The second round of the draft, the absence of the players themselves, and the advertising of the draft conference are such a fat man who does not look very good at playing, and he is indeed a real European genius. Today we walk into Nikolai Jokic, who stands on the plateau of Denver closer to the Dome of heaven than anyone else.
The 76ers without Embiid have never really been on the same level of competition as the Heat.
In both games, the Heat almost always held a 10-point lead or more, and while they failed to extend that advantage to a surprising degree, they felt a sense of powerlessness rise in Philadelphia like a boiled frog.
It feels like: Before the Miamirs could exert their strength, Philadelphia had already fallen.
This night, Philadelphia will miss Seth Curry so much that when he leaves the team, the 76ers' outside shooting efficiency has dropped significantly.
Even if The Old Man sent out the shooters and gave Green, Niang and Kolkmaz enough time to shoot outside pitchers, Green shot 1 of 9 from three-point range, and Kolkmaz and Niang combined to shoot 3 of 7.
The outside can't shoot, and the 76ers are more dependent on the individual scoring ability of the double star in the backcourt. This time Maxi was fine, scoring 13 points in the third quarter and 10 points in the fourth quarter, struggling to support the 76ers' offense, as if he was the team's top salary.
In contrast, Harden shot 6-of-15 from the field and 1-of-5 from three-point range, scoring only 20 points, 9 assists and 3 turnovers.
"Obviously, the old man of time is invincible." Before the 76ers and the Heat, Grant Hill spoke lightly from the TNT commentary.
Ten years ago, Grant Hill was the protagonist of the fight against the old man of time, "I tried to defend Harden, that was his first year with the Rockets. Oh my God, he made me realize I was 40 years old and it was time to retire. ”
Now, Harden has become another protagonist, in the expectation that "Harden can not always pull the crotch for two consecutive games", the first half of 10 shots 5 points, when you just want to shout a "stand up", Harden suddenly fell down, the second half of 5 shots 1 only scored 4 points.
It is true that no one can defeat the time old man, but being KO by the time old man at the age of 32 is beyond the expectations of too many people.
The Heat's defensive strategy can be heard from The Shouts of Spall's timeout, "Build a wall of people, I'm going to make Harden's eyes full of walls of people!" ”
Even if you miss this sentence, watching two more rounds of games, you can see Harden's struggle. After all, every moment Harden breaks through, he will get lost in the bag of two or even three people.
The most commonly seen image is of Harden holding his hands high and the referee indifferent.
On the one hand, the Heat are the most defensive team in the league, and if you don't believe it, ask "New York Mayor" Trae Young how he feels.
Whenever Harden calls for the heat to change the defense, Harden breaks through two people stuck on his travel route, and when the score is glued, there will be some bag clips, and after taking the lead, the Heat is not so defensive.
The Heat's defense seems to be saying, let's not light up too much at the bottom card, hide it first, and then there will be a game later.
Of course, Harden has faced too many similar defensive situations. After all, in the 2018-19 season, in the top ten scoring lists, Harden dominated the top three of the list, and three times were 60+. In this top ten scoring list, only Booker and Lillard squeezed into the list, and the rest of the high scores belonged to Harden.
Harden encountered the same defense during that time, but Harden still made himself one of the greatest scoring masters in NBA history.
It was as if Harden had just stood on the court and shot either a goal or a foul on the free throw line. At that time, the biggest discussion was whether it was decent or not to "brush points" by free throws.
But now, the old man of time still punched Harden with one punch.
So far in the playoffs, Harden has averaged only 18.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 9.4 assists in 8 games, shooting 40.2% from the field and 34.8% from three-point range.
Today's Harden, 16 points at half seems to have been desperately exhausted, otherwise it is impossible to explain the embarrassment of scoring only 4 points in the second half? Or twice in a row.
Even the first half of this game is already harden's best side of the playoffs this season, with 10 shots to tie the record for the highest personal half-time shot in this year's playoffs, and 16 points is also the first time that he has scored 15+ at halftime.
This is Harden's 29th game for the 76ers, and harden has never made more than 20 shots in 29 games, the highest one being the magic on the road against the bottom of the East, making 19 shots.
