One Thousand Three Hundred and Seventy. The Real Horror of the West

When facing the Lakers, the inside advantage of the two bears was already obvious in the last regular season match. At that time, Randolph had recovered his form. With Sun Ce forcing the game, they were able to hold on in the first half, relying on Randolph's inside offensive threat and the defensive support led by Gasol.

Randolph, who had just played his best single-game performance of 40+10+5 in the playoffs in the game against the Spurs, brought a huge improvement to the Grizzlies tonight. When Randolph received the ball, Kobe had to shrink in and double-team Randolph with Josh Smith, and Sun Ce could play against Metta World Peace on the outside!

This lineup is Sun Ce and Randolph. If Sun Ce feels good about the three-pointer, he will shoot the three-pointer. If not, both of them can shoot from close range or even in the low post.

The purpose is to suppress the rhythm of the Lakers and fight a positional battle.

If one of Randolph or Sun Ce is not in good condition, this style of play will not work, but Randolph is currently in a state of striving, and Sun Ce's touch is also good, and he suppressed the rhythm bit by bit.

In half a quarter, with Randolph's 5 points and 3 rebounds, including two offensive rebounds, Sun Ce's 5 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 block, plus Paul George's three-pointer when Paul went to double-team Sun Ce, the Grizzlies and the Lakers tied at 13!

On the Lakers side, facing Sun Ce, Tony Allen, Paul George, Gasol and Randolph, who had average defense, Kobe felt lucky not to fall behind when the opponent successfully suppressed the rhythm with defensive cooperation.

Metta World Peace's layup and an open three-pointer, Josh Smith and Jordan Hill scored 5 points together, plus his counterattack stop-and-shoot shot, tied with the Grizzlies' aggressive defensive lineup. Kobe felt that they played well and believed that they had the advantage because Randolph played very hard and Sun Ce also played very hard. Sun Ce might not be exhausted, but Randolph would be.

Kobe really felt that they had an advantage, but Paul felt uneasy when he saw the joy of the opponent.

He also felt that they had the advantage. If the Grizzlies' lineup of Sun Ce + double 3D + Randolph + Gasol at the last moment was the Grizzlies' strongest lineup at the critical moment.

Then now, the lineup with Tony Allen in regular time is definitely the Grizzlies' strongest defensive lineup. The defense of the lineup at the critical moment is not as good as the current Grizzlies lineup. It's just that after Randolph recovers, the lineup at the critical moment has Klay Thompson, and the offense will be greatly improved to the first-class level.

The Grizzlies used the strongest defensive lineup to directly suppress the rhythm and defend, and Sun Ce and Randolph also broke out in half a quarter and scored 10 points together. In this case, the Lakers tied the score. It should be the Lakers who are happy. Their rotation lineup defense may not be so good, but the rotation lineup offense may be better than the regular lineup, but Paul really feels that the opponent seems very happy.

How can the Lakers players understand the joy of not falling behind in the first half of the first quarter after playing 6 games with the strongest Spurs?

After being tortured by the Spurs for 6 consecutive games in the first quarter, Sun Ce felt very happy when he tied with his opponent when Sun Ce and Randolph were in good condition and scored 5 points in half a quarter!

He insisted on playing when he was used to the big disadvantage in the first quarter. Now he can tie, so happy.

"Is this the mentality of the Western Conference champion team? Full of confidence in any situation?"

Paul didn't know what the Grizzlies had experienced, so he naturally couldn't empathize with them. What he felt from it was the strong self-confidence of the Grizzlies players, which was the confidence of the championship team.

Not only did the five people who had just played half a quarter walk back to the bench talking and laughing, Paul also seemed very excited when he saw Nash, Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler, and Yi Jianlian on the court.

Paul didn't know why a thought flashed through his mind - is the Western Conference so scary?

This was the second time he played in the Western Conference Finals and had never entered the finals.

In a flash, Paul immediately returned to the bench at the call of head coach Bickerstaff and re-entered the game.

...

Nash was of course happy. Starting from the third game against the Spurs, due to the change of lineup, Nash played more in the rotation stage from the third to the sixth game.

But when he played, the score was usually more than 5 points behind. Although it was not big, most of the time he had to catch up.

Now he played in a tie, and the defensive lineup consumed the opponent's Kobe and Paul's touch for half a quarter. Of course he was happy.

The Lakers really had everything they wanted. Kobe was replaced and rested, and JR Smith, Leonard, Josh Smith, Jamison and Paul played together.

The timeout was about to end, and the two teams came to the court with their rotation lineups.

Sun Ce looked at Leonard, who started to show his prowess in his sophomore year. So far in the playoffs, he averaged 19 minutes per game, got 10.3 points, 3 rebounds and 1.9 steals, and his defensive efficiency was very high!

Since he played for the Lakers, once he played well, the exposure rate had made many people realize that the Lakers were training him as Kobe's successor.

His progress is a bit slow. Compared with Klay Thompson and Paul George of the same generation and position, he is not as good as them for the time being, but he can keep improving, which means he still has potential! And now there is Kobe, Leonard can develop slowly, and when Kobe gets old, he can be the next in line.

Before the official timeout, the Lakers tied the score with Kobe's counterattack mid-range shot. The timeout ended and the Grizzlies attacked.

With 5 minutes and 31 seconds left in the second quarter, the Grizzlies had the ball in the frontcourt. Sun Ce passed the ball to Nash and ran to the inside. After the timeout, the first attack must be a positional battle. Sun Ce wanted to go to the mid-range high post to play back.

Leonard quickly came up, combining speed, confrontation, height and wingspan to defend, making it difficult for Sun Ce to easily get the ball in the high post!

In terms of current defensive comprehensiveness and overall defensive ability, Paul George, who was almost selected for the first defense, is definitely better, but in terms of single defense, Sun Ce feels that Leonard has improved rapidly! He is not much worse than Paul George!

When he was on the Warriors, it felt that Leonard's progress was not so obvious. The Warriors mainly discovered Leonard's offensive learning ability and talent for steady improvement, but when he came to the Lakers, with Kobe and Metta World Peace as coaches, Sun Ce could feel Leonard's progress on the defensive end almost every time he played against the Lakers.

At this time, when should we not hit Leonard, who has not yet fully grown up? Sun Ce pulled out to set a screen for Nash!

Facing the pick-and-roll defense of Paul and Leonard, Sun Ce and Nash's pick-and-roll was almost ineffective. After the pick-and-roll, Sun Ce cut in and still faced Leonard.