The Clippers' joint defense in the second quarter was like a summer thunderstorm, coming and going as fast as it came, and after a few rounds, the Clippers reverted to normal man-to-man defense.

It's not because the Thunder cracked the Clippers' defense, but the Clippers' coaching staff knows that the defense is just a small means to change the rhythm and can't be used for a long time.

The rules of the NBA, the big center cannot squat in the three-second zone, which determines that the power of joint defense is definitely not as good as the FIBA rules.

With players taking care of defending for three seconds, it is difficult to maintain a joint defensive formation for a long time.

Coupled with the fast pace of NBA games, it is likely to be broken up after a few rounds, so it can only last for a while.

But that was enough for a while, and the Clippers used this defensive variation to put the Thunder on an 11-3 offensive highest.

After 7-0, Kevin Durant hit a three-pointer from a 45-degree pass from Westbrook.

But then Randolph hit a mid-range jumper, and Harden broke through with the ball and made a throw, 11:3, leading the Thunder by 9 points.

The Thunder called a timeout, and Brooks made a tactical set-up, asking Durant to increase his shots and launch an offensive attack on the Clippers.

Of course, Durant will follow the coach's arrangement, but he thinks in his heart that he has not been able to break the Clippers' joint defense with organization and strategy after all.

Breaking through the ball, simply moving the ball, and spotting a teammate's point guard, Durant can do it.

However, it is never easy to be like a commander, use a pass to find the loopholes in the opponent's defense and crack the opponent's defensive formation.

On the one hand, it is necessary to have a deep understanding of tactics, and on the other hand, it is necessary to have an extremely keen observation and vision on the court, and be able to make accurate judgments on the rapidly changing dynamics of the court.

Durant didn't do well in these two points, as a professional player, he must understand tactics, but to understand deeply, he can draw inferences and be a coach in the future, Durant doesn't have this ability.

Generally, only point guards can have the deep tactical awareness of a coach - except in Westbrook's view.

As for observation, vision, reaction speed, etc., it is purely talented, and this kind of thing is difficult to practice the day after tomorrow.

When God opens a door for you, he will inevitably close a window, and it is difficult for you to take advantage of all the benefits.

Durant already has an epic reach, physical agility and shooting touch, and it's normal to be lacking in some areas.

But Durant is bent on being the best in history, Michael Jordan doesn't say it, so he can reach the level of James, right?

And James is most praised for his passing vision and on-court observation, which is also a big reason why he is able to beat Cameron Anthony.

After the first round of grinding, Kevin Durant thought he was passing the ball well.

He kept passing the ball in the first quarter, and he also felt that he played a tandem and playmaking role.

As a result, a simple joint defense made him "reveal his true form", and Durant was really unhappy.

Back on the court at the end of the timeout, Kevin Durant faced Leonard and showed his superior ball sense with a pull-and-go shot that changed his direction.

The Thunder's defense also made changes, with Perkins on the bench, Ibaka at center, and Durant starting to appear at the No. 4 position.

Durant defended Randolph one-on-one, but Durant used his long arm to successfully interfere with Randolph's turn hook.

Then Durant received Westbrook's pass and hit a mid-range jumper to chase four points in a row, and the Thunder closed on the score.

"Sure enough, scoring is the only thing I'm good at? No......"

A thought flashed through Durant's mind that the Clippers' counterattack had come.

Jeremy Lin, who came off the bench, made a quick assault and hit the basket with the ball, only to be blocked by Durant with a big hat from behind!

The ball flew off the baseline, still in the possession of the Clippers, but the Clippers' quick offense has been disrupted.

Serving the baseline ball, Curry received the ball and made a quick shot from the middle distance, but did not score, Ibaka won the backcourt rebound, and the ball was given to Durant.

This is another adjustment that the Thunder have made to hide Perkins' offensive and defensive flaws — adding Kevin Durant to the No. 4 position and adding to his role on the defensive end.

Don't look at Durant's thin body, when he first entered the league, he was the same as hemp poles, and he couldn't do a single bench press.

After 5 years of training, Durant's weight is actually not small, after all, the skeleton and height are here.

Playing inside, weight is sometimes more important than height, because weight can have confrontation.

Durant also has a natural long arm, and it is definitely not bad to concentrate on defense.

After the SuperSonics took Durant with the Leaderboard in '07, they focused on cultivating him to be a killer on the offensive end.

His rookie season gave Durant unlimited shooting rights to practice offensive skills and shooting touch, and it quickly blossomed.

But imagine that if the supersonic did not take this training route, but like Durant idol Maddy, they started with defense first?

With Durant's physical gifts, he may not be a top defensive striker.

It can only be said that the path of many players is doomed from the beginning.

Of course, the Thunder won't let Durant stay at the No. 4 top Randolph as a power forward, only occasionally allowing him to appear inside to participate in defense.

