NBA: Top 3D talents to start

Chapter 400 First Round vs Pelicans
The butterfly effect of Wang Feng's crossing changed many things.

Harden will cross the Nets to join the 76ers in advance is one of them.

The Nets, which already have the configuration of the Big Three, are also salivating for Harden who wants to leave the team. However, the Nets are unwilling to give up any one of the Big Three, and they have no other valuable bargaining chips to exchange for Harden, so they can only give up. Harden's thoughts.

This also benefited the 76ers and became one of the strong contenders in the Eastern Conference.

Most fans generally believe that the most likely teams in the Eastern Conference to enter the finals are the Nets, Bucks and 76ers. The rest of the teams such as the Celtics, Heat, Eagles, etc. There is a lot of difference in performance, and it is impossible to be the opponent of these three teams.

In contrast, the situation in the west is quite confusing.

Although the Jazz won the first place in the Western Conference, not many people think that the Jazz has the possibility of breaking out from the Western Conference. After all, the core players of the Jazz are Mitchell and Gobert. Neither of them is the top superstar in the league. Although the performance in the game was very good, but in the playoffs, which requires more high-intensity games that rely on stars, not many people are optimistic about the Jazz.

The Los Angeles duo have their own problems. The Lakers' Butler needs to be in the Western Conference finals to come back, while the Clippers are worse than last season because of Westbrook.

On the contrary, the Golden State Warriors, who once ruled the league, became the strongest team in the Western Conference, and they were even more optimistic about the outside world.

Of course, if the Lakers can survive the first and second rounds and enter the Western Conference Finals under the leadership of Wang Feng, and wait until Butler is fully recovered, the chances of the Lakers are also not small.

And now, the Lakers will face severe challenges in the first round.

The New Orleans Pelicans are not a team that is easy to deal with. They have the standard equipment of the Big Three and have rich experience in the playoffs. Chris Paul, who can lead the team, is in his prime. Brother Anthony Davis, and Zion Williams, who has performed quite well this season and is regarded as the future hope of the Pelicans, is the league's star of tomorrow.

In the 4 games that the two teams met in the regular season, they achieved 2 wins, 2 losses and a tie.

In the eyes of the outside world, Wang Feng is not fighting alone in this game.

Although Jimmy Butler was unable to play due to injury, Ingram played very well during the regular season, shouldering the job that originally belonged to Butler as the second head, and did very well.

In the 82 games of the regular season, Ingram played 78 games, averaged 35 minutes per game, scored 24.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists, and shot 47.2% from the field. At the same time, he relied on his height and arm length on the defensive end There are also some contributions.

You must know that even when Butler was the first core of the Bulls, the season with the highest scoring average was only 23.9 points. Although Butler's defense is much better than Ingram, but as a zero-time top bag For Ingram, who is the team's second scoring point, the current performance is enough to satisfy the Lakers management.

Wang Feng's personal data this season has really exploded, averaging 40+10+10 per game, and 83 points in a single trip can be described as shocking. However, without the help of Ingram's stable scoring, it would be difficult to achieve fourth in the highly competitive West. .

In addition, Kuzma's performance this season is also remarkable. His average of 16.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game is the third scoring point in the Lakers. His luck is quite good. If Butler is not injured, the distribution of ball rights is relatively low. It is very difficult for him to obtain such an opportunity.

Being able to play such data in the contract year has laid a solid foundation for him to renew his big contract during the summer offseason.

……

On April 2021, 4, the first round of the playoffs officially started.

The Lakers kick off their playoffs at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The Pelicans came aggressively. From the beginning of the game, they habitually attacked the weak inside of the Lakers continuously. Davis and Zion Williams teamed up to tear the Lakers' inside defense to pieces.

But the Lakers are not to be outdone. The outside line led by Wang Feng Ingram opened fire, and the offensive firepower is not weaker than that of the Pelicans.

In the first quarter, the two teams were evenly matched. At 33:32, the Lakers led by 1 point at home.

Wang Feng scored 16 points in a single quarter, the highest score for the Lakers.

As for the Pelicans, Davis scored 14 points and Zion Williams scored 10 points.

The game was evenly matched in the first quarter, but in the second quarter, the Lakers made tactical adjustments. Lopez and Kuzma were replaced by Howard and Ball.

Needless to say, Howard's inside defense ability, Paul Ball is 2 meters tall, and he has been trained as a defensive blue-collar player in the past two years with the Lakers. Although limited by his physique, inside defense The toughness is not high, but relying on the advantages of height and arm length, the ability to protect the frame is quite good, at least much better than Kuzma.

