The strongest unicorn in basketball

Chapter 280 The biggest problem

At the end of the first quarter, at 39:25, the Kings led the Thunder by 14 points in a single quarter.

Originally, the first half of the quarter was evenly matched, but in the second half, they were beaten 19:5 by the Kings.

This is the result of both Westbrook and Durant being present.

In the first quarter, except for Li Pu who scored 11 points, the other four starters of the Kings also scored. Even Thomas Jr. and Thornton who were on the bench also scored.

The score distribution of the whole team is very balanced, which does not conform to the impression of ordinary fans that the king is only Li Pu.

How can this be a single-core team?It is clearly seven cores!

The Kings' excellent offensive performance, in the second quarter, still maintained a very good touch.

In this quarter, Thomas Jr. took over the team's offensive banner at the beginning of the game because Li Pu and others were not present, and even faced Durant at one point.

Since the Thunder's salary space has long been locked, Cousins ​​was renewed in advance this season, making it difficult for them to have salary space to sign qualified substitutes. They can only attract players like Caron Butler and Fisher. A veteran who joined with a basic salary.

But these players are not enough to support the Thunder's bench.

Facing the backup backcourt combination composed of Fisher and Lamb, Thomas Jr. was at home, and breaking through them was as easy as walking on the road in the early morning.

As a last resort, the Thunder had no choice but to replace Westbrook back in advance.

Although the Thunder's current lineup is strong, its shortcomings are also obvious, that is, the substitute lineup is too poor.

Of course, this is also a common problem of the Big Three teams. The stars occupy a lot of salary space and do not come to supplement the bench at all.

In this case, the Thunder can only stagger the time of several giants and lead the teams through the team's championship stage.

This model can still work in the regular season, but in the playoffs, especially when facing a strong team like the Kings, the team's lineup seems a bit insufficient, and the playing time of core players has to be increased.

At this time, the Thunder fans who saw this scene couldn't help thinking in their minds, if Harden, Lin Shuhao and Li Pu hadn't been let go, would the team be as difficult as it is now?
I'm afraid I have to advance the NBA finale, right?

It wasn't until Westbrook scored 6 points in a row that the Thunder stabilized the situation again, and the point difference returned to within 10 points.

And Li Pu also returned to the court at this time, and the second quarter had already played for almost 5 minutes.

As soon as Li Pu returned to the court, he dunked Adams in the paint.

At this time, Adams was still a little fresh meat, which was quite different from the image of Aquaman later, and of course his style of acting was also very different.

At this time, Adams was thin and not strong enough, so he often made a lot of small moves when confronting.

This is why Li Pu dunks Adams.

I'm almost annoyed by this guy's little tricks.

Then Westbrook missed a mid-range shot, and the Kings counterattacked quickly. Li Pu gave the ball to Thomas Jr. in the corner, and the latter could still hit a three-pointer!

In this way, the point difference returned to about 15 points.

To be honest, the Thunder's offense is not bad, especially Westbrook, who is almost unbeatable in this quarter.

With one goal, Westbrook even carried Li Pu directly and dunked the ball into the basket.

That scene exploded as much as it wanted.

The Kings, however, were the better side.

They scored 30 points again in this quarter, and scored 69 points in the half. You must know that the small ball era has not completely come at this time, and they scored nearly 70 points in the half, which is quite a terrifying high score.

At 69:52 at halftime, the Kings continued to lead by 17 points.

This game was played like this by the Kings, which made Thunder fans really unacceptable.

In the first half of the first quarter, it was even unbearable, let alone losing by almost 20 points now?

In fact, let alone the fans, even the players themselves cannot accept this point.

Cousins ​​didn't say anything, this guy is a gas tank, and it will explode at one touch.

Even Westbrook and Durant couldn't accept being beaten like this by the Kings.

Especially Westbrook, he tried his best to persuade Li Pu to stay at the beginning, and because of this, he and Li Pu had a long time of awkwardness.

At that time, seeing that Li Pu had no intention of leaving, Westbrook even told Li Pu that if you leave the Thunder, you will never win the championship again, and I will block you from the gate of the finals.

No matter how loud his tone was back then, his face hurts now.

Li Pu not only led the team to the playoffs, but also ranked third in the Western Conference, only one place lower than the Thunder, and he also won the MVP, which is an award that even Westbrook has never won.

Of course, Westbrook doesn't care about these things. The key is that if he loses in a face-to-face match, it doesn't mean he gets slapped in the face.

So in the second half, Westbrook was obviously a little impatient, and kept breaking inside with the ball, trying to help the team chase points.

However, with Li Pu on the inside, Westbrook was able to successfully challenge and score one in the first half, but it does not mean that he can score consecutively in the second half.

After receiving two caps in a row and failing to score twice, the point difference further came to 20 points.

It has to be said that since Li Pu left, no one in the Thunder can control Westbrook above him.

This season, Westbrook has more than once, because of intelligent superior operations, the team lost.

But it's a pity, no matter Durant or Cousins, no one can persuade Westbrook. If Li Pu was there, he would have already competed in a big fight!

At the critical moment, Coach Brooks called a timeout again.

However, after the timeout came back, Westbrook used another mistake to declare that the timeout was for nothing.

Throughout the third quarter, the Kings maintained a lead of more than 20 points. Except for Westbrook's mistakes, every time the Thunder had a momentum, they would be overwhelmed by Li Pu's points.

In this way, at the end of the third quarter, the score had reached 104:78, and the Kings led by as much as 26 points.

After the opening of the fourth quarter, the Kings have replaced all the main players. The lineup on the field is Thomas Jr., Thornton, Covington, Muscala and Jason Thompson.

In order to prevent sailing in the gutter, Coach Brown still kept Thomas Jr. and Thornton on the field.

The two of them are the two most consistent scorers on the bench for the Kings, and they performed very well tonight. Together, they have contributed 20+ points.

It's about the same as the points of all the Thunder's substitutes combined.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Thunder really wanted to resist. With the efforts of Thomas Jr. and Thornton, the Thunder finally struggled for more than 5 minutes, and the point difference was still more than 20 points.

In the end, the Thunder announced their abandonment and replaced the main substitutes. The Kings also replaced Thomas Jr. and Thornton.

The game was finally fixed at 122:105. The Kings beat the Thunder away by 17 points and won the home court advantage of this round of the series.

Li Pu made 28 of 14 shots and scored 12 points and 32 rebounds in only 10 minutes of playing. His efficiency was extremely high.

The Thunder's defensive system seems to be completely unable to restrain Li Pu.

And this will be the next biggest problem for the Thunder in this series!

(End of this chapter)