Compared to the West, the team record in the East is relatively not as many upsets.

At first place in the East is the Milwaukee Bucks with 58 wins, followed by the Brooklyn Nets with 56 wins, the Charlotte Hornets with 55 wins, the Toronto Raptors with 52 wins, and the Boston Celtics with 50 wins.

The teams in the East have seen a record gap from sixth place, with the number of wins falling from less than 50 wins to just over 40 wins, and the three teams in sixth, seventh and eighth places are the Cleveland Cavaliers with 44 wins, the Detroit Pistons with 41 wins and the Indiana Pacers with 40 wins.

It is worth mentioning that Oladipo and Bojan are missing. Bogdanovic's Pacers and Cavaliers after James' journey to the west.

The former, in the absence of two main scorers, still relied on a good team lineup to enter the playoffs with a record of 40 wins.

And the Cavaliers did not plummet directly because of James's departure, because they still have future MVP-level player Joel. Embiid and Thomas Jr., who has not suffered a serious injury.

Although Embiid was criticized many times later for his soft style of play and pulling his hips at critical moments, his rich offensive means and all-round characteristics inside and outside made him still good in the lower limit of leading the team in the regular season.

As for Thomas Jr., because he did not suffer serious injuries in the Celtics, he still has a good fighting ability.

With Thomas Jr. and James on the same team last season, the performance can be described as unusually stretched.

But it can't be helped, who makes Thomas Jr. also a player who needs a lot of ball-holding offense, and James, the ball-holding core, is on the same team, and his height is indeed a fatal shortcoming in the NBA, once he appears on the court, he will be used as an offensive breakthrough by opponents.

During the Celtics, head coach Stevens could use his excellent team defense to help Thomas Jr. fill in the gaps, but in the Cavaliers, he didn't have a defense that could help Thomas Jr. make up for the shortcomings.

As a result, Thomas Jr. was even put on the bench in the second half of last season.

Luckily, James is gone.

The superstar's departure is a huge loss for the Cavaliers, but it's a good thing for Thomas Jr.

In the new season, Thomas Jr. was re-promoted to the starting position and became the team's main control, and the strongest 175 on the surface once again rejuvenated the second spring of his career, playing in 71 games for the team, averaging 21.7 points and 6.6 assists per game, and the 44% shooting rate is not particularly high, but it is also above the passing line.

Complementing it is Joel, the emperor who also gained a lot of shot rights after James left the team, and his personal data ushered in a skyrocketing price. Embiid.

The Cavaliers in the 2.0 period, Embiid next to James, played the best data of 20+10, and the fans of the Cavaliers were already very satisfied with it at that time, after all, the current league can stably get an average of 20+10 centers per game, Embiid is definitely one of the best, and the absolute interior star of tomorrow.

But they never thought that after James left, Embiid's data would skyrocket so fast, directly from last season's 20+10s to this season's average of 27.5 points, 13.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game!

There are only two interior players in the league who can compare with such statistical performance, one is Antetokounmpo, who averages 28.1 points, 12.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game, and the other is Anthony Davis, who has 25.9 points, 12.2 rebounds and 3.9 assists.

The Cavaliers, driven by the dual core, have not declined very much compared to last season, with a record of 44 wins that cannot even enter the ninth place in the West, but they have firmly ranked sixth in the East.

Cavaliers fans can imagine that if the Cavaliers can bring in a superstar in free agency this summer to form a Big Three configuration, the Cavaliers still have a chance to return to championship contention.

Of course, the attraction of Yike Village, it is not a little difficult to get a superstar, and it will depend on the courage of the team owner.

——

The matchup in the first round of the East and West has been confirmed.

In the West, the Clippers vs the Thunder, the Warriors vs the Mavericks, the Nuggets vs the Spurs, and the Lakers vs the Rockets.

The four sets of matchups in the East are Bucks vs. Pacers, Nets vs. Pistons, Hornets vs. Cavaliers, and Raptors vs. Celtics.

On April 13, 2019, the opening round of the playoffs took place as scheduled.

The Clippers play the Thunder at home.

This season's Thunder are not much different from last season in terms of record, but the performance of the players has changed dramatically.

Westbrook continues to chase his triple-double, averaging 22.9 points, 11.1 rebounds and 10.7 assists per game in the regular season, averaging a triple-double for the third year in a row.

