This year's Team of the Year selection was not as controversial as last season's, with at least three All-Star 15 rosters well deserved, both in terms of team record and individual figures.

Just like a group of 5 players, Wang Chao and Howard don't need to say much, James and Kobe Bryant are both players who are among the best in the league in terms of statistics and team records.

Wade's team performance is slightly weaker, but in the guard position, except for Kobe, he can't pick a player who plays better than him, or with the current lineup of the Heat, it can enter the playoffs with the fifth place in the East, which is completely the credit of Wade alone.

The situation in the second and third teams is also similar, and the core players who can be selected are basically the core main players of their respective teams.

In addition to being selected for the first team, James and Howard were also selected for the best defensive team, and they were also selected for the Celtics' Rajan. Rondo and Gerrard of the Bobcats. Wallace.

Although Wang Chao began to train defense in the middle of the season and has made a lot of progress in the past half a year, after all, the original ability value base is too low, and it is impossible to directly improve to a very high level in a short period of time, let alone be selected for the best defensive team.

However, according to the current progress, in two seasons at most, with the accumulation of massive training potions, Wang Chao's defense can at least be improved to the first-class level of the league.

It has always been said before that defense is just the icing on the cake for top players, even if Wang Chao was not selected for the best defensive team, he still ranked first on the regular season MVP power list with his ultra-high-level performance on the offensive end, pressing James.

……

It's fast forward to May 1, the second round of the playoffs, and the division semifinals.

The Magic faced old rivals in the second round, the Boston Celtics.

In the first two seasons, both teams staged the pinnacle matchup in the East on the stage of the Eastern Conference finals.

But this season, the Celtics' regular season performance stretched their hips, allowing the two sides to move from the Eastern Conference Finals stage to the division semifinals.

After a season, the situation of the two teams is very different, and the Magic team is in full swing, not only with 70 wins in the regular season, but also with last season's championship.

On the other hand, the Celtics, in the third season of the formation of the Big Three, not only did they still not win the coveted championship, but even with the aging of the Big Three's roster structure, they couldn't even maintain their regular season record.

In fact, in the second half of the regular season, after finding that they were overtaken by the Hawks, the Celtics were very eager to catch up with the Hawks and try to avoid the Magic before the Eastern Conference finals.

However, at that time, the Big Three suffered frequent injuries, especially in the final period of the season, and the Big Three's physical fitness problems were also due to the long schedule, and in the end they had no choice but to settle for fourth place in the East and meet the Magic in the second round.

Entering the playoffs, the Green Army's Big Three no longer play dead, and the first round of facing the Heat, who are fifth in the East, can be described as a heavy punch. Allen averaged 20+ points per game, and Garnett averaged 15.8 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, regaining his defensive position.

The three old men punched Wade enough with an old fist.

Originally, according to the original historical development process, these three old hooligans had to continue to beat Wade's good brother James in the second round.

But now the situation has changed dramatically, and the Celtics' opponent has changed from the Cavaliers to the Magic, and the Magic are not as easy to knead as the Cavaliers.

In their first game on May 1, the Magic got off to a flying start by beating the Celtics 104-93 at home court.

The best player on the Celtics team was Rajan, who had 27 points, 6 rebounds and 12 assists. Rondo, with his top speed among guards in the league, Rondo frequently used the break to get past Nelson, who is not known for his speed, and because of his excellent touch in this game, even Howard couldn't stop Rondo from scoring under the basket.

Garnett's performance was not bad, and his main opponent in the match was Channing. Frye, in terms of outside projection, Frye is indeed very good, but not very good on the defensive end, especially in the face of Garnett's style of power forward, even if Garnett is no longer at his peak explosiveness and mobility, Frye wants to keep up with the opponent.

In the end, Garnett scored 18 points and 10 rebounds, becoming the second-highest scoring player on the Celtics team.

Thunder. Allen played the game in a decent way, scoring 15 points on 6-of-14 shooting and shooting 42.9 percent from the field.

The worst player in the Green Big Three was Paul. Pierce.

In the whole game, Pierce shot only 5 of 17, scored 13 points, 2 rebounds and 3 assists, and shot less than 30%.

