During the regular season, the Clippers once promoted Lowe to the starter, and Wang Chao played as a power forward to target the Lakers' interior twin tower combination.

But the next few encounters made Wang Chao and the Clippers realize that there was no need for that at all.

After actually experiencing it, the Lakers' ability to attack the inside twin towers is ...... It's really hard to put into words.

In the final analysis, neither Cousins nor Downs have ever gotten rid of the title of data brush, although both of them are high-quality insiders who can easily reach 20+10 data, but when they lead the team alone, they are in the lottery area every year, and Downs can only experience what it is like to experience the playoffs under the leadership of Butler and Edwards.

Cousins has only experienced what the playoffs are after joining the Warriors throughout his career.

The combined inner line of these two looks quite bluffing, but it really relies on James, a thirty-year-old man.

Of course, compared with 84-year-old James and 83-year-old Wang Chao, he is not worthy of being called an old man.

The Clippers' first attack, without any suspense, the ball was directly given to Wang Chao.

Facing James in the top arc, Wang Chao simply raised his hand neatly to call for blocking.

Although he has many ways to score in front of James, it's the playoffs and winning is more important than the battle of hearts, and he's proven countless times that he can beat James on the court, and he doesn't need to repeat it.

Lopez ran out of the inside, and Cousins immediately made a mistake.

He knows very well that the opponent has a long-range shooting ability, and if he wants to replace James, who is blocked and dismantled, to defend Wang Chao, he will easily pass by one step with his speed, and he also understands.

Despite knowing this, he didn't have a choice, and the ranged center in the small-ball strategy is so good, after all, you can't put the opponent in the open space to shoot threes.

At the moment when Lopez blocked and separated James, Wang Chao decisively accelerated the start, and suddenly stepped back and took a big step out of the three-point line after shaking his shoulders continuously against Cousins, who came over to make up the defense, and directly raised his hand to shoot.

"Huh!"

The basketball went into the net, and the clumsy Cousins was so shaken by Wang Chao's operation that he couldn't find the north, and he couldn't react to the defense at all.

"Again......

The head coach of the Lakers frowned on the sidelines.

The blocking and dismantling tactics have always been the simplest but most direct and efficient coordination tactics in the league, especially Wang Chao's blocking and dismantling, which seems to be exceptionally lethal.

Of course, the Lakers head coach doesn't know that among Wang Chao's many talents, there is a talent called the best partner, which is one of his trump card moves during his time with the Magic, the effect is to improve the shooting efficiency after blocking and dismantling, as well as the efficiency of blocking and dismantling teammates to catch and attack the basket.

The trigger condition for the best partner is that the relationship between the pick-and-roll player and Wang Chao must reach more than 60, which Lopes and Wang Chao fully match.

Now López, his gratitude to Wang Chao is beyond words.

Last summer, he had no ball to play, and he came to the Clippers under the recruitment of Wang Chao, and then became the main interior of the Clippers, during the regular season this season, he averaged 14.2 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.

He signed a one-year contract with the Clippers for a base salary, and after the contract expires this summer, I am afraid that countless teams will rush to make offers to him, with a starting salary of at least 15 million or more, and it is not impossible to even try to get 20 million.

In Lopez's opinion, all this was given to him by Wang Chao, and the Clippers' magic ball playing system is the most suitable system for his style, so his gratitude to Wang Chao is beyond words, and the relationship value has already broken through 60 and gone straight to 80, and Wang Chao's blocking and dismantling can naturally activate the best partner talent.

——

The Lakers' offense, at the beginning, still wanted to open up the interior offense as much as possible.

After all, it would be too wasteful not to use the top-level inner twin towers.

But Cousins really didn't have a big advantage against Lopez, Towns could have the upper hand against Gallinari, and seized the opportunity to score a few points in the first few rounds, but compared to the Lakers' steady positional offensive attack, the Clippers' almost crazy massive three-point shooting from the outside was dazzling.

Relying only on the two-point shot in the positional battle, and the offensive efficiency was not as high as expected, the Lakers were soon behind.

Seeing this scene, James, who originally planned to coordinate and control the team's offense at the beginning, had to put on the battle in advance and start attacking with the ball himself.

James's offensive ability is indeed better than that of Cousins and Townsa combined, and during his offensive period, the team scored one after another, and the score was close to within 3 points in one go.

