In the second half of the game, the situation was even more unfavorable for the Nets, and the weakness of the bench was just enough, and soon the Nets encountered a new problem, that is, as the game progressed, Durant's offensive efficiency decreased after his physical decline decreased.

Physical fitness has always been an objective factor that limits Durant's scoring explosiveness, he has almost the most consistent scoring ability in the league, but he can't score super high points in a row like Kobe and Harden.

This is still the case with Durant in his health earlier, let alone after the injury?

Moreover, Durant, who was born in 88, is now 33 years old and at the end of the peak of his career as a professional player.

In this game, Durant is still shouldering the burden of defending Wang Chao, and it is not easy to play the full three quarters of the game efficiently.

It's just that the Nets' situation clearly doesn't allow Durant to rest.

Booker was completely crushed to death by Wang Chao, the kind that couldn't lift his head at all.

As for Jokic, although he has adapted to Howard's tough defense and caused Howard to commit two defensive fouls with his skills, Jokic at this stage still can't reach the explosive level of 30+ points per game on the offensive end casually in 2023, which is naturally unreliable.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter of the game, Wang Chao took over the ball, held the ball and attacked Durant continuously, completely drained his last bit of physical strength, and scored 6 points in a row, expanding the difference to more than 15 points in one fell swoop, and laying the foundation for the victory.

The Nets tried to make some counterattacks, but with little success, so they had to replace all their main players and give up the game.

In the first game of G1 in the finals, the Jazz won the game 107-94 at their home court, leading 1-0 in the overall score.

In this game, the Jazz's strategy was clearly a failure.

Durant's defense of Wang Chao not only failed to have any limiting effect, but consumed his physical energy faster.

And Booker was also in a state of defense by Wang Chao throughout the game, scoring only 11 points on 4-of-12 shooting.

Under the advantages of one another, even with an absolute advantage in the lineup, the Nets still lost very badly.

The Nets need to learn the lessons of this game and make adjustments in the next games, otherwise, the championship will be won by Wang Chao again.

Merely...... How simple is it to adjust tactics?

The biggest problem that the Nets have to solve is how to contain Wang Chao's offense, and if Wang Chao can't score points, everything else is in vain.

But if he can prevent Wang Chao, how can this guy already hold eleven championship rings and be called the god of modern basketball?

Two days later, in Game 2 of the Finals, the Nets made positive adjustments to their tactical play, abandoning Durant's arrangement to defend Wang Chao and handing it over to Jarrett instead. Allen went to defend Wang Chao.

Allen, who mainly plays inside, is not suitable to defend Wang Chao, but he has an advantage in height, but the speed can't keep up with Wang Chao at all, but the Nets can't manage so much, if they can't prevent Wang Chao, at least let Durant's offensive firepower reach the maximum, and by the way, liberate Booker, who was locked by Wang Chao, so that the team can hope to win.

The Nets' arrangement was not wrong, and Durant swept away the decline in the second game, scoring 37 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists in the game, while Booker finally regained some touch, scoring 22 points with a shooting rate of more than 40%.

But the Nets did not win because of this, and the victory in the second game of the Finals still belonged to the Jazz.

The reason is also very simple, Wang Chao scored 52 points, 16 rebounds and 5 assists in the whole game, and the score of only one person is almost comparable to Durant + Booker.

Jarret. Allen's defense is nothing but nothing for Wang Chao, and trying to pass the opponent is no different from passing a stump.

The Nets didn't have any strong basket protectors on the inside, so they could only let Jokic go up hard, and the result was that before the third quarter of the game ended, Jokic ate 6 fouls and was sent off.

After two games, the score of 2:0 has already plunged Nets fans into despair.

Sure enough, Wang Chao is invincible, even in a bad team like Jazz, he is still so invincible.

The only good news is that the Nets will return to their home court next, and the Jazz's home court pressure is indeed strong enough, which will have a certain impact on the players' performance on the court, and they still have the strength to fight when they return to their home court.

On July 12, the third game of the Finals, the home game came to the Barclays Center Arena of the Nets.

Although the atmosphere at the home of the Nets is completely incomparable to that of the Jazz's Devils, the Nets back home did show a stronger strength than the previous two games.

On their home court, the Nets finally won the game, 117-112.

The score was chased to 2:1.

To win this game, the Nets still rely on the Big Three of Durant, Booker and Jokic.

The trio scored 31, 28 and 35 points respectively in this game, and the trio scored a total of 94 points, so it was natural to win the game.