But compared with the average triple-double per game in the first season, Wei Shao's efficiency can be described as a high diving, shooting only 42% at the same time, the average number of free throws per game has dropped to 6, and the shooting rate has also fallen to a career-low 65.6%.

The sharp drop in free-throw shooting percentage and free-throw percentage is a direct cause of Westbrook's scoring average dropping from 31 and 25 points per game in the previous two seasons to 22 points, plus the team is missing Anthony, one of the Big Three, compared to last season.

No matter how bad Anthony was last season, after all, he was the main player who could contribute 16.2 points and 5.8 rebounds, and he was the third scorer for the Thunder at the time.

After Anthony left the team and Westbrook's efficiency fell off a cliff, only George was desperate to maintain the team's record.

As a result, George in the 18-19 season, like the original historical process, played the most representative performance of his career in this season.

He averaged 28 points, 8.2 rebounds and 4 assists per game.

With this performance, George has officially stepped into the ranks of top forward players, and is regarded as a forward second only to Wang Chao, James, and Durant.

But the first-round playoff matchup between the Clippers and the Thunder was not suspenseful, and it was completely one-sided.

The Thunder simply don't have the power to fight the Clippers.

In the first round of the playoffs in the original 18-19 season, the Thunder, who ranked sixth in the West, met the Trail Blazers, who were third in the West, in the first round, and then were eliminated by a 4:1 beat.

Westbrook faced Lillard in the entire series, shooting only 36% from the field, averaging 22.8 points, 9 rebounds and 10.6 assists per game in five games, and even failed to maintain his proud triple-double per game.

Not only that, but on the defensive end, Westbrook had nothing to do with Lillard at all, allowing the latter to average 33 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists per game, with a three-point shooting rate of 48%!

Even if George is as strong as ever, averaging 28.6 points and 8.6 rebounds per game, he is still unable to support himself, and he can only watch the team fail and be eliminated.

After the free market opened, George didn't even hesitate, and immediately rolled up and ran away, joining the Clippers and Leonard to form an injury brosus.

Of course, that's a story for later, back to the game now.

Westbrook's hip pull in the playoffs was expected, not to mention the Clippers.

Nurkic, the interior player of the Trail Blazers at the time, was not much better than Lopez in terms of defensive ability to protect the basket, and Nurkic was also reimbursed for injury in the playoffs, and it was the Trail Blazers' backup center who really played 5 games to kill Westbrook.

And Lopez, a heavy-duty basket-protecting center, is Westbrook's most troublesome type, because Wei Shao's personal ability has now fully deteriorated, and he still had a good mid-range pull-up jump shot when he was young, but now he doesn't have it, except for being able to impact the basket and forcibly create damage, there is only one left to gamble on luck and shoot with a convulsion.

As in the regular season, the Thunder could only rely on George's offense to barely support, but under the Clippers' strong offensive firepower, the Thunder only supported two quarters of the game before they began to collapse across the board, and the point difference went straight to 30 points.

This made Wang Chao not even play much in the second half, but even so, the Thunder's full main lineup and the Clippers' semi-bench lineup were on par, and the Clippers' home fans were lethargic and passionless.

No way, who made the Clippers' bench lineup quite luxurious? Light is Super Sixth Man Louis. Williams and the impactful Harrell are enough for the Thunder to drink a pot.

The final result in the first game was 125-99, and the Clippers won by 26 points on their home court.

The huge gap made the whole series unsuspenseful, and it was.

The Clippers, who won the first game, won three games in a row, eliminated the Clippers 4-0, and successfully advanced to the second round.

Among the four games, the smallest one had 11 points, and the largest was 26 points in the first game, and the strength of the two teams was completely different from the same dimension.

If you haven't watched the game, you may be surprised just by looking at the statistics, because Wang Chao only averaged 24 points, 8 rebounds and 9 assists per game in these four games, not only did he achieve an average triple-double per game, but his score was not high, which inevitably made people wonder if the 36-year-old Wang Chao was old?

However, on the All-Star stage two months ago, Wang Chao scored 81 points that shocked the league, and Wang Chao's average data per game in the regular season was finally fixed on a big triple-double of 29 points, 13.5 rebounds and 12.6 assists, although the score has dropped significantly from the average of 35.8 points per game last season, but the rebounds and assists have improved significantly, and the average of 2.8 steals and 1.8 blocks per game has made Wang Chao very high in the evaluation of the defensive end, and it is very likely that he will win the best defensive player DPOY again this season.

