Start coaching the Thunder, starting with Westbrook

Chapter 220 Evolution
"Hey, black dog!"

The atmosphere at the home court was hot before the game started, and the weather was gradually entering its hottest period. Coupled with the enthusiasm of the Oklahoma City home fans, the scene seemed to be burning with a huge flame, and everyone who was in it would inevitably turn red and emotionally agitated.

"Let us welcome our most beloved head coach, Mr. Li Sheng!!!"

The order of playing at home today is a bit special. Li Sheng, who didn't participate in the game, was the first to play today. After he played, the atmosphere on the scene became even more enthusiastic. The Thunder fans simply loved the guy who was about to lead them to the top this rookie season.

After Li Sheng, Sam Presti was also invited out. The reason why there was such a special pre-match ceremony was that they both won the regular season awards at the same time. Li Sheng became the best coach of the season and broke the youngest record for this award. He was also the first coach to win the award in his rookie season.

Presti was awarded the best manager. Although there are rumors that the four rookies were suggested by Li Sheng, after all, the selection of rookies and trades are the manager's nominal authority, so the credit naturally belongs to Presti.

Wherever there are awards, it is inevitable to share the cake, as if Ennis was not on the second team of the best rookie before. There are only so many positions, but there are so many teams and players.

However, this season the Thunder has achieved the best record in history in the regular season. No matter what voices there are from the outside world, whether they are doubtful, worried, or feel unreal, they sigh "what is this evening", but the facts are there.

In this way, the gold content of this result must be recognized, and the Thunder must be allowed to occupy the largest piece of cake here.

The previous best lineups only have one team, one team, three teams, and then one defense and one best rookie. When there is no obvious advantage in player honor, it is normal for coaches and managers to come out to claim credit.

What's more, at least the Thunder fans will have no objection to this point. They have always respected Presti. After all, Westbrook and Ibaka were all brought by him, and Li Sheng also conquered them in just one season.

Even if this season stops here, it will be great for them, and it will be a very good memory, but the regret will be bigger.

Of course, Li Sheng and the players are definitely not willing to stop here. Li Sheng made another change in this game. This is a decision made after combining the previous video analysis and the results of the simulation before the game.

Li Sheng convinced the coaching staff, and then arranged it directly. Now we have to see how the effect is.

The starting five players of the Thunder are Westbrook, Robertson, Durant, Antetokounmpo and Ibaka. They sent two rookies in key battles, which can be regarded as bold.

But of course Li Sheng has an idea. The rotation defense of this lineup will be stronger than that of Gobert in the starting lineup, and the outside shooting is slightly weaker, but Robertson and Antetokounmpo cannot be taken lightly. They have proved their ability to open three-pointers in the previous playoffs.

The Spurs were still in the regular lineup. Popovich was obviously surprised that Li Sheng would change, but he immediately changed his strategy and decided to let Duncan play first. He believed that Antetokounmpo would not be able to defend an opponent like Duncan for the time being.

In the Spurs' starting lineup, Green is 3D, Splitter is a pick-and-roll, Leonard is 3D but is also developing his own offense, and the core of tactics is actually Parker and Duncan.

In other words, from 07 onwards, Parker has been the core of the Spurs' offense and the first choice, and the performance of the Spurs has also changed with his personal ups and downs.

Li Sheng let Robertson come up to let him mark Parker. The Swiss Army Knife is more experienced, but suffers from speed and flexibility, while Antetokounmpo is for changing defenses after pick-and-rolls. He is more suitable than Ibaka to limit small and flexible point guards like Parker.

After Ibaka's side grabbed the first wave of possession, the Thunder came up to grab a first move, and the five rushed forward at the same time. The Spurs didn't seem to realize it, and Westbrook directly broke through and went to the basket with a dunk to take the lead.

Turtle!

Whoa!
Immediately, the blood was racing at the scene, and the home court was instantly detonated. The fans all felt as if they had been beaten, and the media at the scene also felt very excited.

Speaking of which, Westbrook has been in a relatively depressed state since this season, feeling unable to vent the energy in his body, and has to restrain himself many times.

