After the first game, in the second game of the series on May 3, he only played about 14 minutes, shooting 2 of 6, and only scored 5 points.

Seeing this scene, the Rockets decisively replaced Da Yao and began to increase the playing time of the Death Five.

The Rockets' Death Five lineup is no longer appropriate to describe as a super five forward because of the addition of a guard, but the average height of the lineup has not been affected much.

The Thunder are not a team that is good at attacking inside, Adams is a good player at grabbing rebounds, and his offensive ability with the ball is about zero, and his best rebounding is not advantageous compared with Wang Chao, who has the talent and skill of a rebounding maniac.

Switching to a super-fast offensive and defensive state, the two teams staged an extreme confrontation.

It stands to reason that the Thunder are not afraid of small-ball tactics, Westbrook himself is a master of chaos, and the mobility of the two big men Durant and Ibaka is not bad.

In the future in the 15-16 season, the Warriors, who were invincible in the regular season and won 73 wins, almost overturned in the gutter on the stage of the Western Finals, and after 4 games in the Western Finals, the Thunder took the lead in obtaining the match point 3:1, pouring cold water on the Warriors fans who had just surpassed the Jordan Bulls' 72-win regular season record and had reached the sky.

They didn't even react to why the team they were proud of was simply beaten by the Thunder with a big score of 3:1?

But Cole saw it, because of the Death Five.

The Warriors were invincible in the regular season, and they were completely difficult to play against the Thunder.

You can run, the Thunder can run better than you, and in the quick transition between offense and defense, the Warriors have absolutely no one who can keep up with Westbrook.

In the three games he won, Westbrook recorded a big triple-double of 27 points and 12 assists, 33 points and 36 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, respectively.

Fortunately, the Warriors fans didn't understand, but the team's head coach Steve Brown. Cole understood.

The Thunder are not afraid of the Warriors' death five-man lineup at all, and Westbrook and Durant are both players who are very suitable for small-ball offense.

Therefore, in the fifth game of life and death, Kerr decisively gave up the death five lineup and reused Bogut, who played less than 15 minutes per game in the previous four games, played 30 minutes in this game, and with him guarding the basket, Westbrook was immediately not good.

Willis' individual ability is indeed the top level of guards in the league, but he has always had a fatal weakness, which is the lack of three-point shooting.

As a guard, especially a guard in the small-ball era, not being able to shoot three-pointers is a very fatal weakness, because when the opponent has a heavy center pestle under the basket, Westbrook, who can't shoot from a distance, can only choose to rush to the basket and hit big.

Bogut's defensive ability at that time was quite strong, and he was selected for the best defensive second team.

As a result, Westbrook shot 11-of-28 in Game 5, although he still had 31 points, 7 rebounds and 8 assists, but his shooting rate was less than 40%, and there were 7 turnovers.

Then the Thunder was beaten by the Warriors three times in a row, leading from 3:1 to being reversed 3:4, which broke the mentality of Thunder fans and Durant's mentality.

At the end of this season, Durant decisively left the Thunder and chose to embark on an extremely "difficult" path, joining the Golden State Warriors team he had witnessed how strong they were.

Later, many people excused Durant, saying that the reason why Durant gave up on himself and joined the Warriors was all Westbrook's fault, if it wasn't for his hip pull in the Western Conference finals, which caused the Thunder to lose and chill Durant, Durant would not necessarily run to the Warriors.

But in Wang Chao's opinion, this is a bit unreasonable.

To tell you the truth, Westbrook's performance in the final three games of the Western Conference finals was a bit stretched, but did you Durant perform well?

G5: 12-of-31 shooting, 38.7% shooting.

G6: 31-of-31 shooting 32.3 percent from the field.

G7: 10 of 19 shots, with a shooting rate of 52.6%, he finally returned to normal play, but he only had 27 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists in the whole game.

If you are like the bald man in the East, who can score 40+ points in two consecutive games in the battle of life and death G5 and G6 in the case of 1:3 in the finals, and the shooting rate can still be maintained at about 55%, then won't the Warriors go home early?

The result is good, Curry's fans discuss the strongest argument when Curry is better than James, and the topic of winning James 3 times in the Finals has to be debated with Durant fans about who the boss of the Warriors is in 17 and 18 years.

At that time, the Warriors were signing any All-Star caliber player at the small forward position, such as Paul. George, Jimmy. Butler even re-signed Harrison. Barnes and the Cavaliers may not be opponents, after all, the 16 Finals 1:3 shocking turnaround occupied the right time and place, and if you do it all over again, it will be difficult for the Cavaliers to reproduce that kind of turnaround, the two consecutive championships still belong to the Warriors, and even if there is no impact of Durant's injury in 19, it is impossible for the Warriors to win three consecutive championships.

As for the Houston Rockets, the winner of the best resistance award in those two years, it may not be impossible to win without Durant, after all, although the total score of the Western Conference finals, the two teams are very close to 4:3, but all the games that the Warriors win are all wins with a double-digit score, but the Rockets won 3 games, 2 of which are within 5 points, so the two teams seem to be evenly matched, but in fact, there is still a big gap in strength, even if Durant is replaced by an All-Star small forward who averages 20+ points per game, There is also a great possibility of defeating the rocket.

The topic is far away.

Back in the game, the small-ball lineup was against each other, and Westbrook and Durant on the Thunder's side both scored 30+ points, and the shooting percentage was also very high.

But the Rockets are not the Warriors, and their small-ball tactics are fundamentally different from the Warriors, and the biggest difference is the existence of the main core offensive player Wang Chao.

