In last season's Western Finals, Wang Chao was the main defense against Durant, and Wang Chao's defensive effect was quite good, although he failed to completely prevent Durant, but he also managed to slightly curb his offensive efficiency and shooting percentage.

After a year, Wang Chao once again defended Durant, and the latter immediately noticed the difference, and he became more difficult!

Originally, Durant's advantage in the face of Wang Chao was smaller than that of other small forwards, after all, Wang Chao was 2.06 meters tall, and the gap between Wang Chao and Durant, who was 2.11 meters tall, was relatively small among small forwards, at least much stronger than most forwards in their early 2 meters.

In terms of static talent, Wang Chao himself is the top level in the league, and now the dynamic talent has also reached the top through the training efforts of the day after tomorrow, in a sense, Wang Chao is currently the most suitable player in the league to defend Durant, who is tall and good at long-range shooting.

Durant, who was targeted by Wang Chao for defense, only hit one shot in four consecutive offensive shots, and the performance was extremely uncomfortable, while the Rockets seized this wave of opportunities and played a 12:2 offensive wave, and the second quarter of the game was not more than halfway through, and the difference between the two teams had gone straight to 20 points, just like the Mavericks and Nuggets in the first two rounds.

The Thunder called two timeouts in a row to try to stabilize the situation, but once the team started to rup, they couldn't stop it at all.

Durant's mentality was a little explosive by Wang Chao's defense, and the offense in the second half of the game was the same as Westbrook's, and he was already going to Wang Chao to go to Wang Chao with the ball, and he had to score on your head no matter whether the game was won or lost.

Wang Chao is naturally happy, he doesn't have the heart to compete with Durant, because now he is the top superstar in the league, standing above all the players, Durant is just a challenger for him, of course you can challenge me, but win the game first.

In the second quarter of the game, Durant shot 5 of 13 in a single quarter, 5 of 6 free throws, and scored 15 points and 4 rebounds in a single quarter, the Thunder scored 26 points in the second quarter, and the Rockets scored 33 points.

At the end of the half, the score of the two teams was 67:48, and the Rockets entered the second half with a 19-point advantage.

Coming to the third quarter of the second half, the devil that the Thunder team was afraid of, Da Yao, came again.

In the entire second quarter of the game, Da Yao only played for less than 5 minutes, and did not attack with the ball as frequently as in the first quarter, the purpose was to save physical strength to take away the opponent in the third quarter of the game.

And when Da Yao, who was recuperated and full of physical strength, began to show his lethality under the basket again, the Thunder team could not withstand the indiscriminate bombardment of the Rockets at all.

Halfway through the third quarter, the difference between the two teams has gone straight to 30 minutes, and Durant is the only one on the Thunder's side who is still trying to save the decline by scoring in vain.

Wang Chao, Da Yao and other main players did not play for even a minute in the final fourth quarter of the game, even if the unwilling Thunder team did not replace the main lineup, they still sent a bench lineup first, but Leonard and Butler, the two young main players, continued to stay on the court to hone their game experience.

Then something happened that made the whole Thunder team feel hopeless.

When the Rockets started the fourth quarter of the game, they fielded Thomas Jr., Butler, Leonard, Chandler. When Parsons and Whiteside averaged only 23 years old, the Thunder's main lineup only caught up with four points in three minutes.

This young squad has a big problem defensively, and Chandler is a big problem. Although Parsons has the height of an interior player, he does not have the tonnage of an interior player, and can only play the outside position of a small forward in the strict sense.

After this season's training, Whiteside has made some progress, but the progress is very limited, because Wang Chao did not raise his relationship with Whiteside to more than 60 until the middle of the season through various methods such as entertaining guests and sending gifts, so that he can enjoy the bonus effect of the sparring potion.

Wang Chao can also be regarded as convinced, perhaps because Whiteside has played in the league for two seasons, and has only won 19 appearances in two seasons, and has tasted the warmth and coldness of the world, and the relationship value has improved very slowly, which also leads to the fact that the current Whiteside is not a nostalgic god after two years, and can only be used as a substitute blue-collar center, appearing in garbage time, whether it is rebounding or defense, he is still very immature.

As for Isaiah. Not to mention Thomas, who is 1.75 meters tall, no matter how hard he tries to defend, he is a defensive black hole on the field, not to mention that he doesn't put too much energy into the defensive end at all.