And the outside world's discussion about whether Westbrook has declined has never really disappeared. Some said that he was sacrificed because of the team's tactics, which is close to the truth.

An indisputable fact is that Westbrook's statistics are indeed not as good as before, and even the style of play is not as strong as before, and there are even fewer dunks like this.

This is not due to Li Sheng's request, it is purely that Westbrook has begun to restrain his style of play due to the impact of injuries.

He has been suffocating in his heart, hoping to prove it in the finals.

"OMG! Russell's ball made the whole arena agitated, and my blood seemed to be boiling."

Some Westbrook fan bloggers even posted social comments immediately, unable to hide their excitement.

But this is just the beginning. Looking back on the Spurs, Parker and Duncan hit a ball in a pick-and-roll. Although Antetokounmpo was able to keep up with Parker's footsteps, when Parker passed to the other side and Duncan faced Robertson, the height gap was even bigger.

Then the Thunder attacked, and Westbrook wanted to hit the opponent again this time, but the Spurs were prepared this time. Westbrook had to brake suddenly to avoid being trapped in the opponent's encirclement.

Westbrook was in a hot state at the beginning, and the Thunder cheered. After all, everyone still loves Westbrook, but the Spurs were a little dignified.

Although the Spurs' defense is holistic, it is still targeted when facing a dual-core team like the Thunder. Under normal circumstances, Green actually leads the defense against Durant, while Leonard faces Westbrook.

Of course, if Durant asks for singles, Leonard will try to switch positions with Green. After all, Green's height and wingspan gap is too large.

And this is also for the Thunder to be able to switch defenses in a timely manner when playing pick-and-rolls on the Thunder side, because Westbrook has more pick-and-roll tactics.

This whole set of defensive routines has been played very proficiently because the Spurs have relatively small personnel changes in recent years.

But this time they can't achieve good results. That's because the Thunder's lineup has actually become a three-core team. Antetokounmpo is added to control the ball, and when to play and when to pass.

After playing for 4 minutes in a row, the Thunder's lead had reached 6 points, and Popovich had to call the first timeout of the game.

"...We can see that Coach Li has changed his lineup in this game. It seems that the effect is not bad so far. The Thunder's offense is particularly good, and all shots have been hit so far. On the defensive end, their forward-leaning and oppressive defense also put great pressure on the Spurs' dribbling and passing."

"It's like this. Leonard was forced to make a mistake, and Parker was eager to hit the iron. These are all technical actions and even ideas that have been deformed under the high-pressure defense. The Spurs' tactics are not able to play well."

The Chinese and American commentators were all analyzing the situation on the court. Li Sheng clapped high-fives with the off-field players one by one, with a calm expression on his face.

Now that the first scene was just a test, wouldn't it appear that I was too pretentious?
Forget it, let's wait until we win this game...

To talk about the best way to deal with this Spurs, Li Sheng thinks that first of all, the offense is better than them, and the second is that the defense is not weaker than them.

This seems a bit nonsense, but it is really not easy to do it on offense and defense at the same time, just like the Heat on the other side.

In fact, in the finals of the previous life, Li Sheng felt that their defense was not bad. If he had to say that the Spurs had a super-high offensive efficiency, it was better to say that their offense was too bad.

The only strong point in the team this season is James. Bosh has degenerated to the point where he is not as good as an ordinary star.

Facing the Spurs' three-point rain and the smooth conduction of the ball, they were exhausted, which in turn made them inefficient on the offensive end.

Facing such a Heat team, the Spurs played relaxed and freehand. In fact, they can easily win the match as long as they play a defensive counterattack, and they don't need to think too much about it.

As long as you change to a team with a stronger offense, or more offensive points, the Spurs' defense may not be able to block it, because this playoffs they are attacking to win, and their defense has actually declined compared to last season.

The Thunder naturally don't have the trouble of being weak in any aspect, and they can complement each other, so it is reasonable to hold the Spurs.

On the Spurs side, Popovich also felt a headache. In fact, he has noticed since he played the Grizzlies that the team is really not easy to play against a team that can have multiple ball-holding points in the team. The defensive efficiency will be greatly affected.