Obviously the performance is so strong, why is the data of the first round so stretched?

The reason is actually very simple, and the fans who were puzzled investigated a little more suddenly realized.

It's because of the playing time.

The Thunder is too weak, almost every game Wang Chao clocks out in the third quarter, and the average playing time is only about 28 minutes per game, if this time is increased by 10 minutes to 38 minutes, then Wang Chao is still an average of 30 + 10 + 10 per game.

False average triple-double per game, inefficient, brush data, even if the team has fallen behind by a big score and has no hope of turning the tables, you must give priority to taking care of your triple-double data, and you are still one rebound away from it.

The real average triple-double per game, efficient, invincible, even if the playing time is insufficient, it can reach 24+8+9 quasi-triple-double.

Playing against the Thunder, you don't need to go beyond Wang too much strength at all, just the lineup of Gallinari, Harris, López, Lowe and Harrell is enough to fight the opponent.

Under this premise, the Clippers have one more person in history, Wang Chao, and the results are self-evident.

In addition to the Clippers, who eliminated the Thunder 4-0, there were two other teams in the league who completed a 4-0 sweep in the first round and advanced to the second round.

The Bucks swept the Pacers 4-0, and the Nets eliminated the Pistons 4-0.

In contrast, the rest of the games in the West were quite close.

The Warriors and the Mavericks are old rivals, although Harden in the Mavericks did not win the best bravery award, but the style of play in the military training library is perfect.

This season, Harden finally won the scoring title with an average of 34 points per game.

This time he was obviously much more low-key, and he was also very humble after winning the scoring championship honor, saying that there is still a big gap between his scoring ability and Wang Chao, and the reason why he won the scoring championship this time is only because Wang Chao made sacrifices in the Clippers and gave up a lot of shots to score for his teammates.

Harden, who spoke very low-key, was not soft at all in the first round against the Warriors, and singled Curry after various blocks, making Curry miserable.

However, the gap in the overall strength of the team is still too huge, in addition to Curry, the Warriors also have Thompson, Green and Ingram, on the other hand, on the Mavericks' side, in addition to Harden, there are only the old Nowitzki, pure blue-collar player Jordan Jr. and Warriors veteran Harrison. Barnes, so the Mavericks are still gradually losing to the onslaught of the Warriors.

At present, the two teams have a record of 3:2, and the Warriors have won the match point, and they only need to win one more game to eliminate the Mavericks and enter the second round.

The Nuggets vs Spurs game was also intense.

The main players on both sides are veterans who have partnered with Wang Chao to win the championship, on one side is the Spurs based on the internal and external cores, Butler and Howard, and on the other side is the Nuggets led by Gobert, Mitchell, Murray and others.

Before the start of this matchup, more people are still optimistic about the Spurs, after all, Howard and Butler are both long-established stars, and the Spurs also have legendary coach Popovich in charge, and their experience and strength are obviously superior.

But the result was completely unexpected, the Nuggets showed extremely strong strength in the series, and have now taken the lead in the match point 3:2.

Although the result was somewhat unexpected, at least in the eyes of Wang Chao himself, it was reasonable.

First of all, in terms of the inside line, the role of the current Gobert is definitely greater than that of Gobert.

Both of them are defensive blue-collar players, and the dying monster has long lost the mobility and explosiveness to survive, on the other hand, Gobert relies on his height and long arms, but he can greatly expand the defensive radius.

In the direct confrontation between the two on the inside, Howard's half-baked interior offensive skills could not single Gobert, although Gobert's offense was worse than Howard's.

The interior is not dominant at all, and even when they are slightly inferior in defensive efficiency, the Spurs do not have any advantage on the offensive end.

Although they have a scorer that Butler can rely on in this crucial moment, the Nuggets have a two-gun combination of Mitchell + Murray.

The playoffs between these two players are not a joke, in the original history, the two who will meet in the playoffs next year staged a scoring battle that shocked the league, and the two players had two 50+ scoring performances in the series, which can be called the most classic matchup in NBA history.

Now that the two are on the same team, no matter how hard Butler is, his two fists are no match for four hands, and it is not surprising that the Spurs have fallen to the bottom or even eliminated by the Nuggets.

(End of chapter)