The Rockets, who swept the Thunder 4-0, once again became the first team to stand out in the series.

However, unlike the fierce battle in the first round, the second round was not so difficult in comparison.

Another set of matchups on the Western side, Warriors vs Grizzlies does not have much pressure, as predicted before the game, although the Grizzlies have an inside twin towers of black and white, and the inside line has an absolute advantage, but Gasol Jr. and Zach. Randolph is a heavy interior lineman, slow on his feet, and in the face of the Warriors' sacrifice of the death five, it is easy to be completely dragged down by the opponent's rapid offensive and defensive transitions.

Even if the Warriors are dragged into a positional battle by the Grizzlies, they can also send Cousins and Bogut two interior centers to fight against black and white.

The difference in lineup and overall strength has brought the score of the two teams to 3:1, and the Warriors, who have the match point and are about to return to their home court, can basically close the game 4:1.

On the other side, the two sets of matchups in the East, the Hawks 3:1 Hornets and the Cavaliers 3:1 Raptors, are also leading by a large score and winning is imminent.

This season's second round is much easier than ever, and to put it another way, the top two teams in the East and West have been too dominant in their respective divisions.

The two 65+ winning teams in the West aside, in the face of this gang of hooligans in the West, the Hawks were able to achieve a 58-win record, and four players were selected at the All-Star time, and the overall strength was already quite good, while the Cavaliers did not perform well, but the lineup is currently one of the most luxurious in the league, three NBA champions partnered with two All-Star players, the strength should not be underestimated, and more importantly, the butterfly effect really brought too much convenience to the Cavaliers.

So far in the playoffs, the Cavaliers have not missed a single team, unlike another time and space, in the first round Love dislocated his arm for the season, and in the next two rounds Irving was also injured, and by the time of the Finals, James became the commander of the bare pole and could only stand against the Warriors on his own.

The second round of the East and West ended up with the Warriors 4:1 Grizzlies, the Cavaliers 4:1 Raptors, and the Hawks 4:2 Hornets.

In this way, the teams and the list of opponents in the Eastern and Western finals are clear.

The Rockets and Warriors, two 60-win teams in the regular season, met in the Western Conference finals and staged a strong matchup, and the Cavaliers vs Hawks game was also quite interesting.

The prediction of the Eastern Conference finals, most people are still more optimistic about the Cavaliers, even if the regular season record is not good, but a long season has made the Cavaliers' roster run-in a little better, and the playoffs have always been a place to watch the stars play, and the Cavaliers with James obviously have an advantage over the Hawks with an all-civilian lineup.

And the prediction of the Western Conference Finals, of course, is the Rockets.

At this time, most fans still don't know how strong the Warriors are, although the Warriors won 65 wins in the regular season, and eliminated the Spurs and Grizzlies in the playoffs one after another, but the inertia of thinking still makes people generally think that the overall strength and stability of the Warriors are much inferior to the Spurs, and the Thunder.

The pre-game media gave a score prediction of 4:1 for the two teams, and they are very optimistic that the Rockets can defeat the Warriors by a big score.

But Wang Chao will not underestimate the Warriors, before the start of this season, he already knew that the two biggest opponents of the Rockets this season are the Cleveland Cavaliers with a drastic change in the lineup, and the other is the Warriors with Curry Thompson's successive rises.

As long as they can beat these two teams, this season's championship is within reach.

Before the East-West finals began, the league was the first to announce the season awards.

The rookie of the 2014-15 season was Joel of the Cavaliers. Embiid, his average data per game is 15.7 points, 8.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks, and the corresponding is Andrew Wiggins, who was selected by the Bucks, although he averages 17.2 points per game, he scores more points than Embiid, but he is worse in rebounding and defense, plus Embiid plays next to James, the exposure is higher, and the data is not inferior to Wiggins, and the best rookie naturally comes to him.

The Sixth Man of the Year went to Louis of the Raptors. Williams, who averaged 15 points per game with the Raptors this season and is a standard bench bandit, is just the beginning of his Sixth Man of the Year award, and he will go on to win two more Sixth Man of the Year awards.

