Healthy basketball, starting from eating the old Lakers F4

“The biggest difference between the playoffs and the regular season is the level of involvement in the game.

You know the importance of the game and your opponent knows the importance of the game.

They will defend you with all their strength, attack you, invade you, and then you will be in a lot of trouble.

In the playoffs, only superstars can perform as usual in the regular season.

And in order to win and make sure you advance to the next round, you have to stay focused at all times. "

On April 4, before the start of G17 between the Bulls and Hawks at the Philips Center, Dunn kept giving guidance to Evans, Curry, Harden and Ibaka from the sidelines.

Not long after, the two teams officially debuted.

Among the Bulls' four rookies, Evans, who is more capable, followed Duane on the court.

Playing in the playoffs for the first time, Evans did play more reservedly.

Fortunately, Du En didn't expect him to be in top form, to stand up and score, and he only needed to be able to do simple single defense work.

After all, the Bulls are the defending champions, so they can still handle the Hawks, who have little playoff experience.

“Tyreke, keep your weight down and try not to let Joe Johnson break you.

Your physical fitness is excellent, you can definitely defend against it.

When the time comes, Joe Johnson will choose to shoot, and he is very confident in shooting.

Once Joe Johnson takes off for a shot, you should use your left hand on his waist and use your right hand to block his shot.

Be careful not to extend your legs or seize Joe Johnson's foothold.

As long as you defend normally, the referee will not judge you for violating the cylinder. "

Duan imparted his defensive experience to Evans one by one and helped him grow up as soon as possible.

Evans studied very seriously, but he didn't have a good grasp of the scale of defensive aggression. Most of the time, he defended too cleanly. After being said a few words by Du En, he would make some more dangerous moves.

However, as long as there is no trouble, the on-site referee will turn a blind eye.

After all, physical fitness is normal on defense in the playoffs.

For the league, appropriately increasing defensive intensity can also make the game more exciting and intense, thereby increasing ratings.

Of course, the Pistons and the Twin Towers Spurs all emphasize defense, and a game in which the two sides fight against each other will not work. After all, basketball is still a scoring game.

Generally speaking, the NBA does not have many ways to make money at this stage, and everything is based on ratings.

The ratings of the playoffs are usually two or three times that of the regular season. If the penalty scale of the playoff games is the same as that of the regular season, then a game that is supposed to end in two hours will be extended to four hours.

The crowd couldn't stand a four-hour game, three hours of free throws.

I also can’t stand a two-hour race, spending an hour and a half pounding and running back and forth.

Therefore, the league needs stars with unique skills who can open up the situation in the playoffs, ensure offensive efficiency, and support ratings.

And tough defense can also accurately divide the offensive level of stars into three, six or nine.

In turn, blue-collar players can also be divided into several grades by stars who are good at offense. Top blue-collar players can even become stars by relying on defense.

Just like in the world of martial arts, there are usually masters and heroes from famous towns. When you encounter the Huashan Swordsmanship and the Wulin Conference, you can clearly distinguish who is the best in the world, who is the top master, who is first-rate, second-rate, or even third-rate. goods.

The Hawks are a civilian team. Even if the singles leader Joe has good singles ability, the quality of the stars is still limited.

If Duan hadn't been training Evans, he would have gone up and pressed down the single Joe.

However, the Hawks still have many players who can score, so if the Bulls want to win this series without Garnett, Duan's defense will be very important.

Because the Hawks don't have players who are in contract years, Duen can't use double-team tricks to get people's mentality, so Duen needs to put in more effort on defense.

However, the Bulls' own offense is not bad, and the Hawks' defense is not systematic. It relies more on the enthusiasm of the players themselves to defend. Under the leadership of Duan with 32 points, 8 rebounds, 12 assists, 3 steals and 5 blocks, the Bulls easily won the first round of the playoffs in G101 90-1.

There is no shortage of teams like the Hawks in the league.

Select lottery picks for several consecutive years. It happens that these lottery picks have certain talents, and then train them to form a civilian team, rely on the rookie bonus to rush into the playoffs once or twice, and then nothing happens.

Usually for a team like this to reach the conference finals is already amazing.

After all, the NBA is a business league, and teams still need to invest heavily if they want to achieve results.

Just like the Cavaliers, they have invested a lot of money in recent years.

Even if the Bulls train their own rookies, they have to spend money in order to win the championship.

In the past two years, the Bulls have paid a lot of luxury taxes, and they have indeed won a lot of championships. It was unable to make ends meet and could no longer hold on, so the team chose to rebuild.

The so-called winning culture and rich heritage are built by the luxury tax year after year.

The performance of the Bulls management in recent years, although they will trade the rookies they have trained, they have not treated their own players badly in terms of contracts.

Even Garnett's salary cut is reasonable.

Therefore, Bulls players have no worries about playing in the playoffs.

In particular, several rookies have grown very quickly under Du En's words and deeds.

Evans soon started to play well. Not only did he open up the offensive end, but he also performed well on the defensive end.

Curry and Harden still need to adapt on the defensive end, but on the offensive end they can also seize opportunities from time to time and perform on the court.

In the blink of an eye, more than a week passed, and the Bulls took the lead in this series to get the match point, pushing the score to 3-2.

In fact, if it weren't for the opportunity to give rookies a chance to play, the Bulls would have advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

It is precisely because the team's goal this season is to rebuild and train, and it needs to consider giving the rookies a certain amount of playing time.

At the same time, the team has no intention of competing for the championship again, and Ben Gordon and Josh Smith have no plans to go all out. They want to avoid injuries and preserve their strength.

Therefore, the Bulls' path to the playoffs has not been so smooth.

Of course, back in Chicago, back at the United Center everything is different.

On April 4, the Bulls, under the leadership of Duan, went all out and once again defeated the Hawks with a big score. Finally, they successfully advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals with a score of 30-4.

It is worth mentioning that the Bulls' next opponent has not yet finished the battle, and we don't know who it is.

This is mainly because the Bucks the Cavaliers faced were too smart. Jennings has obviously hit the rookie wall, but in the playoffs he can rely on his touch to make a breakthrough from time to time.

In addition, Michael Reid, Stackhouse, Carlos Delfino, Luke Ridnour, and Ilyasova all have certain three-point capabilities.

As long as the Bucks shoot three-pointers this season, they can beat anyone 50-50.

This made the knights who were originally afraid of the bull and wanted to preserve their strength suffer several dumb losses.

In two games, the Cavaliers' main force didn't play for a while in the fourth quarter, and then the Bucks suddenly made a rain of three points unreasonably, making a comeback against the wind, and then they couldn't catch up.

However, the Cavaliers are the first team in the Eastern Conference with 60 wins.

At the same time, the Bucks also injured their No. 1 pick, Bo Dog, during the regular season.

Also because of the absence of the main center, the Bucks are naturally at a disadvantage.

Coupled with the defensive intensity in the playoffs, it was impossible for the Bucks to maintain their excellent feel all the time, so in the end the Cavaliers won the tiebreaker.

In this way, the Bulls and Cavaliers meet again in the playoffs... (End of Chapter)