It's just that the wave of offensive led by James didn't last long, and was forcibly suppressed by Wang Chao.

The method of suppression is also very simple, a super long-distance three-point shot one step outside the three-point line, a breakthrough with the ball, a strong dunk Downs scored 2+1, and scored 6 points in a row to directly reopen the difference.

This time the point difference was widened, and it was difficult for the Lakers to chase the points again, because the game had entered the second quarter, and the two sides began to gradually change to the rotation lineup.

The Clippers' bench has always been recognized as the strongest in the league, a best sixth man, Lowe, and an impact beast-like forward Harrell, both of whom are strong players with starting strength.

It's clear that the Lakers don't have any players like that, even one and a half.

In this case, James didn't dare to rest for even a moment, because as soon as he got off the court, the Lakers would immediately collapse across the board, and the point difference would go straight to 20 points.

But James's physical strength has a limit after all, especially as he gets older, he can no longer run around the court like he did in his twenties.

With James' support, the Lakers barely managed to hold on to the third quarter of the game, always keeping the margin to single digits.

But in the fourth quarter, Wang Chao began to close the net, and the continuous onslaught with the ball made it difficult for the Lakers to parry, and what was even worse was that at this time James' physical fitness was on the verge of limit, and Wang Chao also ran to defend him personally, causing James to dare not attack easily, so he could only hand over the offense to Cousins and Towns.

And then...... There is no then.

Throughout the fourth quarter, the Clippers and Lakers scored 19:31 in a single quarter.

The Lakers lost 12 points in the first quarter and lost by 117-99 points in the game.

Clippers fans got their wish and watched the Lakers fans go from excitement to anxiety and then despair.

Especially when the Lakers could no longer support the Clippers' onslaught in the fourth quarter of the game and collapsed across the board, many Lakers fans couldn't stand it anymore and chose to leave the game early.

The stands on the Clippers' home court were suddenly much empty, not to mention how cool it was.

In this game, James's performance can be described as perfect, with a quasi-triple-double of 31 points, 9 rebounds and 12 assists, but he can't win, no matter how beautiful the data is, it is useless, and compared to the data, he is not as beautiful as Wang Chao's data.

Wang Chao had 37 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists, as well as 4 steals and 2 blocks, which was more versatile and efficient than James.

Of course, the performance of the two can barely replace the pair, and what really affects the outcome of the game is the performance of other players.

The Lakers' interior twin towers, Cousins got 21 points and 7 rebounds, and Towns had 17 points and 10 rebounds, the performance can't be said to be bad, but it can't be said to be very good, after all, the shooting rate of both is only about 45%, which is completely inconsistent with the offensive efficiency of 55% or even 60% shooting rate on the inside.

To make matters worse, apart from James, Cousins and Towns, only Tatum scored 11 points in double figures.

On the other hand, on the Clippers' side, in addition to Wang Chao's 37 points. Substitute Luiz. Williams played his bench role perfectly, scoring 21 points on 7-of-15 shooting and 7-of-8 from the free-throw line.

Among the starters, in addition to Brogdon, who performed slightly worse and only scored 8 points, Harris, Gallinari and Lopez all scored double-doubles, plus Harrell with 14 points, the Clippers had six double-doubles.

The Clippers bench Guangluwei and Harrell contributed 35 points, while the Lakers' bench scored less than 20 points in total, and the gap between the lineup and strength is obvious.

But if you compare the lineup, the Lakers with three All-Stars should be on the stronger side.

Why is this so?

It's not because of Wang Chao! But wherever he goes, without exception, he will become the top team in the league, how can this be reasonable?

If it's any other team, after losing the first game, you can still comfort yourself, this is the opponent's home stadium, it's normal to lose, it's better to win a game than to win a game.

But the Lakers couldn't say this, after all, the Clippers basically didn't have any home-court advantage against the Lakers.

In this case, you can lose to the opponent by 18 points, what else can you say?

And so, the fans of James began.

"I Zhan tried my best, but my teammates CBA, I couldn't win with 30+ quasi-triple-double data."

"What Cousins Downs inside twin towers, it's just a group of data brushes, and it's not reliable at all if you really meet a strong team, two All-Stars, one 20+7 and one 17+10? How to play this? ”

The series is not over yet, but the sub-pot conference is already in full swing, anyway, in a word, James tried his best, he didn't lose, and he blamed his teammates for not giving their best.