While the three-point shot is more accurate than Curry, Wang Chao is taller than Curry, stronger than Curry, and his ability to break through the basket with the ball completely overwhelms Curry, and even faster than Curry in terms of speed!

When the Thunder faced the Warriors, they could let Westbrook mark Curry, but in the face of the Rockets' Wang Chao, they had no choice but to watch Wang Chao score like chopping melons and vegetables.

After scoring 29 points symbolically in the first game, Wang Chao broke out strongly in the second game, shooting 18 of 31 from the field, cutting a super triple-double of 46 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, leading the Rockets to defeat the Thunder 127-119 and leading the overall score 2-0.

On May 7, the third game of the series, the Thunder on their home court desperately wanted to win a game at home, and they were indeed close to winning this game, but unfortunately it was just a little bit close.

Not only did Durant and Westbrook play normally in this game, but the Thunder's bench backup point guard Jeremy Murphy was on the bench. Lamb also had a great help, shooting 5-of-6 from three-point range and scoring 25 points from the field.

But that's it, the Thunder team is still difficult to win, they were always in the lead in the first three quarters of the game, but in the fourth quarter of the game, the situation took a turn for the worse, Wang Chao scored consecutive points in the final moments, and when the Thunder needed Durant to step up and score, the latter missed key shots one after another.

With 37 seconds left before the end of the game, Wang Chao hit a three-point shot from outside the three-point line with the help of his teammates to block and cover, officially helping the team to overtake by one point.

Then Durant's mid-range jumper was interfered with by Leonard and missed, Wang Chao protected the rebound, and with less than 20 seconds left in the game when he was down by 1 point, the Thunder could only choose a tactical foul to send Wang Chao to the free throw line.

Wang Chao, who made all 2 free throws, turned the difference into 3 points.

The Thunder struggled with the question of who would make the final shot, and finally chose to trust Durant, the team's top scorer, rather than hand it over to Lamb, who had the most accurate three-point shot in the whole game.

As a result, outside the three-point line, Durant missed a difficult three-point pull, burying the team's last chance to turn the tables.

At 113:116, the Rockets won one more game, and the overall score came to 3:0, and the Thunder were about to be swept away.

In fact, at the last moment of this third game, Durant can't be completely blamed for missing repeatedly.

Originally, Durant has always had a lack of physical fitness, he played very well in this game, scoring 32 points in the first three quarters, but in the fourth quarter, the fatigue accumulated in front of him began to make his shooting percentage begin to decline, after all, Durant's opponent is Leonard.

Wang Chao has not directly opposed Durant in this series, even if he can be regarded as the most "familiar" with Durant, the player who is the most effective in defending him, or even one of them.

But the Thunder team itself is not the opponent of the Rockets, and they can't even be called "fierce rivals", so it is just right to train other players, and the current score of 3:0 also proves the gap between the two teams.

In the case of 3:0, in fact, Wang Chao is not too obsessed with whether he can win the Thunder team in the fourth game, even if he tactically lets go of this game and returns to his home court to defeat the opponent again.

It's just that Wang Chao thinks so, but Da Yao doesn't think so.

On the one hand, he didn't want to make a fuss, and on the other hand, Perkins's revenge was not over yet!

On May 9th, the big move CD turned two games, and Da Yao, who had completed the cooling reading, opened up again, scoring 27 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks in the whole game, helping the Rockets beat the Thunder 108-101 and completing a 4-0 sweep of the Thunder.

The Thunder became only the second team to be swept out of the tournament by the Rockets this season.

This series can be called an offensive battle between the two teams, and the players on both sides score very highly.

Wang Chao's average triple-double data of 34.3 points, 11.6 rebounds and 10.3 assists per game is very luxurious and exaggerated, and Durant on the Thunder's side is not far behind, averaging 31.7 points, 8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game in 4 games, unilaterally breaking Leonard, who is opposite him.

It turns out that although Leonard is alone in the league with a one-move death entanglement, he is better than him in height and arm span, and the effect of Durant, whose main offensive means is mid-range shooting, has been greatly weakened.

Westbrook's efficiency is not low, although the shooting percentage in one game is slightly stretched, but the average of 26 points, 7 rebounds and 11 assists per game in four games has been the shadow of the triple-double king per game for three consecutive seasons.

In the final analysis, the Thunder's roster structure is too thin, lacking a sufficiently rigorous tactical system core, and can only focus on Durant and Westbrook The frequent singles have become the main reason for limiting the team's ceiling.

Originally, the Thunder had an optimal solution to this problem, and that was Harden, the best sixth man on the bench.

When Durant and Westbrook can't solve the problem with the ball alone, Harden, who comes off the bench, can often control the game with his individual ability, organize the team, and help the team win a lot of games.

It's a pity that the Thunder team gave away this optimal solution in vain, and it can only be said that time is also fate.

With the current salary space of the Thunder, it is not very likely that the third star will be introduced next season to expand the team's lineup, and then it can only be driven by the dual core of Durant and Westbrook, and it may still be difficult to make a difference in the playoffs.

After all, Wang Chao was born, and the two players who were hurt the most were James and Durant.

What should have been four MVPs and two championships has now become one MVP and one championship.

Another four scoring champions plus an MVP that should have been there are now nothing.

With empty hands, except for a few best teams and an All-Star MVP, Durant, who has no hard honors, is really not sure whether the pursuit of the championship is still as eager as it was original.

(End of chapter)