After these three bench players came on the floor, the Rockets' defensive efficiency plummeted, and whether it was Durant, Westbrook or even Ibaka, they could demand it on the offensive end.

But even so, the Thunder still couldn't easily catch up with the point difference, because they couldn't prevent the Rockets' offense.

The main offensive tactic of this Rockets lineup is to break through around Thomas Jr., and Whiteside helps Thomas Jr. block and break through the offensive basket with the ball to create damage.

And the three positions of the shooting guard and forward, Butler, Leonard and Chandler. Parsons is a highly mobile player with the ball, and when the team is in a huge lead and has a rainbow of momentum, he is not timid against the main lineup of the Thunder.

About 5 minutes into the fourth quarter, the Thunder chose to replace all the main players.

After catching up with a total of 6 points in 5 minutes, there are still more than 20 points left, is it necessary to humiliate yourself?

At 119:97, the Rockets beat the Thunder by 22 points at home, which is still a favorite three-quarter check-in game, and the Thunder team is indeed no different from the opponents encountered by the Rockets in the first two rounds, and the difference in strength is also very different from the Rockets.

This was completely unexpected by Wang Chao.

Compared with last season, which is the 11-12 season, the Thunder team has obviously become weaker, and Harden's presence is really important to the Thunder team, not Kevin at all. Martin or now O.J. Mayo can be compared.

Giving up Harden for a mere 5 million is an absolutely unbearable loss for the Thunder, and it also makes them completely unequipped with the capital to compete with the Rockets.

Especially in the fourth quarter of the game, when Westbrook and Durant were all on the court, the Thunder team once played with the Rockets as the second team, which was difficult for anyone to accept.

Throughout the game, Durant scored a game-high 33 points, but under Wang Chao's defense,

"Facts have proved that the strength of the Rockets this season is indeed a phenomenon in the history of the league, even with the 72-win Bulls in 96, it is completely powerful, and it may even be better! After all, the Rockets not only have Wang Chao, whose offensive scoring ability is not inferior to Jordan's, but also has two top stars on the inside, Da Yao and Garnett. ”

One game is enough for everyone to see the difference in strength between the two teams, and a large number of media expressed their opinions on the first game of the Western Conference finals on the same day, and almost all of them were optimistic about the Rockets' elimination of the Thunder by a big score.

There are also people who praise Wang Chao's effectiveness in marking Durant in the game.

"This season, Wang Chao was selected as the best defensive team definitely not because of the benefits brought by the Rockets' overall defense, his own defensive ability has indeed reached the top level of the league, especially in the second quarter of the game to mark Durant, Wang Chao's defense can be called a textbook level, although Durant cut the highest score in the game, but the shooting rate is only in the early 40%, the efficiency is not high, and a large part of the score comes from the fourth quarter of the game where Wang Chao is not on the court."

"As the player with the most outstanding scoring ability in the league, Durant is often the best template to compare with Wang Chao, but it turns out that Durant still has a way to limit on the defensive end, but Wang Chao is different, and the entire league can't find any defensive player who can lock Wang Chao."

——

On May 21, the second game of the series continued at the Toyota Center, the home of the Rockets, and in this game, the Thunder clearly fully learned the lessons of the previous game, and both Durant and Westbrook remained rational and did not act impulsively in the face of the Rockets' targeted defensive traps.

Especially Durant, when Wang Chao ran to defend him alone, Durant resisted the urge to go one-on-one with Wang Chao and began to call his teammates to cover the block, which was outstanding, and Durant's shooting percentage in the second game skyrocketed.

But even so, the Thunder still couldn't win this game.

It's obvious that a player is efficient in scoring and doesn't directly influence the game.

Although Durant scored 31 points on 51 percent shooting in this game, it was still not enough to help the Thunder win the game.

On the Rockets' side, Wang Chao scored 35 points and shot 54% from the field, which was higher than Durant.

Not only that, Da Yao scored 26 points again in this game, and the Thunder team still had nothing to do with Da Yao under the basket, unless Perkins came to abolish Da Yao with a step like last year, it was impossible to prevent it.