Wang Chao's fans said yes, yes, yes, what you said is right, anyway, Wang Chao's teammates are also CBA, otherwise they will compete with each other.

The Clippers vs Lakers is definitely the most popular and talked about matchup in this playoffs.

On April 30, the second game of the series began.

This time, the number of fans at the Clippers' home court is obviously much higher than the first game, because many Lakers fans don't want to see their team being unilaterally blasted by Wang Chao, and they don't buy tickets through various channels.

They were clearly sensible in their approach, as the Lakers lost Game 2 despite their stubborn resistance.

Perhaps it was shame and courage, the Lakers' Cousins broke out in the small universe in this game, with 33 points, 17 rebounds and 4 assists, completely beating Lopez, plus James's 28+6+10, the two alone combined to cut 51 points, 23 rebounds and 14 assists.

But the Lakers won on the inside, but lost on the outside, and they lost quite badly.

For no other reason, the Clippers' three-point shooting was like a hanging, shooting 17 of 40 from the field, shooting 42.5%, and scoring 51 points on three-pointers alone!

This season, whenever the Clippers' three-point rain starts to rain, no matter how strong the opponent is, he has to hate it on the spot.

At the end of the Clippers' two home games, the score came to 2:0 without suspense, and the point difference in both games was more than double digits, and the Lakers did not look much different from the Clippers' first-round opponent Thunder, maybe a little stronger than the Thunder, but not obvious enough.

The time came on May 4, and the third game of the series between the two teams, which was the Lakers' home game, began.

The playoffs between the Clippers and the Lakers have this benefit, they don't have to run around on the road, they are all in the Staples Center, and they can turn left as soon as they go out of the house, and both teams can also recharge their energy and prepare for the game.

When it was the Lakers' turn to be at home, this series finally felt what it means to be at home.

Unlike the Clippers, whose home court is almost evenly split in numbers, the Lakers' home court is almost entirely filled with Lakers fans in yellow T-shirts.

Although the team is already in a desperate situation of falling behind 0:2, Lakers fans are still looking forward to a miracle, the Lakers can make 2 chase 4 and complete the comeback and advance to the Western Conference finals!

The idea is beautiful, but the reality is cruel.

What's even more cruel for Lakers fans is that at the beginning of this game, the Lakers' performance really gave them a little hope, but despair followed.

In the first quarter of the game, the Lakers were in hot form, especially from beyond the three-point line, and even more accurate than the Clippers, including Towns and Cousins both hit three-point shots.

The Lakers led by 9 points at 39:30 in the first quarter, and continued to win the game in the second quarter, further expanding the margin to 15 points!

71:56 at halftime, which is already a considerable point difference, as long as the Lakers can stabilize the score in the second half, they can win this crucial game and retain the possibility of final victory.

However, in the third quarter of the game, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, the Lakers suddenly fell into an offensive drought, and failed to attack in several consecutive rounds, while the Clippers seized the opportunity, wave after wave of fast breaks, and in the blink of an eye, the 15-point difference was close to within 5 points.

In the fourth quarter, the Lakers, who were still trying to defend the remaining five-point advantage, still failed to hold on to their bottoms and were tied with 4:35 left before the end of the game.

With more than a dozen seconds left in the game, the Clippers held a three-point lead.

The Lakers called out the last timeout to set up offensive tactics, and Lakers fans at this time still had a trace of illusions, hoping that the Lakers could continue the three-point feeling from the outside in the first half, hit a game-tying three-pointer, and dragged the game into overtime.

But after the timeout, James rushed all the way to the basket with the ball, and an iron-blooded layup directly gave the fans' brains an instant crash.

“？？？”

The Clippers were completely defenseless against James' ball-handling layup, who scored an easy layup, and then waited for the Clippers to serve the ball to Wang Chao and immediately stepped forward to foul him.

Wang Chao walked to the free throw line and made two free throws steadily, and the difference was still 3 points, but there was less than 5 seconds left for the Lakers to attack.

James, who served in the backcourt, galloped all the way, rushed to near the three-point line and forced a three-point shot against the defender, accompanied by a crisp iron sound, and the game was officially over.

(End of chapter)