The Golden Age of Basketball

Before the start of the playoffs, the Blazers finally determined their starting lineup, center Gan Guoyang, power forward Sampson, small forward Vandeweghe, shooting guard Drexler, and point guard Colter.

In the playoffs last season, Ramsey put Kenny Carr in the starting lineup to replace Sampson, mainly because the bench lacked enough offensive firepower after Drexler was put on the starting lineup. Kenny Carr's defensive style is matched with Gan Guoyang, which is more suitable for the playoffs.

This season, Sampson's offensive ability began to decline. He began to take on more blue-collar jobs on the court, and the burden of inside offense fell more on Gan Guoyang.

On the bench, after a season of adaptation, Paxson has become a qualified backup shooting guard. The growth of Jerome Cosey and the arrival of Terry Porter have also made the Blazers' bench even thicker.

In the last few games at the end of the season, Ramsey began to let Vandeweghe, Sampson and other injured veterans enter the rotation state, giving young players more opportunities to play.

Therefore, the Trail Blazers' performance on the field has also experienced a certain degree of ups and downs. They can beat the Denver Nuggets by 137:110, 27 points, or lose to the underdog Golden State Warriors again by 130:131.

But no matter what, the Blazers still had a score of 63 wins and 19 losses. The advantage of two wins overwhelmed the Lakers with 61 wins and 21 losses, and returned to the Western Conference regular season championship after eight years.

On Sunday, April 4th, after the final game of the regular season, the Blazers headed to team owner Larry Weinberg's luxury yacht on the Willamette River to start a contest to win the regular season. Championship celebration.

"I hope that in two months' time, we can still sit on this boat and start celebrating the championship around the city! I really, really miss that summer in 1977." Weinberg was full of expectations at the celebration dinner Said.

In fact, for Wayne Berger, competing for the championship this season is not in his expectation. In the summer of 1985, the main goal of the team he proposed to Inman was to take a long-term view, train new players, and strive to be in the At the end of the 80s, he hit the championship.

But Gan Guoyang's growth rate is amazing, just like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, these two guys won the championship in their rookie season and second season respectively, and became the strongest superstar in the league.

Now it seems that Gan Guoyang has such potential, but there are two problems in front of him, one is Gan Guoyang's skin color, until now, there are still many people who think that a yellow man can succeed in the nba, but it is impossible to rule nba; The second is that the two mountains of Bird and Johnson have not yet fallen, or they are at their peak, and it is really difficult to overcome them.

Even so, the Trail Blazers double-killed the Celtics in the regular season and overwhelmed the Lakers to regain the No. I rewarded myself on my yacht and cheered for the upcoming playoffs.

The situation of the first round of the playoffs is also fully released with the end of the last game. The Blazers' opponent in the first round will be the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs are one year older than last season. Gilmore and Gervin The combination has passed their peak period, and this season may be the last playoffs of the dying Spurs in recent years, and they will soon begin to enter a long period of reconstruction.

Of course, the Blazers are not very worried about the first round of the game, but the team with young players must be very careful in the last fight against the old players. The first black eight will be born ahead of schedule.

For the second round, the Blazers don't seem to have to worry too much, because the opponents in the second round will be between the No.4 Denver Nuggets and the No.5 Dallas Mavericks. It is the defeat of the Blazers. The two teams have not improved significantly this season. The Nuggets have also declined, falling from third in the Western Conference last season to fourth in the Western Conference. They were caught up by the Rockets behind.

The situation in the East is not the same as in the West. The West is in flux. The Lakers’ leadership position is threatened by the Rockets and Trail Blazers, while the troika structure in the East still exists. The Celtics, 76ers and Bucks continue to compete. male.

However, judging from the regular season situation and historical records, it is not too difficult for the Celtics to break out of the East. After all, they have shown too much strength this season, and although the 76ers continue to maintain third place in the East, Barkley is also growing rapidly, but he can't help the collective aging of the perimeter. Dr. J's time in the NBA is numbered.

The Bucks had a tragic half of the 80s and were killed by the 76ers four times. This season is likely to meet the 76ers again in the second round. This will undoubtedly be a battle of revenge.

As for the Pistons, they can only cause a little trouble for the Celtics because they haven't got the lineup yet-but the little trouble will soon become a big trouble.

