The first win in the Eastern Conference is undoubtedly a shot in the arm for Nets fans, although they know that the Nets are the strongest team in the league this season, and the combination of Wang Chao and Durant is also flawless, but after all, the Eastern Conference finals are facing the defending champion Cavaliers, which are composed of three champions.

But this game made everyone's doubts disappear.

But all fans who have watched the whole game know that although the game between the two teams was very close, the Nets always occupied the initiative, whenever the Cavaliers tried to launch a counterattack, the Nets could immediately fight back, and lightly turned the Cavaliers' ferocious offense into invisibility.

The difference in strength is visible to the naked eye.

As long as there are no accidents such as injuries, the Cavaliers will not be able to beat the Nets no matter what.

And Wang Chao has long taken into account the hidden dangers of injury.

Durant's attendance rate for the Nets this season is not high, he only played 68 games in the regular season, as many as 14 games off in the rotation, and his average playing time has been maintained in the early 32 minutes per game.

On the court, Durant's offense is mostly based on mid- and long-range shooting, and he rarely kills under the basket to cause damage.

In fact, the Nets currently have players who frequently attack the frame, in addition to Wang Chao, only Harrell, Powell and others on the bench.

Wang Chao, who has taken every detail into account, has built the Nets into a solid foundation with almost no weaknesses.

This was confirmed again in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals series two days later.

In this game, which was also played at home, the Nets showed more dominance than in the G1 game.

In the first quarter of the game, the Nets bloomed more outside the three-point line, and even Jokic made a three-pointer, and the whole team scored 40 points in a single quarter, tearing the Cavaliers' defense to pieces.

In the second quarter, the Cavaliers strengthened their three-point defense against the outside, but they were still bombarded by the Nets for 31 points in a single quarter.

At halftime, the Nets had scored 71 points, while the Cavaliers only scored 44 points, a difference of 27 points!

When it was played like this at halftime, there was actually no suspense in the game.

In the third quarter of the game, the Cavaliers, who were unwilling to be defeated so badly, fought hard to catch up, and finally found their offensive rhythm, scoring 33 points in a single game, but the Nets still scored 30 points in a single quarter, and the difference was still as high as 24 points.

Therefore, in the fourth quarter of the game, the Cavaliers did not send their main players on the court at all, and the bench players played the last 12 minutes of the game, and the final score of the two teams was 130:99.

The Cavaliers lost to the Nets by 31 points on the road and were beaten mercilessly.

This game made the entire league sigh that the Nets were too strong.

Even the defending champion Cavaliers have been beaten so badly, who in the league can be the Nets' opponent?

However, the Cavaliers still have a slight chance, as long as they can win both home games after returning to the home court and tie the overall score to 2:2, they still have a chance to live.

But this kind of thing is too difficult for the Cavaliers, the problem is not the Cavaliers' own play, but how to limit Wang Chao and Durant at the same time.

In Game 3 of the series, the Cavaliers, who returned to their home court, decided to fight to the death, changing their defensive strategy in this game, abandoning their previous tactics of focusing on the defense of both Wang Chao and Durant, and instead desperately targeting one of the players.

They chose to target Durant.

There is no way, Wang Chao is the most familiar and good defensive strategy of the Cavaliers, so they also know very well that even in the face of the bag, Wang Chao can still play an extremely efficient performance, and they can at most let Wang Chao, who could have scored 50 points in a game, finally score 30 points.

Durant's words are different, although he has not wrapped Durant in previous games, but if you study Durant a little, it is clear that his ability to break the bag is not strong.

Despite the advantage of height and reach, Durant's physical confrontation ability is poor, and as an outside player, his dribbling, passing and other abilities are not at the top level in the league, so when facing the bag defense, whether it is holding the ball to break the bag or passing the ball to teammates, it is a bit difficult for Durant.

Of course, the Cavaliers know that the inclusion of Durant is only a palliative solution, and the main reason why they can't beat the Nets is that they can't limit the team's core Wang Chao.

