naaapseattle Chapter 129 G1 kicked off, unexpectedly smooth
Chapter 129 G1 kicked off, unexpectedly smooth
Chapter 129 G1 kicked off, unexpectedly smooth
On April 4, the day before the first round of the playoffs between the Clippers and the Thunder.
Lu Yi, like other Clippers players, all lived in a closed hotel, stopped all social activities, and even handed over communication tools such as mobile phones to the management for safekeeping.
Unless something really happened in the family, Lu Yi would not participate.
After all, this is the first time Lu Yi participated in the playoffs, and it is a very meaningful stage in his career.
Of course, most players will be like this in the playoffs.
Over the years in the NBA, there have been players who played in the playoffs, whose relatives died suddenly, and then did not go to the funeral.
In many cases, it may not be that the players are too dedicated and did not go after learning the news, but the management blocked the news.
Just like something happened before or during the college entrance examination, parents will also hide it from their children.
Many people only learn about their parents' divorce after the college entrance examination.
Closer to home, another day of warm-up, the Clippers are fully committed to preparing for the playoffs.
Until April 4, the playoffs officially came, and the battle was imminent.
However, after the game officially started, Lu Yi discovered that the playoffs were actually no better than the regular season.
Perhaps, it's also because the Thunder also lack playoff experience.
In short, the Clippers and the Thunder's G1 are a bit like pecking at each other.
As soon as the game started, Kaman helped the Clippers jump to the ball.
Immediately after Iverson dribbled the ball across the half, Lu Yi received the ball in the logo area on the right.
Unexpectedly, the Thunder did not directly send someone forward to defend.
Lu Yi himself didn't expect that he got an open three-pointer as soon as he came up.
Although normal people will not shoot in this area.
But Lu Yi played in the playoffs for the first time and needed to try his hand.
It just so happened that Thunder didn't attack directly, and Lu Yi saw that there was a lot of space, so he shot right away, there was nothing wrong with it.
After all, this is much more reasonable than Kobe's defense of two or three players in the playoffs, and he felt that there was a lot of room to shoot.
Just like that, Lu Yi swipe, raised the knife and landed a three-point mark on the logo.
"Handsome, this is Lu Yi's rhythm!"
"This shot is reasonable, Lu Yi should play like this, let the rednecks from Oklahoma know how good you are!"
"Do you want to commit suicide? Come and double-team Lu Yi! Lu Yi is the king of Los Angeles!"
Surprised by the technique, the Clippers fans kicked off, stood up from their seats, and shouted excitedly.
For fans, the sense of participation in the playoffs is obviously much stronger than that of the regular season.
After all, the average ticket price for the playoffs of $200 per game is five times the price of the regular season ticket price of $40.
Especially the price of the front row and the box, the difference is ten times or twenty times.
Going to the stadium to watch the game, the more you pay, the more emotional feedback you will get.
Having said that, when Lu Yi came to the playoffs, he was not nervous at all, and he didn't shake his hands at all. He directly raised a knife and dropped a logo three-pointer, which also shocked the Thunder players on the court.
"Can you still play like this?"
"Is this kid so prodigal?"
"Lu Yi wouldn't want to beat us in this way, would he?"
At this time, Durant was faintly worried.
Durant knew very well that in the four games of the regular season matchup, the Thunder lost all.
In this round of the series, it is very stressful and difficult for the Thunder to win the final victory.
However, Durant lost the scoring championship with Lu Yi in the regular season, and he wanted to compete again in the playoffs.
No one is willing to succumb to others at such a time and become a loser again and again, let alone Durant with a strong self-esteem.
"Give me the ball!" Just after halftime, Durant asked Westbrook for the ball.
If it were the regular season, Westbrook would definitely be brainless. Usually, in the first quarter, Westbrook would not stop if he did it seven or eight times by himself.
But now it's the playoffs, and Westbrook is obviously not that good.
The game has just started, and Westbrook is still quite eye-catching.
The ball was handed to Durant, and Ariza immediately defended it.
However, Durant's skills are almost mature, just the light front, change of direction, crotch, and ball combination, Ariza's center of gravity was shaken, and he almost staggered to the ground.
When Ariza got up from the ground, Durant had already pulled out his hand.
Durant relied on his personal ability to create an open shot opportunity.
However, I don't know that Lu Yi's previous logo three-pointer put a lot of pressure on Durant.
It's still that Durant's hand feeling is really bad today, in short, he just failed to put a three-pointer into the basket.
At this time, Westbrook took the lead and rushed to the basket.
But it's a pity that Kaman and Camby are well positioned.
