Chapter 165: Victory and defeat
"The rankings of the Eastern Conference are really too chaotic. Except for the top four and bottom three teams, the winning gap between the other teams has not exceeded five games. And to be honest, compared with the Western Conference teams, the winning rate of the Eastern Conference team is really unappreciable."
It’s Saturday again, and this is also the time for major sports channels to do basketball programs.
"That's right, take the Thunder, the ninth place in the West, as an example. The current winning rate of the biggest dark horse in the West this season is 58! Such a result can be ranked fourth in the East, but in the West, they have not yet entered the playoffs. This phenomenon is really an unfair manifestation of the Western Conference team."
"Now all teams have special planes to pick up and drop off players to play away games. The conditions are much better than before, and there is no need to worry that long-distance travel will take up too much time. I want to say that nBa should abolish the division between the east and west, and directly determine which team is qualified to participate in the playoffs based on the total score of the regular season."
Two experts chatter on TV, and the questions they talk about are practical but also illusory.
The reality is that the weak east and the strong west are indeed blocking many excellent teams from the playoffs. The illusion is that nBa is almost impossible to change the pattern of the team's east and west division.
As a new team in NBA, the Thunder's performance this season is enough to be described as amazing. However, the Lakers, Nuggets, Spurs, Rockets, Mavericks... the names of these powerful teams have to be overwhelmed by them. In contrast, the Eastern Conference, the 76ers, Bulls, Pistons and other teams in the playoffs are not necessarily better than the Thunder.
To gain a foothold in the West, Anjie seemed to have chosen the difficulty level at the beginning of his career. Complaints about the useless rules. What the Thunder Third Young Master and Van Gundy can do is to do their best to win all the opponents in the last month of the regular season.
After defeating the Jazz, the Thunder still had 5 games left in March, but after looking at the opponents in these five games, Van Gundy really felt that God was joking with him again.
Except for the Timberwolves who are relatively weak in the next game, the Thunder need to face the Lakers in the West, the Raptors led by Bosh, the Celtics in the East, and the Spurs in the West, with four games left.
No matter how talented the third young master of the Thunder is, it is almost impossible to create miracles and win all of these opponents. Now Van Gundy only hopes that the Jazz opponents can work harder and try to drag the Jazz down and give the Thunder an opportunity.
On the day after the game against the Jazz, Anjie voluntarily gave up the extra training for the first time. If he insisted on completing the established task, it would be difficult for him to ensure that he could still be physically energetic the next day.
In the 82 regular season games, this is incomparable to the simplicity of the NCAAYI Weekly match. An Jie considers himself an Iron Man, but until the end of the season, he has to admit that he is just an ordinary flesh and blood body.
How much does the intensive schedule consume players' physical strength? Vicci is accustomed to starting a rotation rest system on players at the end of the season. This is not a mystery, but it does have its effect.
But the Thunder does not have that thick bench depth, especially An Jie. In the inside of the Thunder, the defense of others except An Jie can be described as shabby. Therefore, no one can help An Jie share the burden during the game, and he has to bear it himself.
The last game was just the last five minutes of continuous play, and An Jie felt that he was still a little tired today.
Those inside muscle men in nBa are not so easy to deal with.
Without a rotational break, you have to work several times more than others' hard work. In order to ensure your physical strength, An Jie had to take the initiative to break and practice more.
Compared with strong teams such as the Lakers, Jeff Van Gundy cares more about the Timberwolves. After all, the hard power of these strong teams such as the Lakers is there. If both sides play normally, the chances of the Thunder winning will be very low.
But for a team like the Timberwolves, Van Gundy will never allow his gutter to capsize. The teams that should be won must not make mistakes. Because of this, the Timberwolves, the weakest among the five opponents, has become an important opponent in Van Gundy's eyes.
After a day of rest, the Thunder went on an expedition again and took a special plane to the cold Minnesota. The summer was so hot and the winter was extremely cold. The weather in Minnesota was as strong as the Timberwolves, sometimes extremely strong and sometimes extremely weak.
When Anjie saw Kevin Love again, he couldn't help but sigh that after a busy year, he had almost never done anything other than playing basketball. It seems that in addition to training this summer, he also has to spend more time with Catherine and his parents.
A year ago, Anjie was fighting ucLa in the field of the March Crazy Championship. Now, the ucLa's defender who killed the Tornado team has become his most intimate teammate, and the Pacific Tenth League Player of the Year has also become the power forward of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The years have changed a lot.
Looking at the intimate conversation between Westbrook and Love before the game, Angel also hoped that he could meet his familiar old teammates on the nBa field. Unfortunately, Mike Taylor was transferred to nBdL by the Trail Blazers, which were crowded on the back line early, while Andrew Morris was still working hard in the March Crazy Championship.
There is not much time left for An Jie to sigh. In the cold Minnesota, if you don’t warm up properly, it will be very dangerous. Isn’t An Jie’s first ankle sprain caused by not being careful in warming up?
When the game started, Love was disappointed and it was more difficult for him to break Anjie's defense again than before.
The two big men who played against each other at the beginning are now a clear gap.
There is no way, Love played in nBa not long, and averaged less than 30 minutes of playing time per game. And Anger secured the center position after Van Gundy arrived, and his playing time was also up from 35 to 40 minutes.
With so much time to learn and adapt than Love, it is normal for Angel to be stronger than Love now. When Love plays at nBa reaches the amount of Angel, he will naturally become better.
