NBA: James wants to team up with me

A few days later, the other three East-West matchups were also decided.

In the West, the Spurs and Clippers defeated their respective opponents and advanced to the Western Conference Finals.

Last season's Western Conference Finals was a showdown between the Spurs and the Clippers. The Spurs were better at the time. Although Leonard has grown this season, it is an indisputable fact that GDP is aging and his competitive state is declining.

No one knows whether the Big Three combination of Harden, Paul and Jordan can win against the Clippers.

Even Wang Chong found it difficult to judge which side was stronger in the clash between the two teams.

But there is one thing Wang Chong is sure of, that is, no matter which of these two Western Conference teams wins the Western Conference Finals and advances to the finals, it will still be difficult for them to win the championship after reaching the finals.

Because the teams that entered the Eastern Conference Finals from the East are the Cavaliers and the Bulls.

The game between the Bulls and the Celtics ended with the Bulls defeating the Celtics 4:2.

Durant played extremely well in the six games, averaging 6 points per game, but the gap in strength between the two teams was too great for Durant to reverse on his own.

In this way, the Bulls will meet the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

In the Eastern Conference Finals battle between Wang Chong's current team and his former team, no matter which team ultimately wins the Eastern Conference Finals, it is not an exaggeration to say that their winning rate against Western Conference teams during the finals will be at least 7% or even 8%. After all, the gap in strength is too obvious.

As for the winning and losing trend of the Eastern Conference Finals, the general judgment is that the Cavaliers are more optimistic.

If it was before the start of the regular season, many people might be more inclined to the Bulls. After all, the Bulls' lineup looks more complete and much stronger than the Cavaliers'.

Of course, the biggest favorites to win the championship at that time were still the Big Three of the Heat, and the Bulls' strength was greatly reduced without Wang Chong.

Who would have thought that the Cavaliers, led by Wang Chong, would show such strong dominance on the court, and the rise of Curry and Butler on the Bulls also allowed the team to perfectly pass the period when Wang Chong left the team.

When the two teams faced off in the Eastern Conference Finals, the difference in their lineups was not that big, and the competition was about the quality and quality of the stars.

In this regard, there is no one in the entire league who can compete with Wang Chong, not even Curry.

Therefore, considering this point alone, the Cavaliers are already ahead of the Bulls.

The odds offered by bookmakers clearly favor the Cavaliers to win in the end.

On May 5, Game 20 of the Eastern Conference Finals officially kicked off at the Cavaliers' home court.

The Cavaliers starting lineup: Irving, Wiggins, Wang Chong, Gasol, Whiteside.

Bulls starting lineup: Curry, Green, Butler, Luol Deng, Gasol Jr.

The starting lineups of the two teams remained the same as in the opening game of the new season half a year ago, with no changes. However, the feeling of the two teams facing off now is completely different from before.

There was no suspense in the jump ball session. Whiteside completely crushed Gasol in terms of jumping and burst.

The Bulls were well aware that there was a huge gap between their inside line and that of the Cavaliers, so after the start of the game they chose to avoid confrontation in the inside as much as possible, and directly sped up and started running and gunning with an astonishingly fast offensive rhythm.

The Bulls' intention was very clear, they wanted to play to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses, and the Cavaliers took advantage of the situation and directly attacked the Bulls.

Just kidding, when Wang Chong built this team, he built it according to the small ball tactics. Irving, Wiggins and Louis Williams sitting on the bench, which one of them is not an outside player with outstanding athletic ability and full mobility?

Including the inside, after fighting against the Bulls, the Cavaliers quickly replaced Gasol, whose legs were not working well, with Tristan Thompson.

This season, the Eight Wise Kings actually have little use for the Cavaliers. With Gasol and Whiteside, Tristan Thompson's best skills in rebounding and cutting to the basket are taken care of by Whiteside, who is better than him.

这导致了特里斯坦.汤普森常规赛期间出场时间仅有20分钟出头一点，场均数据为6.4分5.8篮板，并未达到原本14-15赛季时场均8.5分8篮板的数据。

But when the Cavaliers speeded up and played against the Bulls, Thompson, who has outstanding athletic ability, came in handy, although his function on the court overlapped with Whiteside, which felt a bit wasteful. Neither of them had the ability to shoot, which reduced the Cavaliers' offensive space to a certain extent.