Thunder insiders Nenad Kostic and Jeff Green failed to grab offensive rebounds in favorable positions, let alone Westbrook guard.
And the Clippers, also taking advantage of the opportunity to protect this defensive rebound, immediately passed the ball to Iverson who ran back to the frontcourt.
In fact, Lu Yi is also on the fast break, but the Thunder shooting guard Sapo Sefolosha is keeping a close eye on Lu Yi, and Sefolosha is a swingman with a shape and height, even bigger than Lu Yi.
Camby, who grabbed the rebound, is not good at passing the ball to Lu Yi, so it is wise to pass the ball to Iverson, who is not chasing.
The ball arrives, the person arrives, one step inside the free throw line, take off!
Iverson didn't skimp on his physical strength, and directly made a powerful one-handed dunk.
Lu Yi and Iverson, the two leading players of the Clippers, scored in the first time the playoffs started, helping the Clippers lead the Thunder 5-0.
Speaking of it, it's not because of how good Lu Yi and Iverson are, it's simply because the Thunder made a huge mistake in defense.
It doesn't matter if Lu Yi's logo is released for a three-pointer. Westbrook, a guard, gave up returning to defense in order to grab an offensive rebound and didn't keep track of Iverson. This is a big problem.
However, Westbrook has played like this for the past two years.
The Thunder head coach didn't think there was a problem, and Westbrook himself thought it was okay.
Then it's the team's turn to go wrong!
Defense wins championships!When it comes to the playoffs, that's the truth.
The Thunder can't even do a basic defense well, so how can they win the playoffs?
"Another defensive rebound! Another fast break!"
"Three-pointer, go in again, from Ariza's three-pointer, the iron tree is blooming!"
"It's 8 to 0, no it's 0 to 8, we lead by 8 points at home, haha, why don't we pause?"
Only 1 minute and 1 seconds into G12, the Clippers led by 8 points.
The faces of the Thunder players on the court turned green, and the Thunder coach Scott Brooks shouted excitedly for defense, his face turned red, but he did not call a timeout.
Under normal circumstances, individuals will call for a timeout and wait for a while.
Thunder is a young team, lack of experience in the playoffs, that is understandable.
At this time, when young players make mistakes, the head coach has the responsibility and obligation to correct the mistakes of the young players, point out the problems to them, and give them some time to make up for it.
However, Scott Brooks himself is also a fan of the authorities, and he is in a hurry.
Maybe he didn't even realize that he could call a timeout.
Just like Tyronn Lue, many times the on-the-spot layout is very good, but sometimes he suddenly froze on the sidelines, making people feel that this rookie coach is not very reliable.
There is no doubt that Scott Brooks cared about chaos, and this time it went wrong.
The Clippers also took advantage of this opportunity to make persistent efforts, and unsurprisingly scored another goal at the basket, scoring another 2 points.
In this way, the point difference was widened to 10 points, and Scott Brooks finally called a timeout under the reminder of the assistant coach.
However, it was useless, Lei Ting was directly numb.
Returning to the court, at most, the offense will slow down, look for opportunities to play again, and the defense will be more active. When you see someone, you will move forward, and you will not directly release people from outside the three-point line.
But the Clippers should defend, and they still defend very well, basically not losing their position, they should score, they can still score, and they are hard to defend.
15 to 34, after the first quarter, the Clippers had already led by 19 points, almost by more than 20 points.
Speaking of the Thunder, the leading stars Durant and Westbrook have played a lot, but they have used top talents, but they still can't achieve results on the offensive end.
Both Durant and Westbrook attacked with the ball. The two launched a total of 18 offenses with the ball in the first quarter, of which 5 times had bad opportunities and chose to break through and score the ball, but only converted into 1 assist.
This shows that the leading star did not play well, and the other role players also played very uncomfortable, and there was nothing they could do to help.
Durant and Westbrook made a total of 13 shots, only hit 4 goals, and won a chance for a foul free throw.
杜兰特首节8投2中，罚球2投2中，拿下6分。
Westbrook made 5 of 2 shots, no free throws and only 4 points.
On the other hand, Lu Yi made 7 of 5 shots in the first quarter and 3 of 2 three-pointers. Although under the penalty scale of the playoffs, he did not get free throws as easily as in the regular season, he still scored 12 points efficiently.
Lu Yi scored more points alone than Durant and Westbrook combined, not to mention that the scoring efficiency has increased by more than two gears.
Under the pressure of such an opening, it is normal for the Thunder to be unable to withstand the Clippers' offensive.
In the second quarter of the game, the Thunder played a little better. The main reason is that Durant's touch slowly came back, and there was a feeling of forcing a [-]-[-] split.