The Most Improved Player award was not given to Jimmy as it was in the course of history. Butler.

Different from the counterattack journey in the Bulls, Butler has been the focus of the team in the past few years with the Rockets, and Wang Chao has invested no less resources and energy in him than Leonard, so the whole league can see that Butler is gradually getting stronger step by step, until this season he won honors such as All-Star bench and best three teams, and officially became a star.

It's hard to get the Most Improved Player award again, as he's getting better every season.

As a result, the league chose to present the award to the Rockets' veteran, Isaiah. Thomas.

Thomas Jr. was poached by the Celtics last summer.

Rajan. Rondo's form has been up and down in recent years, and his arrogant personality has caused him to have conflicts with the team's management and teammates.

So not long after the season began, the Celtics traded Rondo away and put Thomas Jr. as the team's starting point guard.

However, even the Celtics management himself did not expect that Thomas Jr., who became the starting point guard, actually showed extremely good scoring ability, occupying a large number of balls in the team when there were no other strong scoring points in the team, and the average points per game went all the way up, to 21.6 points and 5.5 assists, and the shooting rate was 43%, which was unexpectedly good.

It was with the tactical arrangement around Thomas Jr. that the Celtics successfully returned to the playoffs after finishing last season's record in the East, and although it was only a first-round tour, it was also beginning to embark on a road of revival for the Green Army.

Although Thomas Jr. often acted as a bench bandit when he was in the Rockets, he often played good statistics in the face of some teams that couldn't guard against small fast guards, but the Rockets had too many talents, especially after Wang Chao changed to point guard, Thomas Jr. didn't play much in terms of playing time or the number of shots on the court, and his average score per game was only about 10 points.

Even so, this small player who is only 1.75 meters tall has already brought too many surprises to the league, making many people realize that even the height of ordinary people can play in the NBA.

No one expected that Thomas Jr., who went to the Celtics, would be able to play a star-level stat of 21.6 points and 5.5 assists per game in the regular season.

The award for Best Sixth Man went to Thomas Jr. naturally.

After the Sixth Man of the Year is the Best Coach award, which is being chased primarily by the Eagles' Mike. Budenholzer and the Warriors' Steve Brown. Kerr, both of whom have led the team to excellent results this season, and although Kerr's Warriors have a better record, the best coach award was finally awarded to Budenholzer.

There are many reasons, the first point is that although the Warriors have a higher record than the Hawks, the Hawks are first in the East, and the Warriors are second in the West.

The second point is that the Warriors were already the top team in the league last season, with Curry, Cousins, Thompson, Iguodala and many other stars in the team, and they are strong, but the Hawks are not, the Hawks, who mainly play team basketball, only have 4 players selected as All-Stars this season, and there is no player on the team who averages more than 20 points per game.

All that said, Cole wasn't wronged at all in losing to Budenholzer in the Coach of the Match contest.

After all of these messy season awards, there are two of the biggest awards of the season.

The first is the crowning honor for blue-collar players, the Best Defensive Player award DPOY.

The player who won the Defensive Player of the Year award in the 14-15 season was none other than Wang Chao.

With an average of 12.4 rebounds, 2.2 steals and 1.2 blocks per game, Wang Chao won the best defensive player for the second time in his career.

When he learned that the Best Player Award was awarded to him, even Wang Chao was slightly stunned.

Although his performance on the defensive end this season is still among the top few in the league, he is nowhere near as attentive and serious as last season, so he is not unbeatable when it comes to high-level defensive statistics, and there are many players who can go toe-to-toe with him, such as his teammates, Leonard, who has grown up and shown great dominance on the defensive end.

In the selection of the best defensive player, in addition to Wang Chao, the shortlisted players include Leonard of the Rockets and Drummond of the Warriors. Green, Clippers' DeAndrew. Jordan.

Wang Chao received very close votes to Leonard and Green, and it can be said that he won the whistle, but no matter what the process is, being selected is being elected.

