preface:
In the NBA, there has always been a beautiful talk about the big and small king, and this big and small king refers to two superstars, no doubt James and Durant, in fact, for Durant, he does not like this title, he wants to be a big king, not a small king, which is why he chose to reduce his self-price and join the Warriors after being eliminated by the Warriors in 2016. Although he won two championships, Durant did not improve so much in fame, but questioned his championship content. As for how much of the gap between Durant and James is, in fact, not much, there is only one Tatum.
The little king was pinched by Tatum and lost face
The Nets at the beginning of the season are determined to win the championship, but the team's civil strife, let them only enter the playoffs with the seventh ranking in the East, the first round opponent is the Boston Celtics, although the Nets only take the seventh, but before the game they are still optimistic, the fundamental reason is because of Durant and Irving, and even most fans think that the strength of the two teams in this series is between Berzhong, it is likely to play the seventh game of the series, but the final result is unbelievable to everyone. Boston sent the Nets home in just four games, and with the exception of the first game, when the Nets forced the Celtics into a desperate situation, the other games the Celtics won very easily, not a crushing big win, but an overwhelming advantage throughout the game.
Although Tatum has played very well this season, everyone feels that the gap between the young him and the 33-year-old veteran Durant is still very large, after all, one is a top superstar with two championships and a regular season MVP, and Tatum is just a fledgling new star who has just established himself in the league, but the showdown between the two is one-sided. Durant, who has crushed Tatum in terms of both team record and personal data, is arguably the worst round of Durant's career in this series, and both the average score per game and the shooting percentage are far inferior to other seasons, and such a performance can only make him suffer a sweep for the first time in his career and lose in front of the new star Tatum.
Although it is not Tatum who defends Durant throughout the series, during Tatum's defense of Durant, Durant only hit 4 shots in 17 shots, a total of 15 points, but there are 9 mistakes, there are many scenes of Tatum's frontal steals and frontal blocks, and Tatum is invincible in the series, facing Durant can be said to be give-take, Durant even praised Tatum, he thinks that Tatum will definitely enter the Hall of Fame in the future and get 30,000 points! There is no doubt that the two played each other with young Tatum laughing to the end, and the loss of this series also showed the gap between Durant and James.
The king was cruel and sent Tatum fishing
James and Tatum have formed an indissoluble relationship early, as early as 2018, the two have played each other once in the playoffs, when James was 34 years old, similar to durant's current age, but in the playoffs, not only swept the Celtics led by Tatum out of the door, but also won excellent personal data in the Finals, especially in the scene of the seventh game on the back of Morris, which can be called one of the most classic moments in NBA history.
Of course, Tatum has also staged a one-man dunk in the face of James, and even appeared in the headlines of the major media, but after completing the interstitial dunk, James not only did not give Tatum another chance to score, but instead picked up Tatum to play with the ball, but also let the young Tatum see the strength of the top star in NBA history for the first time, when James also lost two games to the Celtics at the beginning, but finally defeated the opponent, which also created a history, The only time in Celtic history that a 2-0 lead in the series has been lost is thanks to James, which is enough to see how strong James is.
Of course, there are also fans who said that at that time, Tatum was only a few years old, how strong the Celtics were at that time, of course, the current Tatum must be stronger than that time, but on the overall strength of the Celtics, it seems to be a higher level, this season the Celtics only won 51 wins, the Celtics were 54 wins, and the defensive efficiency ranked first in the league. In terms of strength, even Smart said that it is a team that is only hoping to compete for the championship, but it was eliminated by James, so that they had no chance to do this, and there was no Owen around James, and Lefu was also absent because of concussion, which can be said to be his own effort to lead the team to advance, and now the Nets have Irving and other cadres, but they have not bargained around Tatum, which is really incredible.
In the past few seasons, James has been criticized for being too low in gold content and eating the weak benefits of the East when he ruled the East, and now Durant has personally washed the black spot for James, he came to the East for two seasons, the Nets played the second round of the East at most, and this year was swept out of the first round again, facing an opponent who was defeated by James, so that the argument that the East was weak and eating dividends was not broken. In fact, before Durant joined the Nets, the Nets were already a playoff team, and at that time, under Russell's leadership, they could also play the first round of the East, but after three years, the team was instead standing still and did not see any improvement, which shows that Durant is not so godly.
epilogue
In fact, although Durant's performance in the finals is better than James's, but the data of the two finals is not divided, it can be called a mutual explosion, but in other aspects, the gap between Durant and James has opened, saying that it is only one Tatum, in fact, durant has left face, and the gap between him and James is all-round.