Throughout the playoffs, Harden averaged 7.1 points and 4.4 assists per game in the second half, shooting 37 percent from the field and 32 percent from three-point range. The corresponding figure in the first half was 11.6 points and 5 assists per game, shooting 42% and 37% from both fields.
Looking at it horizontally and vertically, Harden's average half-time scoring data should be his single-quarter scoring, but the cruelty of reality is so unexpected.
Harden's work is still there, but the confrontation and eruption are gone. So when it came time for the playoffs to struggle, Harden couldn't get up. So Harden hit three consecutive Heat balls in the fourth quarter, but in the end he didn't win.
It could be an old illness that came back from injury last season, it could be poor body management, or it could be that age has indeed reached a point of decline.
There are thousands of reasons for Harden's decline that cannot be judged, but the results are clearly visible, and Harden really can't go back to the past.
In the past, Harden took 20+10, he only needed 20+10 to win, but now Harden takes 20+10, he can only take 20+.
Even if harden passes the ball to make him let go, he will swing his hand to give way after two strong hits. It's not that I don't want to fight, it's that I really can't move.
There have been 332 series leads in NBA history, with 307 leading teams eventually advancing, with a 92% chance of qualifying.
Philadelphia's return to the home court is actually a hopeless situation. They want to win the game and can only hope for Embiid's comeback. However, haynes broke the news in the live broadcast: Embiid is still very sensitive to light, and was only allowed to use the mobile phone yesterday.
The first push sent by Embiid, who just used his mobile phone, was to congratulate Real Madrid on the 89th minute of jedi life last night, scoring two goals in a row to complete an epic reversal. It's just that Harden is not Benzema in Philadelphia.
Oh yes, Benzema is two years older than Harden.
Interestingly, on the day Harden was ridiculed by the fans, one of the loudest voices was, "Look at Paul next door, look at Harden again." ”
On this day, the news about Paul wrote: Paul, who only scored 14 points in the first three quarters, broke out in the first half of the fourth quarter, scoring 14 points on 6 consecutive shots, leading the team to a double-digit lead.
On how a sentence hurts Harden twice, in addition to the fourth quarter and a half quarter 6 of 6, there is also the word "only" in the first three quarters.
After all, Harden is tired and tired of 16 points, and paul, who is 5 years older than him, is just an understated "only" word.
But there is nothing wrong with such an expression, and Paul has also suffered the embarrassment of 4 points in a single game in the playoffs this season, but he is more of a title of king of the final quarters.
According to statistics, in the fourth quarter of the playoffs this season, Paul scored a total of 82 points in the league, shooting a total of 30 of 47 shots, shooting 64%, and delivered 20 assists and only 5 turnovers.
When the sun needed Paul to stand up, Paul stood up, and even when he didn't need Paul to stand up, he stood up.
Even his recently eliminated opponent, CJ, praised from the bottom of his heart: "I wouldn't be so upset to watch the Suns and Paul toy with everyone else in the palm of my hand." ”
Arguably, the Suns with Paul are the most stable team of the season. In addition to Paul's 14 points and 2 assists in the fourth quarter, the Suns scored a total of 40 points, and the shooting rate was a terrifying 84.2%.
According to statistics, in the past 25 years of playoffs, the Suns today ranked second in the fourth quarter of the shooting rate, second only to the Spurs (87.5%) of the 14-year Finals G1.
In this game, the Suns shot 64.5% from the field, setting a new single-game record in the playoffs. With 70.6 percent two-point shooting and 52 percent three-point shooting, the Suns became the first team in NBA playoff history to shoot more than 70 percent from two-point range and more than 50 percent from three-point range.
On the other hand, the Suns have shot more than 50 percent in every game since the start of the playoffs.
After the game, Paul said a topic that seemed to have nothing to do with the game: "You have to work hard, and everything comes down to hard work." You have to do strength training, you have to stay in shape, you have to lift iron, you have to rest, you have to shoot the ball. ”
"All you can rely on in those moments is what you train, and when you do your best, you can accept the end result, and we trust ourselves."
Paul, 37, looked at Harden, 32, with his eyes full of 45-year-old looks.
Past reading: The Grizzlies have a good time and place, but they have less experience with the Warriors
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