It's a pity that this year's Da Yao is not the same as last year, the system must be a high-quality product, with the protection of the protective knee pads, it is impossible for Da Yao to be injured on the court, at least under normal basketball movements, if someone insists on a bar, try to take a chainsaw on the court to saw off one of Da Yao's legs, then when he didn't say.

Westbrook shot 6 of 14 from the field, 7 of 8 free throws, scored 19 points, 4 rebounds and 7 assists, and was already the best player on the Thunder side except for Durant, while the Rockets had six people scoring double-doubles, in addition to Wang Chao with 35 points, Da Yao with 26 points, Butler, Leonard, Garnett and Chandler. Parsons both scored in double figures, and although the process was not as easy as the first game, he managed to win the game.

At the end of the two games at the Rockets' home court, the series was 2-0, and the Rockets had the advantage and would travel to Oklahoma, the home of the Thunder, for Game 3 and Game 4 of the series.

For the Thunder, two games on their home court are already a no-brainer, and if they lose either of those games, their chances of winning the series will be very slim.

In fact, with a score of 2:0 at this time, the evaluation of major media shows that the chance of the Thunder team being able to turn defeat into victory and stand out from the Western Conference Finals is less than 1%, and the gap in strength between the two teams is visible to the naked eye, and it has reached the extent that it is not some luck or feel that can easily change the situation of the game.

On May 25, the Thunder was at home, and Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals was played as scheduled.

As people think, the Thunder still can't recover from the decline when they are sitting on their home court.

Although in the first quarter of the game, relying on Durant and Westbrook to play successively, both of them scored 12 points in the first quarter of the game, leading the Thunder to score 36 points in a single quarter to take the lead.

But the Rockets did not panic when they were behind, around the outside core Wang Chao and the inside core Da Yao, playing steadily, eating away at the Thunder team's advantage little by little, and by halftime, the score difference between the two teams was only 5 points.

By the second half, the Thunder's score advantage had been completely eroded, and they began to gradually lose their ability to withstand the Rockets' indiscriminate bombardment.

In the fourth quarter of the game, the difference between the two teams unconsciously went up to double digits.

The Thunder's home fans desperately cheered for their team, but they could only watch the team fall short and bury the good game.

At 109:95, the Thunder lost another game, and the total score came to 3:0, which also completely announced that the Thunder team was out of the Western Conference Finals.

The only suspense at the moment is whether the Thunder will be ruthlessly swept out of the game by the Rockets 4-0, or can they win a game on their home court and keep the team's last dignity?

Faced with the culprit of their loss to the Finals last season, the Rockets didn't have any idea of letting go of the water.

On May 27th, in the fourth game of the Western Conference finals, in the face of the Thunder team, which had no fighting spirit and fought back completely for the sake of losing and not too embarrassing, the Rockets unceremoniously punched hard, and the Thunder collapsed in only one quarter of the game, Wang Chao and other main players completed the check-in achievement, with a total score of 112:94, and the Rockets completed a sweep against the Thunder team with a total score of 4:0, avenging last season's one-shot revenge.

In fact, last season, the Rockets also defeated the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals to enter the Finals. Perkins maliciously stepped on the foot, causing Da Yao to be injured and miss the finals.

In this round of the Western Conference finals, Perkins still used the rough defense of last season, and his feet were also not very clean, obviously wanting to repeat the old trick, but he couldn't succeed.

On the one hand, it is protected by Wang Chao's protective knee pads, and on the other hand, Da Yao eats a trench and grows wise, and he also knows that this product is not a good thing, so he naturally pays more attention to it during the game, and will not give Perkins a second chance to hurt himself.

With four crisp wins, the Rockets ended the Western Conference finals.

In these four games, Kevin Durant, who averaged 31.5 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6 assists per game, was the highest scorer of the two teams, although under Wang Chao's targeted defense, Durant's shooting rate was only 43.7%, far lower than the average shooting rate per game during the regular season, but the performance was still good, especially after the back began to use the blocking cover to avoid Wang Chao's defense, the efficiency skyrocketed, and the score was higher than Wang Chao, who averaged 28.2 points, 9.4 rebounds and 8.6 assists per game.

Of course, this does not mean that Durant's scoring ability surpasses Wang Chao, simply because there is a bit too much garbage time when the two teams play against each other, and Wang Chao's playing time is insufficient, and his personal data naturally declines.

(End of chapter)