Pierce's inability to play was the main reason why the Celtics lost the game, but the reason for Pierce's poor performance was completely unexpected.

In the whole game, it was Wang Chao who played against Pierce for the longest time.

Wang Chao's defensive ability is recognized by the league as average, although it is not a defensive hole, but it is not outstanding, at least when defending the league's first-class players, it is usually difficult to defend the opponent.

But in this game, Celtic was surprised to see a completely different Wang Chao.

Throughout the game, whenever Wang Chao stared at Pierce, the latter's performance seemed to be very struggling, even if he called to block and cover, it was difficult to get rid of Wang Chao's defense, and he repeatedly faced Wang Chao's defense and forced bad interference, and his shot deviated from the basket.

When did this guy's defensive footwork get so good?

When the game ended, Celtics head coach Doug Murphy Murphy was over. Rivers was shocked to realize that Wang Chao's defensive ability in the game was obviously far greater than before.

Of course, this is the result of Wang Chao's hard training for half a season, and Pierce himself is not very good with Wang Chao, so it is of course difficult to deal with it when he is caught off guard.

Pierce as a standard floor flow player, the offense mainly relies on mid-to-long-range shooting and rhythm changes, Wang Chao, who is 2.06 meters tall, faces Pierce, who mainly shoots and attacks, and has a great advantage on the defensive end, coupled with the speed and agility of 94, as long as the awareness is slightly better, he will not easily lose position.

While the defensive end successfully locked Pierce, Wang Chao continued to show super dominance on the offensive end.

The Celtics are a team with strong defensive ability, especially the defensive system built around Garnett is quite solid, unlike the Bulls faced in the first round, this game can not tolerate Wang Chao to relax, the whole game 21 shots 12 of 12, 4 of 9 three-pointers, 8 of 8 free throws Wang Chao cut 36 points, 5 rebounds and 11 assists of the double-double data, helping the Magic team win the first victory.

The defeat made Pierce very unhappy, and in the post-match press conference, he flatly denied that it was Wang Chao's defense that caused him to play poorly.

"This has nothing to do with Wang Chao, it's just because I'm not in good shape, and my previous sprain has always affected my state."

Pierce can only die with a hard mouth and use a long illness to shake the pot, but there are very few people who believe in him.

"In fact, since the second half of the regular season, Wang Chao's improvement on the defensive end has been very significant, and all the players he plays, whether they are top stars or ordinary role players, will have a significant reduction in shooting percentage, and simple defensive data cannot intuitively reflect Wang Chao's contribution on the defensive end."

According to an assistant coach of the Magic team, as early as December last year, Wang Chao added a large number of defensive training to his daily training, and the amount of training was amazing! Originally, I thought it was just the Magic team's rhetoric to praise Wang Chao, but now it seems to be true! Even though he has become one of the strongest scoring players in the league, Wang Chao has not stopped moving forward and is still getting stronger! ”

On May 3, the second game of the series, the Magic continued to win at home, beating the Celtics by 21 points 113-92!

In this game, the Celtics triumvirate collectively pulled their hips, Garnett 10 points and 5 rebounds, Ray Allen 9 points, 4 rebounds and 7 assists, and Pierce, who was previously known as just in poor condition and not affected by Wang Chao's defense, faced Wang Chao's defense again in this game and handed over an answer sheet of 8 shots and 3 shots, but this time Pierce was a little smarter, seeing that the shot was completely blocked by Wang Chao, he used the blocking and dismantling cover on the court many times to separate Wang Chao's defense and impact the basket, but created a lot of opportunities for defensive foul free throws, and made 10 of 10 free throws in the game, with 18 points.

It's just that this kind of play is obviously far from enough to help the Celtics win.

For the Magic, Wang Chao scored a game-high 28 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists, Howard had 21 points and 10 rebounds, Crawford had 14 points, and Nelson had 14 points......

At the end of the two games, the score was 2-0, just like last season's Eastern Conference Finals.

With two game wins, the Magic are heading to Boston's North Shore Garden Arena, the home of the Celtics, the league's famous home court, which is already a common occurrence for the Magic.

On May 7, in the trilogy game at the Celtics' home court, the Green Army finally regained some face, defeating the Magic 95-92 to pull one back and rewrite the overall score to 2:1.

