The NBA playoffs are in full swing, and the first two rounds of the first round of the playoffs have a total of 8 groups of confrontations, 5 groups are 2-0, and 3 groups are 1-1. Judging from the overall situation, the East is very chaotic, even the Celtics, who have the best record in the league, have lost home-court advantage in the face of the remnants of the Heat, and paid the price for their laxity. On the Western side, several young teams continued their dominance in the regular season, with the Thunder + Nuggets + Timberwolves playing perfectly in the first two games, the Clippers also lost their home-court advantage, and the new generation rose in an all-round way. After the start of the third round, there have been certain changes in the situation between the East and the West, the Magic and the 76ers, who had fallen behind by a large score in the East, won smoothly, but the process of winning was completely different, as for the Lakers, they have been completely psychologically shadowed by the Nuggets, maybe 2 days later, the Lakers season will be completely over.
In the first two matchups between the Lakers and the Nuggets, the average output of the Zhan Mei combination was close to 60 points per game, including the G2 battle, the Lakers opened up a gap of 20 points early, which was not enough to help the Lakers win the game. On the one hand, it will not deal with the joint defense, giving the Nuggets too many opportunities to cooperate with the air, on the other hand, except for the Zhan Mei combination, the other people are very unstable, Ham continues to reduce the rotation, and finally only the thick eyebrows and Lao Zhan are left on the inside, which is definitely not enough. When Thick Eyebrows said that they didn't know what they were doing on the court for a while, it also attracted the Lakers media to bombard, aiming the gun at the hardest Thick Eyebrows. In the G3 battle, the Lakers only played good shots in the first quarter, and after opening up a double-digit point difference, James took the lead in problems on the defensive end, and Gordon broke the Lakers' interior line. And Russell is like sleepwalking, Reeves was directly beaten by the counterpoint, in fact, Ham could have given Vincent and Dinwiddie more time!
There was a classic scene in the fourth quarter of the game: thick eyebrows with a few small guards, James was still in his own backcourt, the Nuggets didn't care about several outside lines of the Lakers, five people on the court shrank directly to the confrontation area, and five people surrounded thick eyebrows! In the middle of the fourth quarter, James made a low-level dribbling error, although the Lakers only trailed by about 10 points, but several people on the court obviously had no intention of fighting, James complained, Russell watched the play in the bottom corner, and Prince did not dare to ask for the ball in the big vacancy. In the final analysis, the Lakers have no competitive strength, and James fell behind 0-3 in the first round of the playoffs for the first time in his career, which is already a step down.
The Lakers were pushed to the edge of a cliff while the two Eastern teams bottomed out. The away Magic was bullied by the Cavaliers, and immediately won by 38 points after returning to the home court! Banchero had a total of 15 turnovers in the first two games, and G3 clocked in in the first three quarters, scoring 31 points, 14 rebounds and 5 assists. To put it bluntly, both teams are very young, and whoever rises first will have the initiative. This round of the series may be the most stalemate of the 8 group matchups. In another game, the 76ers defeated the Knicks 125-114 at home, Embiid made 21 free throws in the game, scored 50 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists, and Brunson always trailed by 10 points in the final moments, and kept chasing two points and two points, which was meaningless, and the empty cut of 39 points and 13 assists was reduced to a data brush.
It's only a matter of time before the Lakers are out, and the Suns, another Western giant, are not in a good situation! After falling behind the Timberwolves 0-2, there were some discordant voices within the team, including Durant and Booker's complaints in front of the media camera. In Durant's words, we've been communicating a lot on the court, but it's pointless if we can't take action. Durant averaged 24.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game in the first two games of the playoffs, although the two-point shooting rate was 53.1%+50%, but some details revealed frustration all the time. Booker fell into a sleepwalking state, averaging 19 points and 5 assists per game, plus a 39.7%+37.9% two-point shooting rate, the efficiency is not as high as Beal! According to the modeling calculations given by the American media "BR", the probability of the Suns going out is 90.6%, and among the 16 teams that enter the playoffs, it is only higher than the Lakers.
In addition, among the top four in the West, the most pressure is naturally the Clippers. Harden G1 scored 28 points and 8 assists to lead the team to a light victory over the Mavericks, and after G2 Leonard returned, the Clippers lost unexpectedly. George stressed in an interview that they will try to steal a game away from Dallas. In addition, the US media also confirmed that George will not leave the Clippers this summer and is expected to renew his contract at a price below the maximum salary. According to Tyronn Lue, Leonard felt good on his knees after the G2 game and had already participated in confrontation training, so he didn't have much of a problem playing in G3. In this series of the Clippers, Leonard must step up, Harden's performance of averaging 25 points and 8 assists per game in two games shows his attitude, and the rest depends on how successful George and Leonard can play.
With just a week to go before the playoffs start, we're ready to say goodbye to James and even Durant. As the playoffs progressed deeper in the East, the Celtics could not be trusted, and in the end, the performance of the two-man in the high-end game was not convincing. The top three in the West are getting braver and braver, and the Nuggets are the most stable, cooking slowly on low heat, and collecting juice over high fire, which has shown the championship phase. The NBA has really changed, and the era of James + Durant + Curry is gone.