.

In the years when Wang Feng was still there, the Warriors also had experienced blue-collar centers such as Bogut, Pachuria, and McGee to protect the frame.

But now, the only person left on the team to protect rebounds is Stein, a center who joined the league for 15 years.

This is indeed a defensive blue-collar center positioning player with the ability to protect rebounds, but the experience and ability are still not good enough.

This also led to Wang Feng grabbing a full 6 offensive rebounds in the Warriors' restricted area in this game.

The Lakers' big win over the Warriors has clearly seen the difference in the competitive level of the two teams.

If Thompson is healthy and Curry and Green are on the fire, the Warriors may still have a chance to wrestle with the Lakers, but it's absolutely impossible right now.

……

On May 16, the West Finals G2, still at the home of the Warriors, the Lakers won again 114:111, and the score came to 2:0.

Curry bottomed out after previous suppression in this game, scoring 37 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists on 11-of-22 shooting.

After all, he is the top superstar in the league, although Curry's hand is still affected by Wang Feng in this game, and he only made 4 of 14 shots from outside the three-point line, but he decisively gave up the outside offense and began to attack the basket with the ball instead.

Wang Feng's defensive shock badge is only effective for outside shots, and Curry's goal of breaking through the frame with the ball is more to make fouls.

Curry, who was at home and left everything behind, made 14 free throws and hit 12 of them throughout the game.

If it is simply to deal with Curry who breaks through, Wang Feng naturally has no problem, although the death winding badge is only at the gold level, but with Wang Feng's speed and agility of double 94, as well as 91's defensive awareness, he can completely prevent Curry from killing.

But he can't help it when he fouls porcelain, and his stronger body and tough confrontation than Curry have become weaknesses at the home whistle.

was whistled for two defensive fouls in a row, and the disgusting Wang Feng didn't take Curry very seriously to defend the breakthrough, anyway, Curry's real threat was the three-point shot, and it didn't matter how he was willing to play under the basket.

The result was the same, although the difference between the two teams was not large in this game, but the Warriors never had any hope of winning.

Although Curry scored 37 points, in addition to him, the Warriors only had Thompson's 24 points and Green's 16 points to score in double figures.

Wang Feng scored 35 points, 17 rebounds and 8 assists in this game, and once again grabbed 5 offensive rebounds in front of the Warriors' interior players.

Butler and Ingram also both have 20+ scoring performances, which are as steady as old dogs.

Losing both home courts and heading to the Lakers' home court with a score of 0:2, the Warriors have no hope in this game.

"It seems that this finals can finally see a fierce battle between dragons and tigers."

Many fans who are not fans of the two teams, but simply watch the lively melon-eating crowd are a little excited.

On the Western side, the Lakers are about to qualify, and on the Eastern Conference Finals, the situation is quite clear.

The Brooklyn Nets led by the Durant Big Three and the Milwaukee Bucks led by Antetokounmpo are the Eastern Conference Finals.

In the same two home courts, the Nets successfully defended all of them, and both games were thrilling victories over the Bucks.

Durant also had the advantage in the matchup with young star Brother Alphabet, scoring 41 points, 8 rebounds and 36 points and 11 rebounds in two games, respectively, completely suppressing Brother Alphabet with 29 points, 14 rebounds and 33 points and 15 rebounds.

And in the dominant position, it is not only Durant, but also the Nets are more dominant in the two sets of opponents of Irving vs Wall and George vs Middleton.

In the Big Three vs. Big Three competition, the Nets won across the board, and scoring guard Dinwiddie and former All-Star power forward Blake Brown came off the bench. Griffin also had highlights, and the Nets won in the bench rotation.

With a 2:0 advantage, the Nets have half a foot in the Finals, and as long as there are no injured players, then the Finals will be a Lakers vs Nets matchup.

This is the first time in four years that the two teams have a Finals matchup in a luxury Big Three configuration since the 16-17 season, when the Warriors' Curry, Durant, Thompson, Green, and the Cavaliers' James Wang Feng and Irving Love faced each other in the top lineup.

This is not an exaggeration at all.

In the 17-18 season, the Warriors won the championship against the Cavaliers, who lost Wang Feng and Irving, and only James was left to support them.

In the 18-19 season, Wang Feng led the team to the finals for the first time as the core, defeating Leonard's Menglong team.

In the 19-20 season, Wang Feng's Lakers faced the Milwaukee Bucks led by Antetokounmpo.

In the two years that the Lakers won the championship, the Lakers' lineup was really good, but Ingram was still in the growth period and was not yet regarded as a qualified member of the Big Three, and the Lakers were more often called the dual-core lineup of Wang Feng and Butler.

And Leonard's Mongon and Brother Alphabet's Bucks are even more so, and they will even be called single-core teams, after all, Lowry, Siakam, Middleton and others were similar to Ingram at that time.

But this time the situation is completely different!