But for the Cavaliers, the impact is actually not that big, because both Wang Chong and Irving are players with strong ball-handling singles ability, and do not particularly need teammates to help with screens and create space.

The two big guys, Whiteside and Tristan Thompson, stood under the basket and almost took all the rebounds, leaving the Bulls no chance to survive.

Let’s not talk about the offensive problems for now. The Bulls even had a hard time protecting their own defensive rebounds.

Gasol himself is not the kind of inside player who is good at rebounding. He only averaged 7.6 rebounds per game throughout his career. As a big player with a height of 2 meters, he can only reach the passing level.

In fact, Wang Chong still left the Bulls with a strong inside player. However, without him, the Bulls head coach Thibodeau did not discover this talent at all. This season, this player is still just a substitute player and his average playing time is less than 20 minutes per game. He is unable to bring out his own advantages.

This player is Draymond Green.

The 14-15 season was supposed to be the season for Draymond Green's rise. Green, who was supposed to be on the Warriors, began to be reused by Kerr this year and became the starting power forward of the Warriors. In an average of 31 minutes per game, he contributed 11.7 points, 8.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists, and was selected to the All-Defensive First Team.

In the next season, when the Warriors won 73 games, Green's point forward skills were fully developed, with his averages rising to 14 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.4 assists, while he also became more aggressive on defense.

In the future, many people will dislike Green. Some because of his bad character, some because they can't stand his despicable methods of kicking the balls and poking the eyes, and some simply think that his style of passing the ball at the top of the arc is pure cancer and not good at all.

But no one will question Green's defense. As a 2-meter forward, his enthusiasm and fierce fighting are what no opponent wants to face.

Wang Chong selected Green from the Bulls at that time in order to prepare for the future. Even if the Bulls did not need Green, they would not let him run to other teams to grow up. If one day he could not be defended on the court, they would keep an eye on Wang Chong and attack him from all directions.

At that time, Wang Chong never thought that he would leave the Bulls because of the system's task, but obviously not everyone has his time-travelling vision.

Green's rise in the Warriors was a combination of the right time, the right place and the right people, and such success cannot be replicated.

This was not the case with Green on the Bulls, who was glamorously ignored.

Obviously, the Bulls can only use Luol Deng at the power forward position, who is not a particularly good candidate. But even so, Thibodeau still couldn't think of using Green, because in his concept, Green, who is 2 meters tall and weighs just over 01 kilograms, is basically a small forward, playing the same position as Butler.

Wang Chong is very happy to see the Bulls wasting talent like this. The weaker the opponent, the more helpful it will be for him to lead the Cavaliers to win the game.

This is the situation on the field at this moment.

In terms of offensive firepower alone, the Bulls are actually greater than the Cavaliers. All five positions on the court can attack, and including Gasol Jr., they all have mid-range and long-range shooting capabilities. The space on the court is very large, providing Curry with a very good offensive environment.

But the question is, if you can't even protect the defensive rebounds, what's the point of having a good offense?

Besides, the defense of this Cavaliers lineup is not bad at all. Among the three outside players, only Irving's defense is slightly worse. Whiteside and Tristan Thompson in the inside are both good at protecting the rim and blocking shots.

In just a few minutes, the Bulls had to call a timeout because in these few minutes they had been grabbed 3 offensive rebounds by the Cavaliers and scored on all second-chance possessions.

In the blink of an eye, the gap between the two teams began to widen.

Thibodeau has also realized that the Cavaliers are naturally inferior to the Bulls in terms of both tactical play and lineup configuration. In this case, the Bulls can only rely on the personal abilities of their stars to turn the tide of the game if they want to win.

After the timeout, the Bulls began to frequently use Curry and Gasol Jr.'s pick-and-roll three-point shooting offense.

Curry showed no mercy at the critical moment, making 3 of 2 shots and scoring 6 points in a row.