But this game caused a lot of repercussions in the outside world.

The Celtics didn't win because the team played well, Pierce did bottom out in this game, scoring 28 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists in the game, becoming the biggest contributor to the Green Army's victory, but Pierce made 13 of 15 free throws in the whole game, and the Celtics and the Magic made 38 free throws to 26.

Howard played 29 minutes and left the court with six fouls, and other players, including Wang Chao, were fouled multiple times.

With the home whistle extremely favored, Celtic finally won a game at home and "defended" the dignity of the home team.

After the game, Magic head coach Stan. Van Gundy expressed strong dissatisfaction in an interview with reporters.

On the other hand, on the Celtics' side, especially Pierce, who relied on free throws to score 28 points in this game, was proud with a villainous expression.

"I've got my form back, the Magic can't stop me, and then it's our turn to blow the horn of the counterattack and win the series!"

When a reporter recorded Pierce's interview and turned his head to let Wang Chao listen to his feelings.

Listening to Pierce's arrogant voice in the recording, Wang Chao laughed.

"A clarion call for a counteroffensive? Let's wait and see! ”

What is the consequence of Wang Chao getting angry?

The answer was found two days later at the North Shore Garden Arena.

At the beginning of the fourth game, Wang Chao showed a strong desire to attack at the beginning, holding the ball to attack the frame without a shooting opportunity on the outside, and Garnett, who was responsible for guarding the inside, was stunned to find that Wang Chao's finishing ability under the basket suddenly improved a lot, and all kinds of difficult pull-up layups in the air could successfully create fouls even if they couldn't hit.

In the first quarter of the game alone, Wang Chao made 8 of 8 free throws and scored 17 points.

This is the ability that Wang Chao did not deliberately show during the regular season, walking in the air.

With the blessing of talent, Wang Chao's ability to stay in the air and finish in the air have reached the top level in the league, and he can even compete with well-known flyers such as Jordan and Kobe.

But during the regular season, Wang Chao didn't use this trick at all, just his projection ability outside the three-point line and his blocking and pick-and-roll cooperation with Howard were enough for him to steadily average 30+ points per game.

Of course, this kind of big move must be displayed in key occasions, such as the fourth game with the Celtics, once it is displayed, it must be vigorous and kill the opponent with one blow!

The whole league is looking down on the Celtics, only Wang Chao knows that the Celtics in the 09-10 season should not be underestimated, don't look at their poor performance during the regular season, especially in the second half, but that is all an illusion, when the game enters the playoffs, the Celtics' fangs are exposed.

In the original history, the Celtics eliminated the Cavaliers 4-2 in the division semifinals, defeated the Magic 4-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals, and successfully met the Lakers in the finals and fought 7 games, and the final score of the two teams in the last game was 83:79, and the final score of the two teams was not finally decided until the last minute.

This means that the Celtics' playoff strength is infinitely close to the Lakers, and they are definitely fierce rivals.

If you let your guard down because you win two home games, even the Magic will capsize in the gutter.

Therefore, in the fourth game, Wang Chao decided not to hide it anymore and used the trick he prepared for the Lakers in advance.

The Celtics were completely blinded by Wang Chao's offensive methods, and they never imagined that Wang Chao would actually play like Kobe, and the defensive strategy previously arranged for Wang Chao's outside shooting and blocking tactics was useless.

After the game entered the second quarter, the Celtics tried to change their defensive strategy to limit Wang Chao, but with little success.

Wang Chao, who is 2.06 meters tall, plays like Kobe, and his lethality is much more terrifying than Kobe Bryant's own.

That's what the Celts experience at this moment.

In the second quarter, Wang Chao scored another 11 points, and his personal score at halftime had reached 28 points, just equal to Pierce's full-court score in the last game.

Wang's offense completely disrupted the Celtics' defensive planning, which led to the collapse of the entire defensive system, and the Magic built a 20-point lead at halftime.

In the third quarter of the game, in front of Pierce, Wang Chao continued to fire on the outside, hitting 3 3-pointers and scoring 9 points.

As the game entered the fourth quarter, the Celtics were weak and could only watch the team lose the game.

(End of chapter)