With this Best Defensive Player award, Wang Chao became the first Sidney to win this award since the DPOY award appeared. Outside of Moncliffe, he is the second perimeter player to win two consecutive Defensive Player of the Year awards.

It's just that Wang Chao himself is not very happy to get this award, he knows that in the selection of this award, the league is likely to be tricky, otherwise Leonard and Green have every chance to compete with themselves, and most of the media who evaluate the award are more inclined to vote for a player who has never won this award.

Now that the league has awarded itself the Best Defensive Player award, in a way, it can be regarded as a consolation in disguise.

Comfort what? The MVP of the regular season, of course.

As mentioned earlier, the best defensive player is only the crowning award for blue-collar players, and no top superstar will find this award of much value, and getting it is just the icing on the cake.

What really measures the level and value of a superstar is the Most Valuable Player Award, which is the regular season MVP.

For the past five years, Wang Chao has monopolized the award, and every season he has been able to perform with near-perfect individual performances and the team's superb record, making this award a no-brainer.

The five-consecutive regular season MVP is also an important basis for Wang Chao to establish his personal historical status.

Typically, when evaluating a player's historical status, individual accolades are combined with team accolades.

The highest honor of team honor is the NBA championship and Finals FMVP, while the highest individual honor is the regular season MVP.

The reason why Jordan can rank first in the history of the league is because he has 5 regular season MVPs, 6 championships and 6 FMVPs, and the hard honors are impeccable, supplemented by a bunch of honors such as scoring champions, first-team teams, and first-defense on this basis, creating the title of basketball god.

And the future LeBron. James, with 4 regular season MVPs, 4 championships, 4 FMVPs, especially after catching up with Abdul-Jabbar in career total points, was evaluated by major media as the existence of historical status second only to Jordan, and the reason is the same.

There are many people who think that James is too utilitarian, and the triumvirate of the group takes a shortcut to win the championship and is not worthy of participating in the historical ranking status, and some people even rank out of the top ten in his historical status, but his personal opinion is a personal opinion, at least in the ranking of the vast majority of mainstream media, James is firmly in the position of the second person in history, which is an indisputable fact.

Some people even more ridiculously believe that James can get four MVPs, completely relying on the media and the league to make stars, including the second position in history The ranking is also in operation of the league, and its own strength is not worthy of such an honor, so the question is, who is the biggest beneficiary of the NBA league's star making?

Michael, of course. Jordan.

David. In order to bring out a phenomenal star, Stern takes care of Jordan meticulously, and even the Bulls' salary cap can ignore Jordan's salary, Jordan's salary in the 96-97 season is as high as 30.14 million! At that time, the league's salary cap was only $24.36 million, and Jordan's salary alone was higher than the combined salary of most teams in the league at that time.

Of course, Jordan's strength is also fully worthy of this price.

Kobe Bryant is also a typical example of the league, in the 2007-08 season, Kobe's only regular season MVP was the product of the league's operation, when the league's best record was the Celtics' Big Three, and the highest contribution to the team's victory and efficiency value was the Cavaliers' James, the second was the Hornets' Paul, Kobe Bryant could only rank eighth in the efficiency value list, but it was Kobe Bryant who finally won the regular season MVP crown.

Data can't represent everything, but the efficiency value list is the most intuitive data that reflects a player's performance, James's four regular season MVPs are all players with the highest efficiency value of the season at that time, why is the player with the highest efficiency value in the league elected MVP the league's hard win, there is moisture, and the player whose efficiency value can only rank eighth in the league deserves to win the MVP?

The topic is far away, whether James, who has four crowns and four MVPs, is the second in history, this question must be something that has been debated for a long time, some people think yes, some people think no, the two sides quarrel with each other, and no one can convince the other.

But at least in this book, the question doesn't need to be dwelled up too much.

At present, James, who only has one championship and one MVP, has only hovered around 20 in history, and the players who can be ranked in this position are all top superstars in history without exception, but compared with what James should have achieved, it is obviously a cloud of mud.

(It's almost the end of the month, so ask for a wave of monthly passes.) ）

(End of chapter)