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On April 4th, there is still one day before the start of the playoffs. Before the start of the playoffs, the teams have not moved their horses and horses. get moving.

The Celtics and the Lakers both said, "I only have eyes for you" and showed their love before the fierce fight. The Celtics wanted to complete revenge in this year's finals, while the Lakers Determined to step on the corpse of the Celtics and become the first team to successfully defend their title after 1969.

The level of the 76ers' talkativeness has declined with the decline in strength. Moses Malone can no longer "fo, fo, fo" like in 1983. In the interview, he said that he is not afraid of anyone or any team, and when asked about the rebounding leader, Barkley felt that the top two players in the rebounding list lowered the level of rebounding in the entire NBA.

The top two on the rebounding list are Gan Guoyang and Lambiel, a Chinese and a white man who is slow and unable to jump. It is really incredible, and Gan Guoyang also responded quickly, saying when Barkley will be able to win the rebounding champion, Gan Guoyang invited Barkley to eat hamburgers for a season for free.

Olajuwon also said before the game that they will rush out of the West this season and reach the finals. This is also the third team besides Lake Kai before the playoffs that their goal is to win the championship.

Of course, Olajuwon's remarks were ridiculed by many media, because if they can survive the first round, then the opponent in the semifinals will be the Lakers. Between the Lakers and the Rockets, most people are of course optimistic lakers.

Gan Guoyang didn't take it seriously. In an interview after training, he believed that the Rockets would be their strongest opponent. Between the Lakers and the Rockets, he was optimistic about the Rockets.

Of course Gan Guoyang has a reason for saying this. One of the reasons is that the Lakers are not in a good state this year. In the game against the Lakers, Gan Guoyang can feel that the Lakers are aging inside. Maurice Lucas is not very suitable for the Lakers. After Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the finals mvp last season and became the oldest fmvp in league history, his motivation seems to be one point less.

Although the Rockets had only 53 wins in the regular season, their vitality and impact were astonishing. Gan Guoyang thought he could suppress the Rockets' proud inside twin towers, but he also admitted that the Rockets' tall and strong outside line their weapon of victory.

Of course, the most important reason is that Gan Guoyang heard the prophecy from the blind Chris, he said that the Rockets will win the championship this season-provided that Gan Guoyang is dead.

Since Gan Guoyang is not dead, he naturally won't just sit and watch the Rockets suddenly emerge.

Therefore, in the preparations before the playoffs, the Blazers focused their energy on dealing with the Spurs and the Lakers, as if they were not very concerned about the Rockets.

Gan Guoyang raised his doubts. He believed that more energy must be put on dealing with the Rockets, to seriously study the characteristics of the Rockets in the regular season when they played against the Trail Blazers, and to always pay attention to the performance of the Rockets in the playoffs.

Like Gan Guoyang's agent David Falk, Ramsey also discovered Gan Guoyang's super sensitivity that is different from ordinary people during the two seasons with Gan Guoyang, so he still accepted Gan Guoyang's opinion, and in training Among them, some tactics against rockets were properly drilled.

However, the meeting with the Rockets will have to wait until the Western Conference Finals. Before that, if the opponents in the first round and the semifinals cannot be resolved, everything will be empty talk and a joke.

Gan Guoyang didn't want to capsize in the first round while preparing for the Western Conference finals, and then be ridiculed by the teams and fans.

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On April 4, after a four-day rest, the Western Conference playoffs will finally start at the Portland Memorial Stadium. On the 17th, the San Antonio Spurs team has arrived in Portland, which is generally considered to be the beginning of the game. It will be a short trip to the playoffs -- although they don't think so themselves.

In the 1983 season, the Spurs reached their peak, and they lost the Lakers in six games in the Western Conference Finals.

At that time, Gilmore was still able to compete with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, George Gervin was able to score 30 and 40 points in the series, and the Lakers were weak that year, they did not have the team's No. [-] small forward James Worthy.

Even if such a Spurs made it to the Finals, they would probably be swept out by the invincible Philadelphia 76ers that year, but for Gervin, even winning a division championship is a consoling honor.

When they lost the conference finals last time, they were still in the Eastern Conference and lost to the Bullets. You must know that the average score of the Spurs in the entire series was higher than that of the Bullets, but the total score was indeed 3:4.

Now, they don't have many chances when they are old, but veterans don't die, and they have to fight one last time.