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

Chapter 395 David Westbrook’s explosion, a fatal blow

In the second half of the game, the situation was even more unfavorable to the Nets, and the bench was weak. Soon the Nets encountered a new problem, that is, as the game progressed, Durant's offensive efficiency decreased after his physical fitness declined.

Physical fitness has always been an objective factor that limits Durant's explosive scoring ability. He has almost the most stable scoring ability in the league, but he cannot score consecutive high scores like Kobe and Harden.

Is this true for Durant when he was healthy earlier, let alone after being injured?

Moreover, Durant, who was born in 88, is now 33 years old and at the end of his peak career as a professional player. His skills and game experience are superb, but his physical functions are constantly declining.

In this game, Durant also shoulders the heavy responsibility of defending Wang Chao. It is not easy to play three quarters of the game efficiently.

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

Booker was completely pinned to death by Wang Chao, unable to lift his head at all.

As for Jokic, although he has adapted to Howard's tough defense and used his skills to cause Howard two defensive fouls, Jokic at this stage still cannot reach the level of casually averaging 2023+ per game on the offensive end in 30. The explosive level of scoring is naturally unreliable.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Wang Chao took over the ball and continuously attacked Durant with the ball, completely draining the last bit of his energy. He scored 6 points in a row, widening the point difference to more than 15 points in one fell swoop, laying the foundation for the victory. Victory.

The Nets tried to make some counterattacks, but with little success. They could only replace all the main players and give up the game.

总决赛G1首战，爵士在自家主场以107:94赢下比赛，总比分1:0领先。

In this game, the Jazz's strategy obviously failed.

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

Booker was also completely out of defense by Wang Chao throughout the game, scoring only 12 points on 4 of 11 shots.

Under the ebb and flow of one another, even if they had an absolute advantage in the lineup, the Nets still lost miserably.

The Nets need to learn from the failure of this game and make adjustments in the next games. If not, the championship may be won by Wang Chao again.

It's just... how can tactical adjustment be such a simple thing?

The biggest problem the Nets have to solve is how to contain Wang Chao's offense. If they can't prevent Wang Chao from scoring, anything else is useless.

But if he could guard Wang Chao, how could this guy already hold eleven championship rings and be called the god of modern basketball?
Two days later, in the second game of the Finals, the Nets made positive adjustments to their tactics. They gave up Durant's arrangement of defending Wang Chao and turned it to Jarrett Allen to defend Wang Chao.

Allen, who mainly plays inside, is not suitable for guarding Wang Chao. He has an advantage in terms of height, but his speed cannot keep up with Wang Chao. However, the Nets can no longer control that much. If they cannot guard Wang Chao, they must at least let Duran Special's offensive firepower reaches its maximum, and at the same time, Booker is freed from being locked by Wang Chao, so that the team can hope to win.

The Nets' arrangement was correct. In the second game, Durant swept away the decline and scored 37 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists. At the same time, Booker finally found some touch, scoring 40 points with a shooting rate of over 22%. point.

But the Nets did not win because of this. 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. His scoring alone was almost as good as Durant + Booker.

Jarrett Allen's defense is useless to Wang Chao. Trying to pass the opponent is no different from passing a tree stump.

The Nets didn't have any strong rim-protecting players inside, so they had to let Jokic bite the bullet. As a result, before the end of the three quarters, Jokic received 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 the Jazz, he is still so invincible.

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

On July 7, the third game of the Finals, the home game came to the Nets' Barclays Center Arena.

Although the atmosphere of the Nets' home court is completely incomparable to that of the Jazz's Devil's home court, the Nets did show stronger strength when they returned home than in the previous two games.

At 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 three scored 31 points, 28 points and 35 points respectively in this game. The three scored a total of 94 points. It was natural to win the game.

Wang Chao expected Booker to bottom out when he returned to his home court. After all, with Booker's strength in the 20-21 season, even Wang Chao was not sure that he could suppress the opponent in several consecutive games.

But Jokic's 35 points in this game exceeded his expectations, which was the direct reason why the Jazz lost this game.

Although the Nets won this game and retained the suspense of the championship, New York fans were not too optimistic.

The Big Three scoring 94 points together is a low-probability event. In the past season, it basically never happened even in the regular season. With these three playing so well, the Nets could only do it at home. They only won by 5 points. During the game, the Jazz led by Wang Chao closed in on the points difference many times despite being in the lead. The process was extremely thrilling.

Do we really expect that the Nets' Big Three can continue to perform like this for at least three games in the next games?That doesn't sound very realistic.

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

Then the game two days later proved...that the Nets fans' judgment was wrong.

On July 7, still at the Nets' home court, the Jazz defeated the Nets 15:123, proving with facts that even if the Nets' Big Three perform superbly, they may not be able to win the game.

Yes, in this game, Durant, Booker and Jokic once again scored high scores, even higher than in G3. All three scored 30+ points, and the total score reached an astonishing 107.

But even so, the Nets still failed to win.

Because in addition to Wang Chao, who scored a standard triple-double with 47 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists, the Jazz also had players who exploded.

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

In the past two years, he has been criticized in various ways due to his declining condition and playing style.

Coming to the Jazz this season, there has been a lot of controversy about Westbrook. Although Wang Chao averaged 46 points per game with a super personal performance, the Jazz entered the playoffs with the league's first record and crushed all the way. Enter the finals.

But no one thinks this has much to do with Westbrook. Many people even believe that if Westbrook is replaced by another player of the same value with a close contract, the Jazz will be much stronger than they are now.

There is no way. Westbrook's technical characteristics are single, his style of play is extremely easy to target, and he occupies a lot of ball rights. Even Wang Chao can only run to play without the ball. There is really no bright spot at a glance.

When the Jazz first entered the Finals, many people mocked Westbrook.

"If it weren't for Wang Chao's thigh, Westbrook might not have a chance to reach the finals in his entire career, let alone win a championship."

In this time and space, the three Thunder young men 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.

Therefore, Westbrook has never experienced a Finals so far.

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

It is completely conceivable that if the Jazz failed in the finals, no one would blame Wang Chao. His performance on the court alone would have no blame at all.

By then, it is not impossible that Westbrook will become the number one war criminal, be criticized in various ways, and even be 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. In the three games, he averaged 17.8 points, 7.4 rebounds and 9.2 assists per game. His shooting percentage was rarely above 40%, but that It's more because the Nets lack strong rim-protecting players, and Wang Chao has attracted most of the Nets' defensive focus.

Then in the fourth game of the Finals, when no one was optimistic about his performance, Westbrook exploded into a small universe, showing off his prowess on the offensive end, hitting various difficult fairy balls, and finally scored 40 points and 10 points in the game. With rebounds and 6 assists, the shooting percentage is as high as 48%!

Westbrook's strong performance shocked everyone, and the one who was most caught off guard was naturally the Nets. Their focus in the game was almost entirely on Wang Chao, and they didn't pay attention to Westbrook at all. They didn't expect that the opponent was the most important here. moment gave them a fatal blow!
Wang Chao scored 47 points and Westbrook scored 40 points. The two scored 87 points together, leading the Jazz to win the fourth game of the Finals with a big score of 3:1 and taking the lead in winning the match point.

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

Before the two of them, the only combination in the league that both scored 40+ points in the finals was James + Irving of the Cavaliers, which shows the gold content of this achievement.

Nets fans are glad that they are not too optimistic. The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.

Even when they didn't have any hope for the Nets to win the championship, it wasn't so hard to accept that the Nets lost a key game and were given a match point by the Jazz.

(End of this chapter)