And once they can't limit the opponent's attack, they can only seek to score higher than the opponent, which is easy to be unstable, so there will be a tiebreaker round and six fierce battles in the second round.

The Grizzlies have Conley, a solid point guard, Prince with the civilian Pistons, and black and white Bears inside, all of whom can handle the ball; the Clippers also have Paul, Griffin, and Crawford, and the Spurs have a hard time playing them.

Compared with those two teams, the Thunder is now even worse. Everyone in their lineup can play, shoot, break through and pass the ball. Even Popovich feels a little envious when he looks at it.

But at this point, it is not easy to admit defeat. He has to bite the bullet and fight on, and Popovich can only choose to trust his own players.

As for the tactical arrangement, in his opinion, of course, "I am the main player". Facing this Thunder team, only by playing their own offense can they consider other things.

After the timeout, the situation of the Spurs has improved a bit. The Thunder are indeed not able to limit their offense, nor can they guarantee that their offense can hit every time.

However, it is not so easy for the Spurs to recover the point difference. After a while, the point difference increased gradually. By the end of the first quarter, the Thunder still led by 5 points, 32:27.

The offensive efficiency of the two teams is actually not low. The key is to see which team is better able to penetrate the opponent's defense.

When it comes to fighting this, of course, the Thunder's upper limit is higher, after all, they still have Dewey.

This time Westbrook's touch has recovered a bit. Durant also started with his teammates as the main player, but Ibaka's performance was the most eye-catching. He hit two three-pointers from the outside, scored 2+1 from the basket, and hit a mid-range shot from the corner position. He scored 11 points and 5 rebounds in a single quarter.

Duncan was also not to be outdone. In the last game, he was restricted by Ibaka and Gobert. In this quarter, facing Antetokounmpo, he returned to the top, scoring 9 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists.

It's a pity that the teammates are a bit broken. Except for the iron tree blossoming Huang Ama who keeps making three-pointers, the others have nothing to do.

Leonard misfired directly, and missed a shot that was interfered with.

The Spurs can deploy defenses against the Thunder's core, and the Thunder can naturally do the opposite, but compared to the Thunder, the Spurs actually don't have a clear core, and the focus is on who can play and who can play.

It happened that Green was in good shape today, Duncan had a good chance, and they gave them all the shots. In addition, Leonard was always entangled by Durant, and someone next to him would wave his long arms to interfere with him from time to time, almost giving him the same treatment as Parker. How can he handle it now.

Li Sheng's defensive intentions today are actually very obvious. He wants to limit the opponent's starting backcourt engine Parker, and block Leonard on the flank. As for Green and Duncan, let them go. He believes that today's Shifo alone can't kill the game.

As for Green, he is not Thompson. Giving him some defensive strength at critical moments might make him blind. Even if he doesn't, the upper limit of role players is still there.

What's more, what Li Sheng insisted on in his heart was to attack to win the game, especially against the Spurs, he must have a better offense than them.

The second quarter started with a rotation contest, but Li Sheng first accepted a temporary interview on the sidelines, which was arranged by the TV station.

Naturally, this game will be broadcast live across the United States. Both teams are favorites to win the championship. Many people even think that whoever can reach the finals will have more hope of winning the championship, especially after the Heat lost the first game.

The reporter first asked about Li Sheng's arrangement for today's opening. It seemed that many people were surprised. Some viewers called and reported this point.

In this regard, Li Sheng only vaguely said that they have studied the Spurs a lot. As for what to do if the change of lineup fails at this time, his answer is also very honest, "Then change back in time."

These words made the beautiful reporter couldn't help laughing, and then she winked at him quietly.

Li Sheng looked at his nose and mouth with concern, as if he hadn't seen it.

To be honest, the temptations he has received over the past year have been very abnormal. Whether it is in Oklahoma City, playing games in other places, or even doing shows during breaks, he has encountered all kinds of temptations, all kinds of explicit ones, dark ones, hidden ones, or directly provocative ones like this.

It is not easy for Li Sheng to be able to defend, after all, these are a group of goblins, who accidentally slipped.

(End of this chapter)