Booker's return to his home court to bottom out is still expected by Wang Chao, after all, with the strength of Booker in the 20-21 season, even Wang Chao is not sure that he will always suppress the opponent in a few games.

But Jokic's 35-point score in this game was unexpected, and it was the direct reason why the Jazz lost this game.

Although the Nets won the game and kept the championship suspense alive, fans in New York were not too optimistic.

The Big Three combined to score 94 points is a small probability event in itself, in the past season, even in the regular season, there was basically no occurrence, in the case of these three people playing so well, the Nets only won by 5 points at home, and the Jazz led by Wang Chao many times in the lead during the game, and the process was extremely thrilling.

Do you really expect the Nets' Big Three to continue to play at least three of these games in the next games? It doesn't sound realistic.

Even Nets fans can have such thoughts, which shows how strong Wang Chao's prestige is.

And then two days later, it proved ...... Nets fans were wrong.

On July 15, still on the home court of the Nets, the Jazz defeated the Nets 123-119, which proved that even if the Nets Big Three played superpowers, they might not be able to win the game.

That's right, in this game, Durant, Booker and Jokic scored high points again, even higher than in G3, with all three scoring 30+ points, and the total score reached an astonishing 107.

But even so, the Nets still couldn't win.

Because on the Jazz side, in addition to Wang Chao, who scored a standard 47 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists, there are also players who have exploded.

Russell. Westbrook even competed with Wang Chao for the top player in the regular season MVP a few years ago.

In the past two years, he has been criticized in various ways because of the decline in his own form and playing style.

This season when the Jazz came to the team, there has been a lot of controversy about Westbrook, although Wang Chao's super solo performance with an average of 46 points per game allowed the Jazz to enter the playoffs with the league's first record and crush all the way to the finals.

But no one thinks it has much to do with Westbrook, and many even think that the Jazz would be much better than they are if Westbrook were traded for another player of equal value who was close to the contract.

There is no way, Westbrook has a single technical feature, the style of play is very easy to target, and it occupies a lot of ball possession, and even Wang Chao can only run to play without the ball, which is really not visible at a glance.

When the Jazz first entered the Finals, there were still many people who mocked Westbrook.

"If it weren't for holding Wang's thighs, Westbrook probably wouldn't have had a chance to make it to the finals in his entire career, let alone win a championship."

In this time and space, the Thunder Sanshao did not enter the finals, because during that period, Wang Chao joined the Rockets and led the Rockets to win three championships in four years.

As a result, Westbrook has not experienced a Finals so far.

Wang Chao's huge traffic makes Westbrook, who plays next to him, suffer all kinds of slander and ridicule almost every day, which in itself is a double-edged sword.

It is completely conceivable that if the Jazz team fails in the finals, no one will blame Wang Chao, just based on his performance on the court, it is completely black.

At that time, Westbrook will become the number one war criminal, and it is not impossible to be criticized by all kinds of fights, and even abandoned by the Jazz as an outcast.

Under this huge pressure, Westbrook's performance in the first three games can only be described as mediocre, averaging 17.8 points, 7.4 rebounds and 9.2 assists per game in the three games, and the shooting percentage is rarely maintained at more than 40%, but that is more because of the Nets' lack of strong basket protectors, and Wang Chao has attracted most of the Nets' defensive focus.

Then in the fourth finals, when no one was optimistic about what he would do, Westbrook broke out in a small universe, showing his power on the offensive end, hitting all kinds of difficult fairy balls, and finally hit 40 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists, with a shooting rate of 48%!

Wei Shao's strong performance shocked everyone, the most unexpected, of course, was the Nets, their focus in the game was almost all on Wang Chao, they didn't pay attention to Westbrook at all, they didn't expect the other party to give them a fatal blow at this most critical moment!

Wang Chao scored 47 points, Westbrook scored 40 points, and the two combined to score 87 points, leading the Jazz to win the fourth game of the finals, with a big score of 3:1, and took the lead in winning match points.

At the same time, Wang Chao and Westbrook also became the second group in league history to score 40+ points in the finals at the same time.

Before the two of them, the only group in the league to score 40+ points in both finals was the Cavaliers' James + Irving, which shows the gold content of this achievement.

Nets fans are glad they weren't too optimistic, and the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.

Even if they don't have any hope for the Nets to win the championship, it is not so difficult to accept that the Nets lost a key game and were given a match point by the Jazz.

(End of chapter)