In this way, the Thunder can play one big and four small, the defensive end moves fast and has few holes, and the offensive end can be played by five people.

This move did work well, without Perkins holding back, and the efficiency of the Thunder's offensive end came up.

Durant dribbled across the halfcourt, and the ball was given to Westbrook, who accelerated to the basket and made a pull-up jumper...... But when the opponent came up, he burst into a straight plug to Ibaka under the empty basket, and Ibaka received the ball and dunked easily!

The Thunder chased consecutive points, and the score was close to 5 points.

Jeremy Lin slowed down this time and continued to give the ball to Randolph in the low post.

Randolph turned around and went to the baseline this time and rushed to the basket, but the layup was interfered with by Ibaka and missed.

But Milicic rushed up from the side and made a layup with a slight touch.

The Clippers now have an advantage on the inside and will definitely take advantage of it.

The two sides are locked in a tug-of-war.

Without Perkins, the Thunder's offense is much smoother.

However, the corresponding inside line has to suffer, and the lesser of the two phases is weighed, and the offense is more important.

The scores of the two sides alternated, the game was extremely good-looking, and the pace was getting faster and faster.

Durant began to gradually forget his pre-game thoughts, and the passing button gradually picked off.

When he has the chance, he will use his singles skills to attack the Clippers' basket.

On the Clippers' side, Curry, Harden, Randolph, Gasol Jr., the whole team is involved in the offense.

Swift passing, agile movement, imaginative passing and impressive finishing.

Min Congda, who was sitting in the VIP room, had to admit that when the Clippers were in good offensive shape, it was a pleasure to watch them play.

The Clippers' precise coordination is different from the Spurs, which are like machines, which are tacit understandings and subconscious habits accumulated through countless trainings and more than ten years.

The Clippers' sophistication is imbued with a natural beauty, like a nest built by bees, and a spider spitting out a web that, although not to the point where the antelope's horns are nowhere to be found, is everywhere a reflection of the genius imagination of these young people on the offensive end.

Obviously, the hard-fought battle with the Spurs in the first round gave the Clippers' young people a boost.

This upset Thunder coach Brooks.

In fact, the Thunder want to suppress the rhythm, and want to use the efficiency of positional warfare to drag the game into the familiar routine of the Thunder.

For example, the shooting percentage of both sides is low, and it drags into the critical moment of the fourth quarter, and Durant, Westbrook or Gordon come out to close the game.

Playing the Nuggets in the first round, facing his teacher George Karl, Brooks used this trick.

Durant and Westbrook led their teammates in front, passed more, were efficient, and played as a team.

Then in the final stage, the superstar who has warmed up closes the game with his individual ability, which is naturally smooth.

It's the ideal feeling to win a game.

However, the Clippers are obviously disrupting this order, forcing Durant and Westbrook to stand up earlier and bite the score with their personal ability and chase hard.

Then in the final stage, the fitness of the players, and the form will be a problem.

But there was no way, it was impossible to give the Clippers too much of a lead in the first half.

If the away team trails by more than 10 points at halftime, it will be difficult to play in the third and fourth quarters.

And the Clippers have always been good at breaking out in the third quarter, breaking through opponents in waves.

If the Thunder are still behind, they can't play.

Durant, who didn't score in the first quarter, scored 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting in the second quarter.

At the end of the second quarter, the Clippers were 63-70, leading the Thunder by seven points.

The Thunder have played pretty well, scoring 33 points in a single quarter, which is quite a high score.

But the Clippers scored 39 points in a single quarter, nearly 40 points!

The offensive battle between the two sides was quite beautiful, and the fans felt that it was enjoyable to watch.

Griffin, Jordan Jr. and others, who were sitting on the sidelines watching the game, muttered even more in their hearts.

If they meet the Thunder or the Clippers, will they really be able to withstand such an attack?

At half-time, Anschutz and Min Congda continued to discuss financing.

Anschutz offered a piece of advice, saying, "If you can, I don't think the Clippers have to rely entirely on investment to build new arenas, and $1.2 billion is not a small investment. I think it is better to invest partly and partly to raise money from the society by issuing bonds or designing financing products. ”

Anshutz's suggestion Min Congda did not think about it, after all, he also worked in the bank to issue corporate bonds.

But he really hasn't been in contact with how the basketball team issues bonds, and what does it use as a target?

As for financing products, he is even more out of ideas, China is still much worse than the United States in terms of financial instruments.

Faced with Min Congda's small doubts, Anschutz solved it with a very simple sentence: "Fool, use the box office revenue of the Clippers as the target, and directly sell the tickets of the Clippers in advance." For example, selling season tickets for the Clippers in the next 5 or 10 years will be discounted by 20% or less. It's also a way to raise money to deplete your future box office cash flow to build a new arena. If the Clippers have a good enough record, these packaged five-, 10 or even 20-year season tickets will not sell. ”

Min Congda made a little sense, thinking that the Yankees did have many ways to raise money, and it was worthy of being an old capitalist country, and everything could be securitized.