Fortunately, Durant only played 8 minutes in the second quarter and made a total of 5 shots. Although he hit 4 goals, he didn't make a three-pointer or a free throw, so he only scored 8 points.
Scored 14 points in the first half. For the playoffs, the performance of the leading players is not bad.
But also in the first half, Lu Yi and Iverson scored 21 points and 15 points respectively, so there is nothing to say.
It can only be said that the champion is always the champion.
The Thunder were beaten by the Clippers without any temper. At the beginning of the third quarter, Durant, who had been resting for a long time, did not play directly.
Westbrook played with Harden for a while,
However, Harden, who played as the sixth man, had only offense and no defense.
As early as in the NCAA, Harden had already suffered a lot when he met Lu Yi.
In the previous regular season encounters, Harden had no chance to fight Lu Yi. Now that they are facing each other in the playoffs, it is simply a public execution, which is extremely cruel.
At the beginning of the third quarter, Lu Yi made two consecutive three-pointers and a long two-pointer on Harden's head.
Scoring 3 points in 8 shots, Scott Brooks had to call a timeout again and replace Thabo Sefolosha.
After all, Sapo Sefolosha has long hands and feet, and may not be able to keep up with Lu Yi, but when he cooperates with Durant to double-team Lu Yi, it may also cause Lu Yi to make mistakes.
Indeed, in today's game, Lu Yi was sometimes in a panic.
Fortunately, the flaws do not conceal the strengths. Lu Yi performed extremely well on the offensive end, and the double-teamed points were not bad.
Occasionally, Lu Yi can still make a strong shot, copying a wave of Kobe's picturesque.
As Lu Yi frantically put pressure on the offensive end at the beginning of the third quarter, the point difference between the two teams quickly approached 30 points.
There is no way, Durant can only play again at this time, and then reluctantly use a giant loop to make a foul to stabilize the situation.
In fact, in the first half, Durant was forced to rush and used a big loop.
But the referee didn't like him at all. Now in the second half, the referee was worried that the game would have no suspense, so he favored the Thunder to help the league maintain the ratings. This is quite normal.
When this happens, the Clippers can understand it. Of course, as the head coach, Dunleavy had to go to the sidelines to complain to the referee.
In the end, Dunleavy got his wish and got a technical foul.
The referee didn't go too far. After Durant scored 4 points with a giant loop free throw, he sent two turnovers.
Seeing that the referee didn't take care of him anymore, Durant could only hand the ball to Westbrook and let him try it.
As a result, try and die.
Originally, the point difference gradually narrowed to 20 points, but Westbrook continued to kill the inside line and was blocked, and the point difference widened to more than 25 points.
After the third quarter, 57 to 83, the Clippers led the Thunder by 26 points.
"Lu Yi, you are still young, you go first in the fourth quarter, lead the team to play for a few minutes to see, if there is no problem, I will take the initiative to call a timeout and replace you."
The team led by a big score, but Dunleavy did not relax.
Thunder players are not low in the draft, especially Durant, who averaged 30+ points per game in the regular season, which means that he may also have a burst performance of 40+ or even 50+ in the playoffs.
Although Westbrook is a little bit close, it is still no problem to score 25 points.
If the Clippers don't pay attention to the victory in G1, instead carelessly lose Jingzhou and get hammered by two young people, then it is not that the Thunder have no chance to turn defeat into victory.
At this time, the safest way is to keep Lu Yi on the court.
It is true that Lu Yi was very tired in the third quarter and needs to rest now.
But Lu Yi was in good enough form in the third quarter. As long as Lu Yi continued to appear on the court in the fourth quarter, the Thunder had to send someone to mark Lu Yi.
At that time, the rest of the Clippers will also have more space for offense.
Next, the Clippers mainly need to stabilize the situation.
As long as there is nothing wrong with the defense, tonight's victory will naturally belong to the Clippers.
The final result was indeed as Dunleavy imagined.
Originally, with a 26-point difference in three quarters, the Thunder basically had nothing to chase.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Clippers were as stable as old dogs, and Lu Yi and Gordon led the team to continue playing.
The Thunder did not give up the game ahead of time. After all, it is the playoffs, and they cannot give up easily in any game.
As a result, Durant and Westbrook were fighting, and it was boring.
There may still be physical strength, but the fighting spirit is almost exhausted.
79 to 101, until the end of the game, the Clippers still had a 22-point lead.
It can only be said that this game was not evenly matched from the very beginning.
However, it is normal for the No. [-] in the West to play against No. [-] in the West.
(End of this chapter)