But they really have no choice, no matter what, it is better to limit one Durant first than Wang Chao Durant and two people to break out at the same time and cut high scores, right?

Such a strategy really made them successful.

The game Paul. Gasol's playing time was drastically reduced and he was replaced by Tristan. Thompson and Embiid wrapped Durant together, shooting Durant 5-of-14 from the field and scoring just 15 points.

The Cavaliers finally struggled to pull one back at their home court, rewriting the overall score to 2:1.

Cavaliers fans rejoiced, cheering filled the entire Cavaliers home court.

"Well done, keep up the good work, win another game in the next game, equalize!"

"As long as they find a tactic against the Nets, they are not invincible!!"

Cavaliers fans were so happy because of this game, but the Nets and even Wang Chao's Chinese fans scolded the Cavaliers.

"Black Whistle! TM doesn't even want a face, it's the first time I've seen such a dark game! ”

"In order to make money, the alliance really dares to do anything without a bottom line? How can the whistle blow in the game be biased like this? There's really no one left. ”

That's right, when James and his Cavaliers were cornered by the Nets, the league started to pull back on the ground.

The referees have long been familiar with this set of business, and in the first quarter of the game alone, the free throw ratio between the two teams was 10:3.

The Nets' main center Jokic got 2 fouls early and went off the court to rest, which is one of the reasons why Durant was so blatantly packed, although Harrell who came off the bench was very mobile, he did not have Jokic's long-range shot, even if he received Durant's pass in the vacant position, he couldn't score at the first time.

At the end of the game, the free throws of both sides were 36:15, and the Cavaliers made 21 more free throws than the Nets, and turned the game around.

In the past, Wang Chao may have sprayed a few words in the post-match press conference to put some pressure on the league and the referee.

But this time, he didn't even bother to talk about it.

Even with the help of the referees, the Cavaliers are just surviving, and if they can win one game, it doesn't mean they can win two.

Just like when facing the five-star Warriors in the 16-17 season, with the help of the referees, the Cavaliers were still swept by a 4:1 gentleman.

Wang Chao thinks that the current Nets are stronger than the Durant version of the Warriors in the 16-17 season, because he alone is not comparable to Curry and Green, Booker and Bogdanovic can be compared to Thompson, Harrell and Powell on the bench are not inferior to Iguodala and Livingston, so in this way, the Nets have one more Jokic.

Therefore, the Cavaliers are not surprised, and they still cannot escape the result of being eliminated by a large score.

Wang Chao's conjecture is indeed correct.

Cavaliers fans were happy for just two days before experiencing despair on their home court.

The referee also favored the Cavaliers' side in this game, but the Nets' offense was too strong, and no matter how awesome the referee was, he couldn't blow the ball that the Nets threw into the basket, right?

Durant, who scored only 14 points in the last game, bottomed out in this game, and was also targeted by the bag, but scored 27 points with a 51% shooting rate, which was a shame.

As for Wang Chao, he was full of firepower, scoring 44 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists, of which more than half of the points came from outside the three-point line, and every ball was far away from the three-point line, not giving the referee a chance to play.

At 125:119, the Nets won the game on the road, rewriting the score to 3:1, gaining three match points, and declaring the Cavaliers dead.

It's not uncommon in NBA history to turn the game 3-1, but no one thinks the Cavaliers have that opportunity.

The Cavaliers really didn't have that chance.

In the fifth game of the series, back at home court, the Nets' efficient offense reappeared, defeating the Cavaliers 129-120 and defeating the Cavaliers 4-1 in total, officially eliminating the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers to enter the Finals.

In the 5 games of the Eastern Finals, the process can be described as uneventful, except for one won by G3 relying on the referee, the Cavaliers were almost completely unilaterally pressed and played throughout the game, and there were few times when they were even leading during the game.

James showed strong personal strength in the East Final series, averaging a triple-double of 30 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists per game, which is completely comparable to Wang Chao, who averaged 33 points, 13.2 rebounds and 11.4 assists per game.

