the rest, only noise

Chapter 967 Final Four

"LJ, when was the most humiliating moment of your career, when you lost 58 points in a single game in the playoffs?"

"No." Larry Johnson will answer this question in the future, "It is that we would have lost more in the playoffs, but for some reason, the Knicks want to control the loss to a specific number."

Controlling points in the playoffs, and controlling the opponent's losing points, usually only occurs on teams that participate in gambling.

But the Knicks didn't gamble, and it's impossible to gamble, because New York State made sports betting illegal in 1993.

The Knicks' massacre of the Hornets has raised the discussion of another matter.

That is about the ownership of the regular season MVP this season.

Most of the time this season, the ownership of the MVP is no suspense.

Jordan!Jordan!Jordan!

Looks like it can only be Jordan.

If Jordan is elected as the MVP, then he will achieve the second consecutive championship of the award, and at the same time, it will also be the third MVP trophy in his personal career.

However, after the second battle with the Knicks, the Blazers' tactical system was dismantled by Louis, and the disadvantages of the five-star lineup were discovered by the league.

The Blazers began to lose frequently.

They lost from the first place in the league with a clear advantage to the third place in the league.

During this period, Jordan did not drag the team out of the quagmire with unparalleled personal ability like an MVP.

In the words of Pat Riley: "Can Michael do it? (Referring to lead the team forward), of course! He is the best player in this generation. If he wants to, he can lead us to 80 victories. This is no exaggeration. But Michael knows that he alone can't make it to the end. We have a lot of talented players, so Michael does not need to bear everything alone, just find a solution to the problem, and all difficulties will be solved."

It sounds nice, but the Blazers didn't solve the problem until the end of the regular season.

Riley, as if obsessed, vowed to solve the shortcomings of the Blazers' inability to prevent fake pick-and-rolls.

The Blazers, who like to switch defenses, quickly discovered that if they want to solve this problem, their starting lineup cannot have too many defensive holes.

In addition to the various butterfly effects triggered by Louis's own operations, what has his rise brought to the alliance?

The most intuitive point: The league has realized the cross-generational development of defensive concepts.

Whether it was the pocket formation in the early 80s, which forced a large number of 80s stars to practice a three-point threat that could "at least shoot", or the "suffocating defense" implemented in New York in the late 80s, it inspired Riley, led to the rise of the Blazers and triggered the league to follow suit.

As a consequence of these things, contemporary basketball coaches have a similar understanding of defense as modern basketball coaches:

Man-to-man is a bad idea;

Flexible partial defense is the middle strategy;

It is the best policy to mobilize the strength of the entire team to hide the deficiencies in defense, or to mobilize the strength of the entire team to achieve the best collective defense effect.

Double-teaming, assisted defense and supplementary defense, these are the defensive options that existed at the beginning of basketball, and then Louis brought switching defenses and high-speed rotations.

Moreover, he corrected the concept of a generation of coaches: If you have to misplace the opponent to ensure that you are basically aligned, then why not?
Starting from Louie, the defensive end took the initiative to give the opponent a dislocation, and the concept of gaining defensive flexibility at the expense of defensive quality was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

It was Louie's defensive revolution that put the Blazers in a difficult position.

Because Louie's fake pick-and-roll is just an introduction.

The underlying logic behind the Blazers' inability to prevent this is that their starting lineup's defense has a fatal hidden danger, but on paper it is difficult to play the offensive firepower that is the best in history. Therefore, once the weakness is caught and the offensive end cannot respond, it will collapse.

Louie inspired other coaches, and they began targeting the Blazers in Louie's line of thinking.

This is why the Blazers kept losing in the closing stages.

They can really brute force this.

Riley is also very clear that if the problem is not resolved, then even if he reaches the finals again, he will not be absolutely sure of defeating the Knicks.

So they fought all the way, at the cost of losing Jordan's eligibility for the MVP, at the cost of losing the home court advantage in the finals (unless the Heat and Nick were upset), and determined one thing: with the same starting lineup, the Blazers' problem cannot be solved.

In other words, the only way to solve this matter is to change the starting lineup.

However, Thomas, Jordan, Barkley, Nance, Sabonis, who should substitute?