The purpose of the Lakers' move is to strengthen the defensive capabilities of the inside.

With Howard, Ball, and Wang Feng, the defensive strength of the Lakers' basket has risen several levels in an instant.

Of course, the price to pay for strengthening the defense is the sacrifice on the offensive end.

Kuzma is currently the team's third-leading scorer, and Lopez, who is good at long-range shots, is an important role for the Lakers to stretch space and execute most tactics.

The two changed off, which made the Lakers less threatening on the offensive end.

Fortunately, the team does not need to worry about this, because the decline in offensive lethality can be made up for by personal ability.

Wang Feng's scoring ability is currently the top in the league, and he can completely penetrate the Pelicans' defense line which is not particularly strong by himself.

After Howard guarded the basket, he successfully gave Zion two crisp hot pot hats.

As the No. [-] pick, Howard was no worse than Zion in his glory days. After all, he was a top center who claimed to be able to replace James alone in his peak period. The block king, he is not a vegetarian on the defensive end, especially when facing a short player like Zion who likes to rely on brute force, goes straight to the offense, and mainly scores at the basket, it is a good opportunity for Howard to perform .

There is one thing to say, let Howard defend the insiders with flexible feet, rich and varied offensive methods and comprehensive skills in the league. , he is too old to walk slowly, and he can easily be passed by the opponent.

But Zion is different.

As the main striker, the biggest difference between Zion and other strikers is the serious lack of outside shooting ability.

This season, Zion averaged 27 points per game, shooting 61% from the field, but 80% of the points came from the basket, about 15% came from free throws, and the remaining 5% were outside shots.

Such a score distribution chart is very strange. In the 80 games played in the regular season this season, Zion took more than 1100 shots at the basket and shot 63% from the field.

The last one to hit this kind of data was O'Neal of the Lakers.

Zion may have the same strength and explosive power as O'Neal in the front line, but he does not have O'Neal's first-class height and wingspan in the interior.

No matter how high the offensive efficiency at the basket is, the fatal shortcoming of height still exists, which also caused Zion to become the player with the most caps among players averaging more than 20 points per game.

Unlike other short players, due to Zion's serious lack of outside shooting ability, as long as the team is playing against the Pelicans, they will not defend Zion on the outside. If you want to come to the basket, in this case we will talk to you under the basket.

Like Howard now, I just don't care how Zion dangles on the outside, I just stick to the basket and wait for you to come over.

In this case, Zion has nothing to do, he only has two options.

First, hold the basketball and rush to the basket to compete with Howard who is tougher.

Second, pass the ball to someone else.

Of course, Zion is not afraid of the old Warcraft who is already old and has little strength left, so he was given two big hot pots.

Zion's offense was blocked, and Davis, the thick eyebrow brother, was also not having a good time.

Boer Boer is just a rookie, and his defensive ability is much worse than the top opponents Brother Nongmei has encountered in the past.

But precisely because Ball is a rookie and a newborn calf is not afraid of tigers, Lakers coach Walton's defensive strategy for Ball is a sticky candy-style stalking, and the moves are as big as possible without fouling. When he can't be stopped, fouls are also okay. Anyway, he is just a rotation player, and it doesn't matter even if he is sent off for 6 fouls.

Many teams in the league have players who do this kind of dirty work, and this is what they rely on to survive in the league.

Ball is a second-round pick, and it is already a rare thing to be able to get a guaranteed contract in the league. Naturally, he will go all out without reservation on the field.

Of course Ball couldn't guard Davis, but his jellyfish-like entanglement defense also annoyed him, and his offensive efficiency was also affected.

The offense of the Pelicans was affected by the change of the Lakers in the second quarter, but the offense of the Lakers was as stable as ever.

After replacing the two main offensive players, why can the Lakers maintain a stable offensive efficiency?The reason was naturally Wang Feng.

Throughout the second quarter, Wang Feng played the entire quarter, and his offense was mostly singles with the ball and center forwards pulling out pick-and-roll screens.

Without Lopez's help to stretch the space, Wang Feng's shooting rate has not been affected at all. Even in the face of a top defensive player like Davis, the thick eyebrow brother, he can still score the ball steadily.

Throughout the second quarter, Wang Feng scored 21 points in a single quarter, leading the Lakers to score 37 points in a single quarter, while the Pelicans scored only 28 points in a single quarter.

At the end of halftime, Wang Feng scored 37 points, helping the Lakers successfully obtain a double-digit lead at halftime.

(End of this chapter)