With three points at the start, Nash begged for a maximum salary to renew his contract

On May 5, the Rockets faced another defeat in the away game. The total score was 2:0 behind, which was equivalent to half of their foot on the edge of a cliff. The next game back to their home court was almost irreversible.

But the gap in strength cannot be resolved by hard work alone.

In the first two away games, the Rockets lost the game by a big score, and they were almost unilaterally beaten throughout the game.

After the two games, there are very few players in the Rockets who still have fighting spirit.

Everyone knows that it is almost impossible to defeat the Nuggets led by Wang Chao.

When a team doesn't even have the will to fight, it's even harder to win.

The result was that two days later, on May 5, the Rockets returned to their home court and wanted to fight to the death, but they lost even worse.

At 113:92, the Nuggets won by 21 points at the Rockets' home court, and they had a lead of more than 20 before halftime.

After the Rockets' entire game, only Leonard shot more than 45% from the field, and he was the only one who scored more than 15 points.

The feeling of being helpless, wanting to turn the tide but being powerless, made Leonard feel very bad.

As soon as the game ended, he walked towards the players' tunnel with a dark face, expressing his dissatisfaction in this way.

And at the post-match press conference, Leonard also blasted directly, unceremoniously accusing his teammates of lacking fighting spirit, choosing to give up early, and declaring that such a professional attitude would never win the championship.

Leonard's anxiety is completely understandable.

As Wang Chao's most potential and most promising player, Leonard was once considered to be Wang Chao's successor, a superstar destined to rule the league in the future.

Especially after Wang Chao left the Rockets, many people placed high hopes on Leonard, who stayed with the Rockets, and hoped that he could lead the Rockets to continue to win the championship and create brilliance.

But a few years have passed in the blink of an eye, and the Rockets have not even made it to the Western Conference Finals, let alone the Finals.

Leonard's own performance is impeccable. Whether it is the regular season or the playoffs, he is the one with the best and most stable performance. However, it is easy to fight the country and difficult to defend the country. In just a few years, the Rockets' management squandered all of the illustrious mountains and rivers.

Outside players such as Butler and Middleton left one after another, and the inside players also missed two inside players, Jokic and Gobert.

As a result, Leonard has until now, and the only star around him that he can rely on is actually a blue-collar worker like Whiteside.

Not to mention Leonard, even Wang Chao will have to operate for at least two or three years in the current Rockets team before he has a chance to compete for the championship.

Leonard does not have the ability of Wang Chao, but he has the ambition to replace Wang Chao. This has made him quite tormented in the past few years in the Rockets, and he is a little eager to win the championship to prove his ideas.

But complaining about teammates in public is not a rational choice at any time, nor is it a way to solve problems. This will only further intensify the conflict.

After the angry Leonard complained to the media, although the team's head coach smoothed things over and tried to recover, the morale of the Rockets had collapsed, and there was no way to recover.

This also led to G4 in the series, which is still a game like a pool of stagnant water.

The entire Rockets team has no fighting spirit, and even Leonard has no idea of ​​winning. They just want to end the game as soon as possible, get relief, and start preparing for the new season.

After the end of this season, the Rockets are expected to usher in a rebuild, what should go, what should stay.

For example, Whiteside, who has an annual salary of 2500 million but is doing a second-rate blue-collar job, the Rockets will send him away at all costs. It may be difficult for other role players to stay in the team with longer contracts.

As for the core of the team, Kawhi Leonard, the Rockets management definitely hopes to stay at all costs. After all, Leonard is only 27 years old and has not yet reached the real golden age of his career. He can also play an efficient level of defense against Wang Chao, and there is no problem at all as the main core of a championship team.

It's just that the Rockets want to keep Leonard, so it's not certain whether Leonard will choose to stay with the team.

Once the Rockets choose to rebuild, they don’t know when they will be able to compete for the championship again. Whether Leonard is willing to accompany the Rockets to grow up, no one knows, but at least Leonard is facing the public media at present. Judging from his ambiguous attitude, it is unlikely.