Although Thomas is here to hug his thigh, he is a winner in the Celtics.At the same time, he is the only player on this team who has the experience of leading the team to win the championship as a core player.

Even if he was a beggar, he still begged for food standing up.

In order to win the championship, he has given up his fame and fortune, and it is impossible for him to be a substitute, not to mention that he is not the person with the biggest defensive problem for the Blazers.

Jordan can skip it.

Barkley-the initiator of the Blazers' starting defensive loopholes, it can be said that other teams see him on the court with bright eyes.

Because Barkley, who stands in the third position, is like a bitch in heat, which will attract the covetousness of countless male dogs.

Riley's football strategy made Barkley lose weight successfully, but even if Barkley was thinner, his defense was not good.

This is purely a human issue.

He can't defend well in any position, but playing the three position intensifies the problem of poor defense.

So are the Blazers going to bench him?
In Louie's previous life, Barkley robbed Jordan of the MVP in 1993.

Barkley in this timeline, who was trained by Riley to lose sight of fat, will only be stronger than Louis' previous life.

It can be said that regardless of defense, Barkley's hard power should be regarded as the top three in the league.Even if the defense is included, it is still the top five in the league.

Only Jordan, Sampson, Olajuwon, and Wilson are better than him.

Discussing whether such a player is likely to be a substitute is like discussing whether the author of this book will update ten or twenty chapters tomorrow, which is meaningless.

So, Nance?He and Jordan are the only two players selected for the Blazers defense.Changing him is like Zhang San accidentally folded his left hand, and in order to look more balanced, he folded his right hand as outrageous.

Having said that, Nance is indeed the only player in the Blazers starting lineup with room to adjust.

Because Sabonis doesn't have to think about it at all. Before he joined the Trail Blazers, he didn't do it for fame or money. He only had one requirement: guaranteed starting.

He knew he was about to team up with a group of superstars and that he couldn't get the kind of tactical status he had in Europe.He is ready to play against Jordan, but as the No.1 in the history of European basketball, he believes that he can keep up with his teammates and play his own characteristics, but the premise is that he must have enough playing time.

Therefore, before he joined the Trail Blazers, the only requirement was to add a mandatory starting clause to his rookie contract and the rules that he must play more than 25 minutes per game (if injured, of course, it is another matter).

Sabonis should be the first Lithuanian in history to let the Americans sign unfair terms, great.

In summary, almost none of the Blazers' starters can be replaced.

Since Jordan lost the qualification to compete for the MVP, the regular season MVP competition became inexplicably fierce.

Before the official MVP selection, the last MVP simulation prediction of the season was made by NBC.

They invited several media professionals who are eligible to vote this year, as well as a large number of NBA practitioners to vote.

The voting results are not surprising. Olajuwon, who led the team to the fourth record in the league and averaged 27 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 blocks per game, became the MVP of the last MVP simulation prediction.

Several major elements of MVP, basic data, team leadership record, story, various X factors.

Jordan, who was originally a certainty, is out of the game. The Knicks' Wilson and Ewing both have unimpressive records and do not have obvious advantages in statistics.

The league's No. [-] Heat seems to have the best chance, but it's hard to say whether the star of this team is Dumars, Petrovic, or Hank Geithers.

Dumars is too low-key, Gaithers has no star taste, Petrovic is a foreigner, and he can't even be said to be the first two of the Heat.

Under the constraints of various factors, it has become confusing who will win the MVP of this season.

The trend of the other rounds of semi-finals gradually became clear.

The Heat didn't give the Celtics another chance, and simply eliminated them 4-1.

Bird, who had previously declared this year to be the Last Dance, announced his retirement the night after the Celtics were eliminated.

In his 14-year career, Bird went from great white hope to greatest ever in just eight years.

His all-time best is not without controversy, but five championships, four-time MVP, four-time FMVP, in the most competitive era in NBA history, he won it all.

Although some people still say that his statistics are not as good as Chamberlain, and the championship is not as good as Russell, but he is already the best in most people's hearts.

In the West, the Trail Blazers and Clippers both advanced to the Western Conference Finals in six games.

The season is getting closer and closer to the end, and the NBA's final four has also surfaced.

East: Knicks VS Heat
West: Blazers VS Clippers
(End of this chapter)