Even the tickets can be packaged and sold as financial products, raising a large amount of money for real estate construction.

These multi-year season ticket packages may still be circulating in the market in the future, and the price will even rise and fall.

For example, this year, someone spent $20,000 to buy the Clippers' regular season ticket package for the next 10 years, and after watching it for a year, he didn't want to support the Clippers, or he was moving out of Los Angeles and wanted to transfer it.

If the Clippers have a good record, maybe the nine-year regular season ticket package will not only not depreciate, but will also appreciate, selling for $30,000 or even $40,000.

If the Clippers don't have a good record and become a fish belly team, then the season ticket package will definitely depreciate, and when the Clippers rebuild to the bottom team in 5 or 6 years, then this season ticket package may be worth $2,000 or 3,000.

"In 5 or 6 years, the Clippers will definitely go bankrupt! Why do you want to go so far? However, this is indeed a good financing method, and it can ruin the cash flow of the Clippers for a long time in the future, which is a great benefit to bankruptcy! ”

Min Congda weighed it and thought it was a good way to raise money.

Box office revenue has always been a very important source of cash for team management.

And this financing method is undoubtedly a one-third to one-half of the Clippers' future cash flow at one time.

This will be a huge test for the team's operation and debt repayment, and once the Clippers have problems in operation, huge debts and shrinking cash flow will quickly put the team on the verge of bankruptcy.

Min Congda became excited all of a sudden, 1.2 billion US dollars, two-thirds of which became liabilities, and one-third compressed the team's cash flow, which was simply a bankruptcy combination punch!

Because Shelly Sterling was also there, Min Congda did not immediately agree to Anschutz, but politely asked Shelly what he meant.

Shelly whispered, "So the team's cash flow will be in trouble, right?" ”

Min Congda had already thought of his rhetoric and said: "Although box office revenue is very important, I think the Clippers will be able to obtain revenue from more channels in the future, and the proportion of dependence on the box office will be reduced, so it is better to spend this large amount of money in advance." Besides, once the new arena is built, we can sell more tickets. ”

Min Congda's words have some truth, and the three of them discussed it together again, thinking that this plan is indeed feasible.

Anschutz is also very willing to help, and as the owner of the Stamp Center, he has the channels and team to handle such a special job in terms of ticket sales and publicity.

He also put forward a condition, "I hope I can get a ticket to invest in the new arena, as well as some of my friends." ”

Anschutz gave such good financing advice and provided relevant help, of course, in order to get a piece of the pie.

Both Shelly and Min Congda agreed.

Shelly became more and more convinced that the construction of the new arena would be a great project to change the Clippers.

And Min Congda began to be a little suspicious, "Damn, are these rich people stupid?" Why rush to pitch this arena? Are you so optimistic about the Clippers? No, I must want to wait for the Clippers to go bankrupt in the future, so as to share the assets of the Clippers! It looks like I'm going to spend my money on the best of the best and build a good gymnasium. If you can overspend, even better. ”

The halftime break ended quickly and the third quarter began.

The first offense of the Thunder at the beginning of the third quarter, Kevin Durant received the ball in the high post, broke through, and threw the ball high to Ibaka, who cut into the block, and scored a relay dunk in the air!

It can be seen that the Thunder and Durant did not give up their established tactical strategy, that is, to use Durant's passing to drive the team's offense, and stay up until the fourth quarter and then turn on the matchless mode.

However, Curry immediately took a pass from Harden and hit a three-point shot.

Then Durant's pass on offense was tackled by Paul George.

The Clippers counterattacked, Harden made a long pass to the basket, and Curry received the ball and picked up a layup.

Harden and Curry, sometimes Harden is more of a point guard and Curry is more of a shooting guard.

Westbrook immediately hit the basket and made a layup to stop the bleeding for the Thunder.

Harden immediately hit a mid-range jumper to score two points.

Durant still wants to slow down and respond with the ball in the ribs.

With his ability to respond, the Clippers hit a pinch, the ball was in a hurry, and was stealed by Gasol Jr.!

Gasol Jr. made a long pass to the frontcourt, and Curry relied on his defensive position to rush to the front court to receive the ball.

Hold the ball, accelerate, break through, withstand Westbrook who follows the defense, hit the board with a light pick-and-roll, and score two more points!

In just 2 minutes, Curry scored 7 points in a row, as if he was provoking Durant.

"Don't pretend, don't pass, let's score, let's have a good fight."

"Isn't basketball a game of scoring?"

(End of chapter)