Therefore, the Rockets management has prepared for the worst. Once Leonard chooses to submit a trade application, they need to find the most suitable next home as quickly as possible, and use Leonard in exchange for more benefits and bargaining chips.
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4: 0.

Like the Lakers in the first round, the Rockets were also completely powerless against the Nuggets with a perfect lineup structure. The only fig leaf for the entire team was Leonard.

4场比赛，伦纳德场均可以贡献27.8分7.6篮板4.4助攻，投篮命中率45%。

In contrast, for the Nuggets, Wang Chao averaged 4+28+10 quasi-triple-doubles in 9 games. From a statistical point of view, it is slightly lower than the regular season, but this is not Wang Chao The main problem is that the Rockets are too weak. Three of the four games entered the garbage time ahead of time. Wang Chao has no interest in scoring points during the garbage time, which led to the decline in personal data.

Facts have proved that if you want to see a full-fledged super, it is not enough for the Nuggets to have a weak lineup, and the opponent's strength must be strong enough.

After the Nuggets swept the Rockets and successfully advanced to the Western Conference Finals, only the winner of the other matchup, that is, the Warriors vs. Spurs, had the chance to force out the strongest Wang Chao.

The Warriors and the Spurs have been rivals in the playoffs for the past few seasons. To be precise, only the Spurs can cause some trouble to the Warriors in the West. never defeated a warrior.

There is no way, the lineup gap between the two sides is still too big.

The Warriors have the MVP-level superstar Curry, Thompson, Cousins, Green three all-star players, as well as outstanding role players such as Iguodala, Livingston, and West.

On the other hand, for the Spurs, the lineup is weakening every year as the veterans age.

Duncan retired, Parker Ginobili retreated to the second line, even with Butler and Howard's dual-core top core positions, the team's overall upper limit is still limited.

In the final analysis, although Butler is very strong, he is not like James, Durant, Antetokounmpo or even Leonard in the 18-19 season, who can average more than 30+ per game in the entire playoffs. A top superstar who leads the team to victory by himself.

Even in the period when the Heat led the team to the finals twice in the future, it is no exception. This is an objective fact.

Butler is like this, let alone Howard.

In this small ball era, Howard's role on the court will only become smaller and smaller, especially when his athletic ability degenerates, his defense at the basket has a big gap compared with Gobert.

This led to the Warriors vs. Spurs game, which ended with the Warriors eliminating the Spurs 4-2.

In these 6 games, Butler and Howard can contribute 25+5+5 and 17+12 data respectively. Compete.

In this way, the matchup in the Western Conference Finals is the Nuggets vs. Warriors.

In the East, the Cavaliers easily swept the second-placed Raptors in the East 4-0. No matter how good the Raptors’ record in the regular season is, they were like a piece of paper when they met the Cavaliers. .

The game between the Nets and the Celtics was a little stalemate.

Although the lineup of the Nets left by Wang Chao is also exaggerated, compared with the Warriors, it has obvious shortcomings, that is, strong offense and weak defense.

After all, the Warriors have excellent defensive players such as Green, Thompson, and Iguodala, and even Cousins' ability to protect the basket in the penalty area is not weak by virtue of his own tonnage. Due to the relatively high number.

The Nets are different. Once Wang Chao leaves, the team will no longer be able to find a player who can play a leading role on the defensive end.

In fact, when the Nets won the championship last season, Wang Chao's contribution on the defensive end had faintly overshadowed his contribution on the offensive end. After all, there are so many offensive points in the team, there is no need for Wang Chao to bother on the offensive end. Wang Chao's 16 points per game in the regular season in the 17-27.1 season became the lowest scoring season since the 07-0 season.

At this stage of the Nets, there is absolutely no problem with offensive firepower.

The organization master Paul supports the organization, Durant, the benchmark figure of stand-up singles, guarantees stable offensive scoring, and the occasional superb performance of emerging players like Booker, and even Jokic, the offensive kaleidoscope inside. A normal existence with almost no shortcomings.

