I just play ball

Chapter 70 Who will lose first?
Hearing this, Li Gao raised his hands and cheered, and the other teammates followed suit.

Kobe Bryant was No. 11 when he played against the Warriors. At that time, the team doctor diagnosed that he would need to rest for at least three weeks. The earliest time for his comeback was early May. Now everything is developing as planned, which means that the Lakers are back on track.

With Kobe in the backcourt, the Lakers' perimeter defense has improved to a higher level, the bench rotation has become more diverse and smooth, and the team's offensive firepower has also increased a lot, enough to wrestle with any team in the league.

After chatting a few more words, the whole team went back to the locker room to take a shower.

Li Yue got it done quickly, and just after changing his clothes and sitting on the chair, he heard the team staff shouting excitedly.

He listened carefully, and it turned out that the Spurs and the Warriors were tied 2-2. The two teams will have a battle at Tianwangshan, and the series must play at least six games.

This is indeed a little surprising. The Spurs are second in the Western Conference in the regular season, and the three main players in GDP are all healthy. They also have strong players like Leonard and Danny Green. Before the playoffs, many commentators believed that the Western Conference Finals would be the The stage between them and the Thunder is even expected to enter the finals, while the Warriors are only ranked sixth in the Western Conference. There are no All-Star players in the team. The two core players in the backcourt are rookies and have zero playoff experience.

Before the two teams started playing, 21 commentators on ESPN predicted the results. No one supported the Warriors to win, and only one person chose the Spurs to advance 4-2, and the others were 4-1 or 4-0.

Curious, Li Yue took out his mobile phone from the cabinet and logged on to Twitter to learn more about it.

The score of the two teams was 97 to 87, and the shooting percentage did not exceed 39%. The Warriors grabbed more rebounds, but also made more turnovers. Accounted for.

A typical defensive battle consumes a lot of energy for the two teams, and it will be miserable no matter who wins in the end.The staff members are so excited, which shows that they have decided in their hearts that the Lakers have advanced, and they can relax and wait for work, and Kobe can also get more preparation time.

Li Yue continued to browse Twitter, flipping through discussions about the Lakers vs. Nuggets.

Perhaps it was because the difference in hard power between the two teams was too large, and the result of the game lacked suspense. Half an hour had passed and there were only more than 3000 discussions. The one that received the most likes was complaining about George Karl forcibly keeping the main players on the field.

He was about to put down his phone and prepare for an interview when an ESPN notification popped up on the screen.

[Miami Heat beat Milwaukee Bucks away]

Anyway, he was idle, so he clicked to view the detailed report.

【在刚刚结束的热火客场挑战雄鹿的比赛中，勒布朗詹姆斯高效砍下22分6助攻5篮板……热火和湖人成为首轮唯二3比0领先对手的球队。】

After reading the detailed report, he swipe the screen to browse the comments.

[LeBron won in just 3 minutes in the fourth quarter. The Heat are so strong that they don’t need him to show their dominance, but the Lakers are the main force in the second half of the fourth quarter. The difference in strength between the two teams is obvious. If the Lakers can advance In the finals, LeBron will blow up Kobe and completely end the debate about who is No. 1 after Jordan! 】

[Strong teams are similar, such as the Heat and the Lakers, who also have qualified role players led by superstars, but weak teams each have their own flaws, such as the physical strength of the Spurs, the tactics of the Thunder, the critical moments of the Clippers, The scoring ability of the Pacers, next I will only watch the finals, wake me up in June. 】

[No disrespect is meant, if the Lakers and the Heat meet in the finals, Howard will do whatever he wants in the paint, LeBron's shortcoming of low long-range shooting will be infinitely magnified, and the championship must belong to the Lakers. 】

Seeing that the three comments received a lot of likes, Li Yue realized that the fans had already decided that the Lakers and the Heat would win the Finals. A little pride filled his heart, and his hard work was finally recognized.

He was watching happily, the public relations president Blake pushed open the door of the locker room, and the reporters filed in and started interviewing.

Li Yue simply answered a few questions, then left the arena and drove back to the apartment.

...

The next morning, Li Yue went to the Toyota Sports Center for shooting training as usual.

Because the team required joint training, he was the only one on the entire court, and it took a lot of trouble to get the shooting machine setup.

Surprisingly, Goodlock arrived later.

The two chatted as they pitched, everything from the playoff format to entertainment gossip and finally the inevitable talk of where to go after the season.

Both are from the Development League. Li Yue will definitely get a considerable offer because of his sudden emergence, but it is hard to say whether Goodlock can continue to stay in the NBA, at least the Lakers will not have a position to offer.

Li Yue promised to go to the management and coaching staff in person, try his best to keep Goodlock in the team until the end of the preseason next season, give him more opportunities to show his personal ability, and create negotiation conditions for the next contract .

The two were chatting, and all the members of the coaching staff arrived with nervous faces, as if they were behind 0 to 3.

Assistant coach Phil Weber called the two to the sidelines, handed him a folder, and asked to open it first.

Before Li Yue asked what it was, Phil ran into the office quickly, as if he was in a hurry to do something.

He opened it to check and found that it was the analysis of the Spurs' defensive report, which happened to mention the game against the Warriors last night.

The report pointed out that Klay Thompson, who played well before, played seriously abnormally in the third game. He only scored 51 points on 13 of 5 shots in 10 minutes. .

At the end of the report, it is mentioned that if they face the Spurs in the second round, the Lakers should perform more individual singles, especially to seize the opportunity to match up with Parker from the outside. The Spurs have an advantage in their defensive system, especially when the four starters are all very strong in single defense.

After reading the report, Goodlock was very excited, saying that it was a magic weapon.

Li Yue felt that it was commonplace, because the Spurs had always been like this, and it was all unreasonable to win.

He was a little surprised by the preparations made by the coaching staff in advance. It seemed that no one cared about the Nuggets anymore, but since the coaching staff had already set a general strategy, if there were no major problems, just follow through.

The two immediately practiced dribbling and shooting with one step.

In the afternoon, Kobe also rushed to the base to start recovery training, mainly jogging and stepping on the spot.

The three took a selfie and posted it on Twitter, which attracted many likes from fans and was praised as 'the victory is not proud'.

...

NO.30 afternoon, the Lakers sit at the Staples Center and continue to face the Nuggets.

The seats in the arena were full, and the fans outside the arena were crowded to witness the promotion. A large number of Hollywood stars tweeted that they regretted not being able to attend.

In the first quarter of the game, the whole team followed the requirements of the coaching staff to practice with games, and performed individual singles many times.

Li Yue deliberately approached Iguodala to increase the difficulty. He scored 6 points on 4 of 10 in a single quarter and scored 3 steals.

The Nuggets were directly defeated, gave up all resistance, and replaced all the main players at the end of the third quarter.

In the end, the Lakers won 97 to 76 and easily and strongly advanced to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs with a total score of 4 to 0.

The whole team simply celebrated. Li Yue proposed to start joint training with only one day off, and other teammates readily agreed.

Shortly after the Lakers game, the Heat also defeated the Bucks and also advanced 4-0.

Hot topics of discussion quickly appeared on Twitter: Lakers and Heat, who will lose a game first?
(End of this chapter)