The Strongest Bishop in the NBA

Less than two minutes into the first game of the Eastern Conference finals, Wizards coach Kerr frowned on the sidelines.

Originally, he thought that this would be a duel between soldiers and generals.

For this reason, he specially arranged for George and Leonard to do special training on defending Durant and Antetokounmpo, preparing George to defend Durant and Leonard to defend Antetokounmpo.

However, after the game started, the situation did not go as he imagined.

Durant has no intention of facing Leonard at all. Whenever the two face each other on the court, Durant will always rely on his teammates' pick-and-roll to distance Leonard. The right player is often either Curry or Anderson.

Neither Curry nor Anderson can contain Durant even a little bit. Durant has countless ways to easily score on them.

Faced with such a situation, the Wizards were helpless.

Curry is defending Thompson on the field, while Anderson is responsible for defending Korver, who is a guest small forward. Both of them are players with extremely lethal three-point shooting ability. It is absolutely impossible to give them even 1 second after the pick-and-roll empty time.

So whenever Curry and Korver assist Durant to complete a single split, Leonard, who is blocked, has to help defend first.

And such tactics can be used by the Bucks, but the Wizards cannot follow suit.

The reason is simple. The Bucks have the lowest player on the field at 2.01 meters. There is no such thing as big and small. At the same time, if you want to play small and big, it is not valid to use the advantages of speed and agility to score. The only foot in the Bucks The slower one is center Jokic, but Gobert, who is facing him, does not have the ability to shoot from a long distance. embarrassing situation.

This situation led to the fact that the Bucks quickly gained the upper hand as soon as the game started. Durant easily scored continuously in the defense against Curry and Anderson, but Curry Leonard and others had to fight against Durant. , Antetokounmpo, Thompson and others made a difficult shot under strict defense.

"Is there any difference in the lineup?"

Cole has also thought about this possibility, but even if he thought about it, there is nothing he can do. After all, no matter how good the coach is, he cannot turn Anderson into a defensively strong Green.

Last summer, Cole had a serious discussion about Green with the management team. In his opinion, even Thompson and Butler let go, and Green cannot be let go, because Thompson and Butler have people. Can be replaced, but Green can't.

Leonard may be able to play Green's position, but he still needs to put more experience into the offense. In this way, Gobert will have to do all the dirty work of the Wizards alone.

The Wizards also tried to find a blue-collar insider to assist Gobert, but most blue-collar insiders in the league are not good at offense, especially in mid-to-long-range shooting.

Although Green's three-pointers have been criticized, but among the inside players, his three-pointers are already very accurate.

...

In the first quarter of the game, relying on constant pick-and-roll dislocations, Durant scored 16 points in a single quarter, leading the Bucks to 33 points, while the Wizards only scored 26 points, and the difference between the two sides was 6 points.

In the second quarter of the game, the Wizards still couldn't find a good tactic to deal with the Bucks' pick-and-roll, and the point difference was further widened to double digits.

Among the Wizards, Curry is undoubtedly the most uncomfortable, because he is facing Antetokounmpo Antetokounmpo.

The height gap between the two is too big, which makes Curry basically unable to shoot in front of him. As a big man, Antetokounmpo's speed and explosion are not slow at all, even if Curry's speed is faster, Relying on skills to get rid of a little gap, he can still easily catch up with his amazing wingspan and pace.

The Wizards have also tried to help Curry pick and roll to form dislocation singles, but the problem is still the same. The defense of other players on the Bucks is not weak. As a shooter, he has great experience in defending outside three-point shots.

After halftime, Curry only took 4 shots and hit 2 goals. Although the 50% shooting rate looked good, he only scored 7 points with free throws.

It was impossible to limit Durant's scoring, and at the same time, the offense of the team's star Curry was also contained. The result was the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals, and the Wizards simply lost the game.

107:94, 13 points difference.

Durant scored 35 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists, the highest score among the Bucks and Wizards.

Following Durant, George scored 27 points, he is the highest scoring player of the Wizards.

Antetokounmpo scored 23 points, Thompson 17 points, Leonard 21 points, and Curry only 14 points.

The total score ratio of the two teams and the Big Three is 75:62, and the judgment is judged!

Of course, the true strength of a player cannot be measured entirely by statistics. Just like in this game, Durant and Antetokounmpo faced Curry and Anderson's defense many times, and the scoring process was very easy, while George Leonard and others Facing Durant, Antetokounmpo, Thompson and other players with no obvious shortcomings in defense, it is naturally more difficult to score.

After the game, Wizards head coach Cole made it clear in an interview that the reason why the Wizards lost the game was mainly because they couldn’t deal with the Bucks’ frequent pick-and-roll and anti-displacement singles tactics, allowing opponents to score too easily. , In the next game, he will consider adjusting the starting lineup as appropriate to ensure that there are no obvious loopholes in the starting lineup's defense.

Clearly, Kerr had enough of Anderson's poor defense.

There are still a few blue-collar insiders on the bench for the Wizards. Although it is impossible for them to prevent Durant and Antetokounmpo, they are at least more efficient than Anderson. As for the long-range defense that Anderson can provide to the team Fire support was completely out of Cole's mind.

In the first round of offensive firepower, the Bucks are no worse than the Wizards, and even more explosive in scoring. Thompson's 30-point performance in a single quarter in the playoffs has still had a profound impact. Compared with the Bucks, at least with the current Wizards From the perspective of the team, it is difficult to do.

...

Originally, many people still believed that the Wizards and Cavaliers were the strongest teams in the Eastern Conference. Although the Bucks won the first record in the league, the team was indeed too young, even with Durant and Thompson The two veteran players with rich experience in the playoffs might not be able to compete with the Wizards, but the result of the first game made them realize that Wang Xiao's team must not be judged by common sense.