The Celtics are one of the best defensive teams this season. When they faced the Nets in the second round, the defensive end could not restrain the Nets at all, and the defense was torn to pieces.

But fortunately, the Nets' defense has a big problem, so the Green Army seized the opportunity in the game and won 2 games.

Although Irving's ability to lead the team has always been criticized, there is one thing that has to be admitted, that is, when the team has the lowest minimum strength, Irving's existence as a surprise soldier is true at certain times on the court. It can play a decisive role!

Just like in the G3 game, the Nets had already won two games at home, came to the Celtics home court with a score of 2:0, and also led the away game by nearly three quarters, and they were about to win In the third game, the score was rewritten to 3:0.

In this desperate situation, Irving broke out with a super scoring ability. He scored 21 points in a single quarter in the fourth quarter, abruptly leading the Celtics to a comeback, tenaciously pulling back a victory, and then again in G4. The next victory brought the total score back to a 2:2 tie.

Such a score really scared the Knicks fans a lot. Fortunately, the quality of the Nets' stars is hard enough.

In the battle of Tianwangshan in G5, Durant scored 42 points and 6 rebounds, leading the Nets to win the game. In the next city, the game ended 6:30.

Despite their unwillingness, the Celtics, like the Spurs, were defeated in terms of the number and quality of their stars and left the game with hatred.

The result is the East and West finals, as predicted by most of the media, a dream matchup between the Nuggets vs. Warriors, Nets vs. Cavaliers.

Fans all over the league became excited. After all, the above four teams are the top four teams in the championship odds list. At the beginning of the season, the team with the highest odds of winning the championship was the team that had just acquired Paul through a trade. The Nets, followed by the Warriors who successfully retained the original lineup, the Cavaliers' odds of winning the championship plummeted because of Irving's departure.

As for the Nuggets, they were not even as good as the Spurs in the championship odds list at the time, ranking outside the league's fifth place. No way, who made the Nuggets look like Wang Chao was a player who could play?
No one would have thought that the Nuggets were the first in the regular season and the only team with 60+ wins this season.

Not only Wang Chaoqiang, Gobert, Mitchell, Murray, Rose and others have all performed well.

When the regular season is over, the winning odds list has changed drastically.

The Nuggets came from behind and ranked first. The Nets, due to their deficiencies on the defensive end, had a sharp drop in the number of promising players and could only rank third. The Warriors, who played as stable as ever, were still No.2, and the Cavaliers were also as most people expected. Similarly, neither Thomas Jr. nor Wade showed enough strength during the season. Wade was traded back to the Heat through communication in the middle of the season, while Thomas Jr. was too dark on the defensive end and not efficient on the offensive end. Because of this, he gradually became a substitute player.

The above winning odds list basically shows that the outside world generally predicts the outcome of the East-West matchup.

Nuggets vs. Warriors, everyone is more optimistic about the Nuggets. For nothing else, a single bet on Wang Chao is enough.

As for the Nets vs. Cavaliers, there are more fans who tend to win the Nets with a more luxurious lineup.

On May 5, under the eyes of everyone, the Eastern Conference finals took the lead.

In the opening game of the Eastern Conference finals, the result was quite surprising. The Nets at home won, and won very easily, 108:83, beating the Cavaliers by 25 points.

For the Nets, Durant had 23 points, Paul had 20 points and 6 assists, and Booker had 21 points. The three scored 20+ points and their offense was fully fired.

反观骑士队，面对篮网这种级别的防守全场居然仅有83分，除了得到25分7篮板6助攻的詹姆斯外，再无一人得分上双，被寄予厚望的内线支柱恩比德全场仅16投5中得到15分7篮板。

The one-sided situation is surprising.

After all, even if the fans are more optimistic about the Nets, they generally feel that this should be a series of extremely fierce battles, not this kind of unilateral sling. (end of this chapter)