Basketball boy, starting to shine from the slam dunk

In the blink of an eye, another week has passed.

It is already April.

Entering early April means that the 2018-19 regular season has really come to an end, and the Lakers only have five regular season games left.

On April 4, the Lakers came to Oklahoma to challenge the Thunder away.

The Thunder's record is now ranked seventh in the Western Conference, which is not very good and not very stable. They still have to play well in these last few games, otherwise they might be eliminated and lose the chance to enter the playoffs, which would be really embarrassing.

The Thunder are missing Carmelo Anthony this season, but Westbrook and George have played very well, especially George, who has the best statistics of his career.

However, even so, the Thunder's record has been neither up nor down, which seems a bit embarrassing, and now it is even a bit dangerous. Although it ranks seventh in the Western Conference, it is only two wins behind the ninth-placed Clippers and has the same record as the eighth-placed Spurs.

So the Thunder are determined to win this game.

Fortunately, the Lakers were resting their players, and Zhuang Yu did not play in this game, not even a minute. The starters were Rose, Holiday, Korver, Anderson and Lopez, and Holiday and Lopez did not play much either.

Holiday played 17 minutes and Lopez played 20 minutes.

To put it bluntly, the Lakers didn't care about this game and just left it to the substitute players. If the substitute players could win, that would naturally be better.

If you lose, it doesn't matter.

After four quarters, the Thunder won the game 120:110. Westbrook scored 28 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists, and George scored 30 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists.

After this game, the Lakers will face the Warriors, Clippers and Jazz in succession.

In several games, Zhuang Yu played one and then rested one, Holiday and Lopez also rested one game each. After three games, the Lakers had 1 win and 2 losses, losing to the Clippers and Jazz, but winning against the Warriors, because the Warriors were also resting.

After these three games, the Lakers only have one game left in the regular season, and they will face the Trail Blazers at home the day after tomorrow.

......

Los Angeles.

Staples Center, training center.

A group of players were sitting on the sidelines to rest. Today was just free training. After all, they all had to rest, so there was naturally no need to do any confrontational training.

Some people were still practicing on the court, while others were sitting on the sidelines chatting.

Zhuang Yu also sat on the sidelines, drinking water and listening to his teammates chatting.

"The Warriors are still number one."

"Their lineup is so luxurious that even if they don't deliberately pursue regular season results, it's easy for them to win."

"The Nuggets played well, too."

"That is, we don't care about the rankings. Otherwise, it would be easy to surpass the Nuggets, and even surpassing the Warriors would not be impossible."

"Haha, third is pretty good. We were third in the Western Conference last season, and we still won the championship in the end..."

At this point, everyone is naturally talking about the regular season standings.

In the West, the Warriors have achieved a record of 57 wins and 24 losses, ranking first in the West, two more wins than the Nuggets, and both the Warriors and the Nuggets have only one regular season game left. That is to say, even if the Warriors lose the last game and the Nuggets win the last game, the ranking of the two teams will not change, and the Warriors have already locked in the first place in the West.

The Nuggets' current record is 55 wins and 26 losses.

The Lakers have 53 wins and 28 losses, two wins less than the Nuggets, but the gap is not that big.

If the Lakers had not rested in the last half month and tried to win more games, they might have surpassed the Nuggets and ranked second in the Western Conference.

But that is meaningless to the Lakers. There is no difference between second and third. The first round is not difficult for the Lakers anyway. In the second round, they will face the Nuggets regardless of whether they are second or third, so they are too lazy to compete.

The fourth is the Trail Blazers. The current record of the Trail Blazers is 51 wins and 29 losses, and they have two games left in the regular season.

However, even if they win all the games and the Lakers lose the last game, the two teams will have the same record. According to the win-loss record, the Trail Blazers can only rank fourth and cannot surpass the Lakers.

So for the Lakers, regardless of whether they win or lose the last game, their third place in the Western Conference is already a foregone conclusion.

The fifth is the Rockets, the sixth is the Jazz, the seventh is the Thunder, the eighth is the Spurs, and the ninth is the Clippers...

The Rockets still have two games left and have one win less than the Trail Blazers, but they have a chance to overtake the Trail Blazers and become fourth in the Western Conference.

This has nothing to do with the Lakers, it has to do with the Warriors.

"With only two games left, the Clippers don't know if they can make the playoffs."

"Haha, it would be interesting if they couldn't make the playoffs. James has made the playoffs for more than a dozen consecutive seasons and the finals for eight consecutive seasons. If he can't even make the playoffs, it proves that James is really useless without the Big Three."

Hearing this, Zhuang Yu couldn't help laughing.

However, he thinks the Clippers have a good chance of making the playoffs. After all, he has played against James more than once or twice and is very familiar with his strength. The more critical the moment, the better James' performance tends to be.

This is a guy who can change the game single-handedly.

As for the Eastern Conference, no one is very concerned, at least for now, because if they want to face Eastern Conference teams in the playoffs, they will have to wait until the finals.

After resting for a while, Zhuang Yu returned to the court and continued training.

The teammates chatted for a while, said hello to Zhuang Yu, and then left...

......

One day later, the Lakers faced their last regular season game.

The opponent is the Trail Blazers.

This game was the Lakers' last game and the final game of the regular season, so Coach Scott did not arrange any rest for the players.

Of course, the playing time of several core players will not be too long. Coach Scott has already said before the match that Zhuang Yu, Holiday, Lopez and Rose only need to play for a dozen minutes or so.

After all, the Lakers' record ranking is already set in stone, and winning or losing this game will not make any difference. If it weren't the final match, it wouldn't matter if Zhuang Yu and others were all rested.