But now he has to lose his accurate head under An Jie's tough and fierce defense.
"An and Love had a fight in college. At that time, Love was above Anjie in both fame and honor. But now, look at it, 5 shots. Love couldn't even make a shot in front of An's face."
In the end, Greg Smith, who was good at turning around and making small throws, made Anger feel pressured. Faced with a short, flexible center forward who is good at using weird tricks, Anger's limited experience seems a bit insufficient.
Smith can break through Angel's defense on the offensive end, and Angel, who has a huge height advantage, can also beat Smith to the point of being weak on the offensive end.
The short Greg Smith's defense in the penalty area when facing Anger was useless. Anger didn't even need to pretend to move, but turned around and hooked or shot directly, and would not be disturbed too much.
The Timberwolves players worked very hard, but their offense could not penetrate the Thunder's defense.
The performance of the two superstars in the past was not outstanding. Love made only 3 of yi3 shots under Anjie's defense, with a poor shooting percentage of only 23, and only Yiio scored, but Kevin Love's yio score was the highest score among Timberwolves players. From this, we can also see how unbearable the Timberwolves played.
Westbrook's performance was not much better. Yiio made 2 shots and his shooting percentage was lower than Love's. However, after knowing that his hand was not going well today, Westbrook gave Angel and Durant several wonderful passes. Today, Yiio's assists scored even more than his 7-point score.
Although Westbrook's offensive performance was not good, Anger's 9 points and 8 rebounds and Durant's 28 points were enough to make the Thunder win easily. This is the advantage of the Thunder. They rarely have the Third Thunder young masters at the same time.
97 to 9o, although the score difference seems not big, this can be said to be the easiest game that the Thunder has played recently. This victory also allowed the Thunder to get rid of the embarrassment of not being able to achieve five consecutive victories.
The Thunder's second five-game winning streak this season finally came late.
Van Gundy's serious attitude allowed him to not miss the opportunity to win when facing an opponent who was weaker than him.
After resting in Oklahoma City for half a night, the Thunder set sail again. This time, Westbrook returned to his hometown, Angel City Los Angeles.
"I will go to watch your game tonight." Angel just turned on his phone with 6 and saw the text message from Gardina to her. Gardina happened to be participating in a commercial event in Los Angeles these days. Seeing that the Thunder were coming to Los Angeles to play, Gardina immediately bought the tickets in the front row.
Although Anjie was a little dull about this, he was not a fool. He could guess the little girl's ideas, but the other party didn't pick on him, so he continued to pretend to be stupid. After all, the Catherine in Ames was the object of Anjie's day and night.
Even with Giardina assisting on the sidelines, even though Kobe scored only 6 of 8 shots and not more than 2o, even though the Thunder had just achieved a five-game winning streak, and even if Westbrook scored 3o points in line with the insults of Los Angeles fans, the Thunder fell into the Staples Center again.
Unable to win at the Staples Center is another big curse that has plagued the Thunder this season. Neither they have ever experienced the feeling of walking out of here as a winner.
The range of Odom and Gasol obviously made Anjie exhausted. It is hard to say whether the Zen master had targeted Anjie to change his offensive strategy. However, the fact is that Odom's yi8 points and Gasol's yi4 points are inseparable from Anjie.
Yi had 3 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and no blocks. This was Anjie's worst performance in March. If the Lakers, the No. 1 in the Western Conference, can't handle even three rookies, then why should they be the No. 1?
Another heartbreaking news is that the Jazz, who also had games, won the game with the Rockets. The victory gap between the two teams has once again become four games. The decent Rockets and Yao Ming, the Jazz have almost become synonymous with the Rockets nemesis.
There was no time left for the Thunder men to be frustrated. They wiped off their sweat silently, got up again, and continued to move towards the next station.
So in the duel with "Dragon King" Bosh three days later, An Jie rebounded strongly. He scored 2 points, 3 rebounds and 6 assists in the whole game, completely suppressing the majesty of "Dragon King".
Bosh scored yi 8 points and 6 rebounds in this game, but his shooting percentage was only 33. Anjie not only had strong offense, but his defensive ability was also reflected again.
yiyi2 vs. 96, Thunder took the lead and won the victory in northern Canada.
On the other side, the Jazz lost to the Suns a day ago. This did not bring the Suns closer to the playoffs, but instead gave the Thunder a chance. With 3 wins, the playoff tickets are within reach.
In this game, An Jie performed well and the team won. However, the news after the game wiped out An Jie's happy mood.
"I failed, yi6, we were blocked in the yi6 again. I don't know what to say, please call me if you have time..." From the cold words, Anjie could feel Morris's mood at this moment. Anjie, who had experienced it, naturally understood. Without saying a word, he called him and chatted with Morris for a long time...
In the next two games, the Thunder lost to the powerful Celtics Big Three with 84-10, but successfully stopped the Spurs from making a final goal with a score of 96-95 in the aTT center.
However, Duncan and Ginobili did not play in this game. Losing in this game may be the situation that Vicky hopes to see. After all, the Rockets with Yao Ming and Scola are definitely opponents that Vicky doesn't want to meet in the playoffs.
The scheming Vicci has begun to "select" his opponents in the playoffs as much as possible.
After defeating the Spurs, all the Thunder's matches in March ended. Yiyi won yiyi in yi5, and the Thunder's progress was obvious.
Chapter completed!