Start coaching the Thunder, starting with Westbrook

Chapter 189 We Can Win Streak Without You
In fact, the loss to the Nets would not be an upset. After all, the Nets were so powerful during the offseason that they were aiming for the championship. If they didn't make it to the Eastern Conference Finals, they would be considered failures.

Who would have thought that after the start of the fight, it would become like this, Kidd's worried head was all white-oh, if it was bald, that means the beard was white.

I thought it was a good job, but it turned out to be too much pressure.

But the foundation of the Nets is still there. You don't know which veteran will suddenly lift the coffin to surprise you.

This game is like this, except for the absence of Lopez, the "Big Four" of the Nets are all present. Although the Thunder set off an offensive in the second quarter and led by 10 points at halftime, in the second half, under the leadership of Deron, the Nets will work together to overthrow the Thunder.

Deron scored 30 points efficiently, and Pierce also scored 18 points.

For the Thunder, only Durant scored 25 points, Westbrook only scored 17 points on 5 of 11, and had 7 turnovers.

Durant's efficiency is actually not low, but the Nets are often double-teamed. He wants to trust his teammates, but the teammates in this game are obviously not worthy of his trust.

In fact, it’s okay to be in a bad state. Li Sheng’s most taboo is actually being overthrown, because this thing is the easiest to affect people’s mood, and then affect their subsequent state performance.

And the reason for being overturned may be that others played well, or it may just be that this side simply played poorly. At the same time, it was because of pride and looked down on the opponent.

Young teams are prone to this kind of mistake. Although the NBA is a "place where miracles happen", there are black sevens and black eights, and it is not new to come back from a 1:3 deficit, but some things that can be avoided should be avoided as much as possible.

Especially today, Westbrook obviously played more stubbornly, as if he was going to compete with Deron on the opposite side.

You are not Paul, and Deron can't beat you, why do you keep looking for him?

After the game, a reporter compared the performance of the point guards of the two teams today, and asked Li Sheng to make an evaluation. Isn't this obviously something to do?

However, Li Sheng did not perfunctory, but only praised Deron, thinking that he played reasonably and had a unique style. He can slowly recover from injuries, and it would be a blessing for the NBA to regain his peak state.

Although he didn't mention Westbrook, he kept talking about Westbrook, which excited the reporters.

They just like to do things, and they will take the initiative to do it if you don't do it, not to mention that Li Sheng is still giving someone a handle.

Li Sheng didn't seem to care, even if Presti called him and persuaded him with a helpless tone, he was unmoved.

In his opinion, Westbrook is itchy and needs to be cleaned up. He thought it would be good if he could take the initiative to make a gesture, but now it seems that it is not enough.

If he can't let him take the initiative to come and bow his head to him, then he may change back to his previous appearance at any time.

Thunder's pair are all alike, they look hard, but the hard part is not in place, in fact they are both soft-hearted and are easily influenced by outside criticism.

To win the championship is not only strength, ability and luck, but also a detached mentality.

Looking at the previous championships, it wasn't the attempts to make various changes after failures that finally succeeded. You can't attribute your failures to the lineup every time, and it's not someone.

"Sir..." Looking up at Durant who suddenly came to his side, he hesitated to speak, Li Sheng was surprised and then understood, then shook his head and smiled.

Then Durant understood, or he thought he understood, he sighed and turned away without persuading him.

Li Sheng didn't explain the meaning clearly to him, so let him misunderstand if he misunderstood, which is just right.

Although they lost another game, the Thunder are currently 30 wins and 2 losses, still ranking first in the Western Conference and the league.

It's just a pity that the winning streak was fixed at 17, and they couldn't go any further.

With such a record, Li Sheng can of course choose to do something according to his own ideas.

Then rest for a day, and on the 4th and 5th, the Thunder ushered in a back-to-back game with the Timberwolves and the Celtics.

In Minnesota's away game, Li Sheng directly let Westbrook take turns. The external reason was that he was concerned about Westbrook's injury, so he did not play in back-to-back away games.

This reason is obviously nonsense. Many people in the outside world even expect the Thunder to lose this game, and then Westbrook will explode and slap Li Sheng in the face.

There is no doubt that although Li Sheng has not encountered any obvious discrimination, many people are still unhappy that he is a Chinese national as the head coach in the NBA.

Especially now that many people like Westbrook very much. They always feel that Westbrook is not as happy under Li Sheng as he was when Brooks was coaching, and the pressure is too great.

Little do they know that it is good to have constant pressure on this kind of player. Too much relaxation is irresponsible to him, the team and the fans.

As a result, the Thunder won the game without any suspense, which disappointed some fun people.

Although the two teams played very stalemate in the first half, the Thunder once fell behind by 10 points, but with Durant's ultra-long three-pointer before halftime, the Thunder chased the point difference to 5 points.

In the third quarter, the Thunder launched a counterattack and successfully overtook the score, leading by 3 points and entering the decisive stage of the final quarter.

Then Li Sheng directly put out an offensive and defensive lineup of Reggie, Robertson, Durant, Ibaka and Gobert, and played a wave of 10:0 at the beginning, directly ignoring the Timberwolves.

Since then, the Timberwolves have never been able to pull back the point difference. At the end of the game, the Thunder won by 121 points 104:17.

In fact, the Timberwolves mainly lost in the rotation stage. Their five starting players performed well. Pekovic and Love both scored 30+ points, Kevin Martin and Brewer both scored 15 points, and Rubio also scored 10 points. However, they scored only 4 points from the bench, and they were all scored by Barea.

On the Thunder side, Durant made 32 of 18 shots and 13 of 12 free throws. He scored 53 points, 6 rebounds and 10 assists. There were 5 players in the team who scored in double figures. Ibaka, Reggie, and Antetokounmpo performed very well.

Especially Antetokounmpo and Reggie, they seemed to be liberated when Westbrook was absent, and they played much better than before.

Originally, the team actually wanted to create scoring opportunities for Durant and get higher scores, but the Timberwolves kept double-teaming, and Durant could only score the ball. Instead, he scored double assists first. As a result, it was even more uncomfortable for the Timberwolves. After all, 50+10 doesn't look much worse than 60+.

In fact, Durant's 53 points in this game is already a career high. Although he has won three scoring titles before, he only scored 50+ points in two games.

Although some strange voices said after the game that it was Durant's savior who helped Li Sheng keep his coaching position this time, no one paid attention to it, especially when facing the Celtics on the second day, Westbrook was still absent.

Hey, didn't it mean that Westbrook won't play away games, so why wouldn't he be allowed to play at home?
In fact, everyone has guessed that Li Sheng is trying to show off Westbrook.

After the game against the Nets, Westbrook didn't play for two consecutive games, and he didn't even bother to make up a reason for this game, and it happened that Westbrook really didn't play well in the Nets' game. Isn't this obviously a deliberate attempt to hide him?
(End of this chapter)