However, there is a big gap between the performances of the other players on the two teams.

Except for the abnormal performance of G3, Durant has maintained extremely high efficiency in the other four games, averaging 29.5 points per game, and is on par with Wang Chao James in terms of scoring.

Under the three, the highest scorer was Embiid, who averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds per game.

Kerry, who was pinned on by the Cavaliers and hoped to form a mutual competition with the Nets' Durant and offset Durant's role on the offensive end. Irving, who played very poorly throughout the series, averaged only 16 points and 4 assists on 5-of-13 shooting per game, while averaging 3.5 turnovers per game, which was completely undercover.

But that's not entirely to blame for Irving.

Throughout the series, he was the player who faced Wang Chao the most defenses, and the reason why James was able to get the same data as Wang Chao was because he did not match Wang Chao.

No matter how strong Owen's personal ability is, he can't make any waves against Wang Chao, who has been a three-time DPOY and is about to become a four-time DPOY.

Incidentally, in 2017, the league underwent a restructuring to postpone the announcement of the season's awards until after the Finals, and held an Oscar-like ceremony where the final prizes of the season were announced on stage.

One thing to say, this award ceremony didn't go very well, because there was a problem with the timing of the award ceremony in the first place.

In the past, the season awards were announced before the Eastern and Western finals, and this is when the NBA games are at their hottest, and there is a lot of attention, which can form a certain degree of linkage and deepen the influence.

But after the restructuring, the league postponed the season awards to the end of the Finals, and the popularity of the NBA itself dropped a lot because of the end of the Finals, and the NBA's awards ceremony was not very comfortable, so the ratings have always been tepid.

Later, the league had to change the time of announcing MVP and other awards back to the time period before the Eastern and Western finals, which was purely a blind toss.

Because of the restructuring, the league season awards have not yet been announced, but in fact, everyone already knows the ownership of the awards.

Just like the best defensive player DPOY, who else can it be if it's not Wang Chao? Green? Leonard? Howard? None of them can match Wang Chao in terms of defensive contributions.

In the same way, there is actually no suspense about the MVP of the regular season, although Westbrook has averaged a triple-double this season, but this kind of thing is completely worthless when it is too much.

With Wang Chao's Yuzhu in front, Westbrook's first career average triple-double per game has plummeted, coupled with the Thunder's record of only seventh in the West, the regular season MVP is not Wei Shao's turn.

Although the local fans in the United States are very reluctant, they have to admit that no one can stop Wang Chao from winning the honor of regular season MVP again this season.

In the first two years, they could still use Curry as an excuse, but this season, the Nets won 73 wins in the regular season to break the historical record, Wang Chao averaged a triple-double per game for the fifth consecutive season, and various advanced data such as efficiency value ranked first in the league.

Except for Westbrook's score being slightly higher than Wang Chao's, he is completely behind in other aspects, from shooting percentage, rebounds, assists, to defensive statistics, turnover ratio, etc., he is fully surrounded by Wang Chao.

Even Westbrook, who played the best performance of his career, is not comparable at all, and the other players have no chance.

Therefore, in this year's regular season MVP selection, the vast majority of people believe that Wang Chao will finally win and lift the sixth MVP trophy in his career.

If this happens, Wang Chao's six regular season MVPs will also tie "Sky Hook" Karim. Abdul. Abdul-Jabbar, tied for the first place in NBA history.

Although for Wang Chao, who has already won seven championships, one more MVP or one less will not affect his historical status in the slightest, but it will undoubtedly make his resume more stable.

What's more, it's no surprise that he will win his eighth NBA championship this season.

The Nets, who have already entered the Finals, are the biggest favorites to win the championship, and some media have given a ninety percent probability of winning the championship.

On the eastern side, 4:1 decided the winner early, while on the western side, the Warriors and Spurs unexpectedly fell into a bitter battle, and the two sides fought to a 3:3 draw, and the final tie-break was about to be held.

(End of chapter)