But before the Bulls fans had time to be happy, Wang Chong from the Cavaliers immediately responded.

Although the methods were different, the results were the same. Wang Chong first hit a mid-range fadeaway jump shot and then made a pull-up shot from outside the three-point line, scoring 5 points in a row. Although he scored 1 point less than Curry, Wang Chong made 2 of 2 shots, which was more efficient than Curry.

Bulls fans have seen this kind of scene countless times where the opponent can immediately counterattack after making a move, but times have changed, and now what they see is Wang Chong, wearing a Cavaliers jersey, giving the Bulls a fatal blow in this way.

The Bulls were completely in a passive situation on the court, and the score gap continued to widen.

Seeing that the advantage had been established, the Cavaliers changed their style of play again, replacing Paul Gasol, slowing down the offensive tempo and fighting a positional battle.

After all, fast breaks and running and gunning have unstable factors. If the Bulls get on with it and make three-pointers in a row, they still have a chance to catch up with the score difference.

But if the Cavaliers slow down their offensive tempo and further strengthen their defense, the Bulls will have no chance of making a comeback.

While replacing Gasol, the Cavaliers also replaced Whiteside and Tristan Thompson, two players with almost zero offensive ability. Wang Chong moved from small forward to power forward, and shooting guard Wiggins moved to small forward. At the same time, a player who had not been used much by the Cavaliers during the regular season appeared on the court.

When seeing this player come on the court, the home fans were actually a little confused and didn't understand why the Cavaliers made such a meaningless substitution.

This is a 1-meter-tall point guard with average physical fitness - Matthew Dellavedova.

No one else knew why, but Dellavedova, who was suddenly put into use, was mentally prepared because Wang Chong had already told him about it in advance.

Dellavedova had only one task after he came on the court, and that was to keep a close eye on Curry and completely stare at the opponent.

It sounds a bit ridiculous. How can a nobody who can't even make an stable substitute rotation defend Curry, a top star who can compete with Wang Chong on the MVP list this season?

But the fact is indeed so. The reason why Curry failed to win the Finals MVP in the original 14-15 season was because his performance during the finals was far below people's expectations. The reason for Curry's poor performance was directly related to Dellavedova's sticky defense throughout the whole process.

The latter relied on his successful defense against Curry in the finals to jump from an unknown unknown to an excellent defensive player that the entire league paid attention to, which also allowed him to later receive a 4-year, 3800 million contract.

4 million for 3800 years, averaging 950 million per year, may not sound like a lot, but as a bench substitute player who only averages around 5 points and 3 assists per game, being able to get an annual salary close to million can be said to be a direct class leap.

In fact, Dellavedova's level is really not that good. He is indeed a standard bench substitute. In the most classic finals, he defended Curry with all his fighting spirit. It is said that after defending Curry in a game, Dellavedova became dehydrated due to huge sweating and had to hang a bottle of saline solution to replenish water. It can be seen how hard he fights on the court.

The current Cavaliers don't really need Dellavedova as a surprise player to limit Curry's performance in order to win, but Wang Chong still wants to respect the hard-working players. If the opponent can seize this opportunity and really successfully limit Curry on the court, then it can be regarded as changing their destiny through their own efforts.

When Dellavedova first came on the court, Curry didn't take it seriously. He was just a little confused as to why Irving was defending a strange face instead.

But after a few rounds, he realized why the Cavaliers sent out such an unknown player.

This guy was like a dog-skin plaster, sticking close to Curry the whole time. Even when he didn't have the ball, the opponent would continue to make physical contact with him and exert pressure on him.

This behavior is very physically demanding, especially for the defensive side, who lose even more energy because Curry on the offensive side can call on his teammates for cover, and it takes a lot of energy to bypass the cover.

But Dellavedova's playing time is very limited, and he doesn't need to consider the issue of physical energy allocation at all. Even if he can only defend Curry for a few minutes, as long as he is effective on the court, it will be a huge profit.

As the Cavaliers gained strength, the Bulls were always suppressed by the Cavaliers on the court and had no chance of catching up.

107:99, the Cavaliers won the Eastern Conference Finals with an 8-point advantage at home