But it's different for the Trail Blazers.

So the Trail Blazers players were very serious from the beginning of the game. They were determined to win this game and not be overtaken by the Rockets behind them.

Of course, the Trail Blazers are now ranked fourth in the Western Conference and the Rockets are ranked fifth. Even if they are overtaken by the Rockets, the first round of the playoffs will still be the Trail Blazers vs. Rockets.

There is no difference in the matchup, but the higher-ranked team has the home-court advantage, so the Trail Blazers still have to strive to be ahead of the Rockets.

"Shh!"

With a muffled sound, Zhuang Yu made a three-pointer.

This was his first goal of the day. He had just shot one but missed. Now he made 2 of 1 shots and got 3 points.

He didn't take many shots afterwards, mainly creating opportunities for his teammates. However, Lopez scored continuously in the interior and beat Kanter.

During this period, Lopez gradually regained his game form, his physical and mental state has recovered, and his condition is getting better and better.

Seeing that Lopez was in good shape, Zhuang Yu kept feeding the ball to him.

However, the Lakers were behind in the score because the Trail Blazers' "backcourt duo", Lillard and McCollum, performed very well.

......

In a blink of an eye, five minutes of the first quarter had passed.

At this time, Coach Scott made substitutions, replacing Zhuang Yu, Holiday, and Lopez with the bench lineup.

The Trail Blazers did not make any substitutions, they wanted to further expand their lead.

In the next few minutes, the Lakers were still at a disadvantage, and the Trail Blazers widened the gap. By the end of the first quarter, the Trail Blazers were leading by 10 points.

The Lakers had no opinion on this. They were just chatting and laughing on the bench because the game itself was unimportant.

In the second quarter, the Lakers still used their substitute lineup and played for six minutes without making any substitutions, while the Trail Blazers started to use their main lineup after four minutes, further widening the gap to 15 points.

"It seems like the Lakers don't matter in today's game."

"This game is very important to the Trail Blazers. After winning this game, they will have home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs."

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether the Lakers win or lose this game. Let the Trail Blazers win."

In the audience stands, the fans were also relaxed.

......

It was not until there were only more than four minutes left in the second quarter that the Lakers made substitutions, with Zhuang Yu, Holiday and Lopez all coming on.

At this moment, Coach Scott was too lazy to consider whether the substitution was reasonable, whether he should slowly replace the players, etc.

It doesn’t matter, just let Zhuang Yu, Holiday and Lopez go up and play so as not to disappoint the fans too much.

After arriving on the court, the three of them looked at each other and were very relaxed.

Lakers offense.

After coming to the frontcourt, Holiday passed the ball to Zhuang Yu. Zhuang Yu immediately threw a long three-pointer after receiving the ball, and it hit the target with a "swish".

"Hehe..." Zhuang Yu laughed.

He didn't care about it, but the Trail Blazers became nervous because Zhuang Yu's three-point shot was so terrifying.

When the players of the Trail Blazers saw him shoot a three-pointer, their hearts skipped a beat.

The few of them exchanged glances, and in the next round they strengthened their defense against Zhuang Yu, especially against three-point shots.

"As for it?"

Zhuang Yu was speechless.

We don't care about this game. I'm just going to throw one randomly and I don't plan to continue shooting three-pointers. Do you have to be so nervous?

This time the defender was closer to the front, so Zhuang Yu did not continue to shoot three-pointers. Instead, he chose to break through, passed the defender, and jumped up, then shot a fadeaway jump shot.

Swish!

Also enter.

In the next few rounds, Zhuang Yu made two more shots, all fadeaway jump shots, and one of them went in, with a very good hit rate.

One three-pointer, three two-pointers, and including the points in the first quarter, Zhuang Yu's personal score today was more than ten points.

Judging from the time, I should be replaced.

"Well, that's about it for today."

Zhuang Yu thought to himself and decided not to make any further moves.

As a result, when the Trail Blazers saw him scoring consecutively, they felt like they were facing a formidable enemy and further strengthened their defense against Zhuang Yu, and their actions became more aggressive.

"What are you doing? I'm not going to make any move. Why are you looking like this?" Zhuang Yu was speechless and a little angry. Can't you see that we are going to let you win today? Just pretend to be nice to each other.

As for this?

When Zhuang Yu got the ball again, McCollum rushed over. Zhuang Yu and Holiday moved crosswise to form a switch defense. Just as he was about to pass the ball, Lillard rushed over and directly in front of Zhuang Yu. Zhuang Yu made a change of direction and broke through, but he was not prepared to really rush into the inside, but Lillard behind him rushed over and hit Zhuang Yu's back.

"Cao."

Zhuang Yu's body tilted and he couldn't help cursing inwardly. He subconsciously threw the ball away and rolled forward to release the force and avoid injury.

Seeing Zhuang Yu being pushed down by Lillard, his teammates all ran over.

"I'm fine." Zhuang Yu waved his hands and stared at Lillard with an unpleasant expression. "Damn, do you have to do this?"

A surge of anger rose in his heart, and Zhuang Yu stared at Lillard coldly. Lillard avoided his gaze, not daring to meet Zhuang Yu's gaze, and quickly moved away.

Zhuang Yu snorted coldly and stood on the free throw line.

"boom!"

Maybe it was because of my bad mood that I missed the first free throw.

Zhuang Yu took a breath, adjusted himself slightly, and then shook his wrist. At the moment of his free throw, a wonderful feeling suddenly surged in his heart.

The feeling was somewhat strange and yet familiar. It took Zhuang Yu two seconds to react. He was still in the free throw action, and he was already excited.

"This feeling......"

Zhuang Yu's mouth curled up unconsciously.