NBA: I am the god of basketball

Chapter 45 Western Conference Finals vs Mavericks
In Wang Chao’s memory, the Suns, who played two tie-breakers in the playoffs, should end up with the Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals with a score of 4:2, which means that they are not helpless in the face of strong opponents.

Now that the Suns have one more player, Wang Chao, who has averaged 20+ points per game so far in the playoffs, he definitely has a chance to win the opponent.

Wang Chao is also very clear that what he can do, and the only thing he can do on the court, is to score.

How to get more points against the Mavericks will be the key to the outcome of the game.

The Mavericks will defend their own players, most likely starting small forward Josh Howard, a player who joined the league in 03, was initially selected by the Mavericks as a leading defensive player in the team. With the improvement of his ability, he has gradually become one of the main points of the Mavericks.

In the regular season this season, Josh Howard averaged 15.6 points, 2 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game, which is the third scoring point in the team after Nowitzki and Terry.

Wang Chao knows that Josh Howard's real explosive period is the next two seasons, where he can average 18.9 points, 6.8 rebounds and 19.9 points and 7 rebounds per game.

With a strong physical fitness and outstanding personal strength, he is not an easy opponent to deal with.

Wang Chao estimated that in the entire playoffs, except for Kobe when he played against the Lakers, this might be the strongest opponent he faced.

More importantly, while defending himself, Kobe also had to take care of the team's scoring responsibility. He couldn't keep his eyes on him all the time. Josh Howard was different.

The Mavericks have Nowitzki and Terry scoring. It is very likely that Howard will be specially arranged to guard him all the way to curb his three-point shooting.

"I don't know how the long-distance runner's talent will work against Josh Howard."

Wang Chao understood that the only things he could rely on were the full-level three-point rewards and innate skills rewarded by the system.

……

On May 5, the first game of the Western Conference Finals officially started at the home court of the Suns.

The Suns started with Nash, Bell, Wang Chao, Diaw and Marion.

Mavericks starting five are Harris, Terry, Josh. Howard, Nowitzki and Dampier.

As Wang Chao expected, at the beginning of the game, Howard stuck to his side like a piece of brown sugar, never leaving his side.

Wang Chao, who had been mentally prepared for a long time, didn't ink any ink, and directly led Howard to start going around in circles.

Howard's physical fitness is indeed very good, and his speed is much faster than that of Wang Chao. He followed closely behind him, and he couldn't even run out of the gap to connect the ball.

But this is just the beginning. As the game progresses and the physical energy is exhausted, sooner or later there will be opportunities.

Wang Chao persevered and ran frequently, trying to find opportunities.

But he didn't expect that the opportunity would come so soon, and it was a huge opportunity.

In a rebound scramble after the Suns missed an offense, Josh Howard jumped high to pick off the rebound, but fell directly to the ground when it landed, clutching his ankle with a painful expression on his face.

A moment later, Josh Howard actually limped towards the player tunnel.

Howard, with a sprained ankle, is largely out of the game.

At this time, only 6 minutes were played in the first quarter.

The sudden surprise made Wang Chao a little confused.

He couldn't remember whether Josh Howard was injured in the original history, but as Josh Howard was injured and retired, the Mavericks could only send backup forward Jerry Stackhouse to play.

Compared with Josh Howard, Stackhouse's defensive ability is more than one notch worse. More importantly, compared to Josh Howard, who is 2 meters tall and has a wingspan of 01 meters, he is only 2 meters and has a Stackhouse, who has a height of 18 meters, is much less effective in marking Wang Chao, who is 1 meters tall.

With Howard off the court, Wang Chao quickly found opportunities to make three-point shots from the outside. In the first quarter, he made 3 of 2 three-pointers and scored 6 points.

In the first quarter, the Mavericks scored 29 points, while the Suns had 35 points, establishing a 6-point lead.

After the game entered the second quarter, the Suns still maintained a very high scoring efficiency, scoring 31 points in a single quarter, while the Mavericks only had 27 points, and the point difference at halftime also reached double digits.

Wang Chao didn't have many opportunities to perform in the second quarter, because Nash showed his power. Nash made 8 of 6 shots in a single quarter and scored 12 points and 3 assists, defeating the Mavericks' defense.

"It seems that in the original history, Josh Howard should have been injured as well."

Although Wang Chao didn't remember that clearly, but in the first game between the Suns and the Mavericks, it seemed that the Suns won the game.

In this game, he didn't have many opportunities to play.

Nash, Marion and Diaw are all in excellent condition, scoring continuously.

If the second quarter of the game belongs to Nash, then the third quarter of the game belongs to Dior's opportunity to play.

Against Nowitzki, Diaw was not afraid at all. In the third quarter, he made 6 of 5 shots and 4 of 3 free throws, scoring 13 points.

Wang Chao also hit two three-pointers in the third quarter and scored another 6 points. The Suns scored 29 points in the third quarter.

The Mavericks finally bottomed out in the third quarter and scored 37 points in a single quarter, closing the gap to only 2 points.

But in the final fourth quarter, the Suns did not give the Mavericks another chance.

At 30:23, the total score was 125:116 to win the game and win the Western Conference Finals.

Diaw became the brightest guy in the game, making 23 of 13 shots, 10 of 8 free throws, 34 points and 6 rebounds. His performance even suppressed Nowitzki who was facing him. 25 points and 19 rebounds.

Nash had 27 points and 16 assists, and Marion had 24 points and 13 rebounds.

Wang Chao made 9 of 5 three-pointers in this game. He also successfully tricked Stackhouse into a thug foul from beyond the three-point line. He made 3 of 2 free throws and finally scored 17 points.

It's just that the Suns haven't been happy for too long. Immediately after the second game of the Western Conference Finals on May 5, the team lost the game and the total score came to 26:1.

这场比赛，小牛队的诺维斯基爆发，21投12中砍下30分14篮板6助攻，而第一场比赛扭到脚踝提前退赛的约什.霍华德首发出战并且状态火热，全场19投10中罚球10中6砍下29分7篮板。

Letting Howard score 29 points, Wang Chao had to carry this blame. There was no way. Although the three-pointers were extremely accurate, Wang Chao's overall ability value was really bad. The defensive end faced Josh Howard's breakthrough at all. any way.

But Wang Chao is not easy to bully. Josh Howard scored 29 points, and his score is not low. Because Howard puts his energy on the offensive end, it is inevitable that Wang Chao will run out of space on the defensive end. In the end, Wang Chao played the whole game He made 16 of 8 three-pointers and scored 24 points.

(End of this chapter)