unfinished glory

Chapter 231 Makes You Messy
After losing to the Cavaliers, the Grizzlies have only two games left.

The last game was against the Trail Blazers, which made the Spurs very desperate, because this game is related to their playoff spot.If the Blazers win, the Spurs will be eliminated.

The current situation is that the Grizzlies will not play this game at all. After losing to the Cavaliers, they have no desires. It is just that Li Chongxiao does not want to disappoint the fans who bought tickets, so he insists on playing. The other main players did not play at all.

In the game against the Eagles, if the opponent's main force hadn't played, with Li Chongxiao's 46 points, he might not have been able to win.

But the Trail Blazers are different. They can only enter the playoffs if they win, and they will definitely do their best.

By the end of the final round, seven teams in the West had confirmed their spots in the playoffs.

目前的情况是西部No.7的马刺队和No.8的雷霆队已经打完了全部比赛，都取得了49胜33负。而No.9正是开拓者队，他们拿到了48胜33负。

It seems that there are three teams competing for two playoff spots. In fact, the eighth-ranked Thunder has already qualified, and only the Spurs and Trail Blazers are competing for the last spot.

This is determined by the ranking rules. If the Trail Blazers lose, they are naturally ineligible. If they win, there will be three teams in the West with 49 wins and 33 losses.

According to the NBA's ranking rules, when multiple teams (more than three) have the same record, the division champion is ranked first before the non-division champion.

But none of those three teams were division champions.The Northwest Division champions of the Thunder and Trail Blazers are the Nuggets, and the Southwest Division champions of the Spurs are the Grizzlies, so this does not hold true.

Then the team's mutual record.The current situation is that the Thunder 3:1 the Blazers, the Blazers 3:1 the Spurs, and the Spurs 3:1 the Thunder. The records of the three teams are nested and cannot be compared.

Then there is the record in the division (only for multiple teams in the same division), and the three teams are not in the same division, this is skipped.

The three teams have been compared until the fourth article, which is to compare the records in the league before deciding the winner.

In this option, the Spurs are at a disadvantage, and their winning percentage against the Western Conference teams is worse than the other two teams.

So once the Trail Blazers beat the Grizzlies in the game, the Spurs will be eliminated.

And now it is obvious that the Grizzlies will not send the main lineup to go to the away game to win the game for the Spurs.

But the Spurs still have to struggle. Popovich reiterated his friendship with the Grizzlies in the same district, and said that young teams and young players should hone more and should not take any rotations.

Duncan also sent a call, hoping that when Li Chongxiao was able to play, he would not show mercy and try to help the Spurs as much as possible.

But in any case, the initiative is still in the hands of the Grizzlies.Carlisle put Gasol, Battier and Big Ben, the three older players, directly on the injured list.And Gasol Jr. and Conley also sat on the bench, and they will basically not play unless there is an accident.

This made the Spurs coaching staff and players who followed the game very desperate.Even if Li Chongxiao made his debut, he couldn't bring them any comfort.

The situation in the first quarter was just as expected, and the Blazers at home took the lead.

Although the high-profile Oden has been suffering from constant injuries since the draft year and is basically in a state of scrapping, the twin stars of Roy and Aldridge have led the team forward.If it weren't for the fierce competition in the Western Conference and the main small forward Batum was injured and scrapped during the season, they would have entered the playoffs long ago.

Fortunately, they still have a chance now, so they played very seriously.The Grizzlies are not. The lineup on the field is Pulzbila, Big Ben, Barnes, Lowry and Li Chongxiao, basically a defensive lineup.

Originally, Li Chongxiao shouldn't have played, but he strongly demanded to play, which made Carlisle and his teammates confused about the situation.

I haven't heard of any conflicts between him and the Trail Blazers before, and this is an away game, and there is no situation where I am sorry for the home audience.

But he is the boss, and everyone is not easy to organize, not to mention Li Chongxiao didn't ask other players to play.

After playing, Li Chongxiao didn't make any big moves, he just defended Roy and was responsible for scoring.

However, he did give the team a backbone on the field, and his teammates played relatively smoothly around him, almost on par with the Blazers.

In the half of the game, Carlisle still replaced Li Chongxiao.He told Li Chongxiao that he wanted to inspect the quality of the substitute players on the field, but in fact he wanted Li Chongxiao to rest more and not waste his energy on this game.

This game was also discussed by the Grizzlies coaching staff and should be lost. After the loss, the seventh place in the Western Conference became the young Thunder with no experience in the playoffs, not the current old-fashioned Spurs.

Although Li Chongxiao really wanted to win the game, he usually didn't bring his personal grievances to unrelated people, so he could only follow his orders and rest.

After he left the field, the team collapsed. Roy, who was limited by him to 4 for 0 shots, began to show off. Facing Brewer, he asked for anything and scored again and again.

One side played with 120% strength, but the other side was "letting water", so the situation on the court became one-sided. After the first quarter, the Blazers led the Grizzlies by 16 points.

In the second quarter, Li Chongxiao was still sitting on the sidelines, which made the Trail Blazers feel relieved. It seemed that they had a certain chance of winning this game.

The Spurs players and fans who watched the game outside the court were also desperate, and many people turned off the TV.

The situation on the court also developed in this way. The Trail Blazers made another onslaught. Some of the Grizzlies' substitute players and even the water dispenser players couldn't resist at all, and the point difference was quickly pulled to more than 20.

Then they didn't let go, and continued to chase hard. The second quarter was not halfway through, and the point difference went straight to 30, and they still didn't want to let go.

Li Chongxiao originally wanted to teach the other party a lesson because of something,
Now seeing that the other party didn't know what to do, he directly asked to play.

In fact, Carlisle couldn't stand it any longer. He gave his opponent face. Logically, the Blazers should accept it as soon as it is good. Why aren't they grateful and beat them to death?
Li Chongxiao's request to play was granted, and Carlisle even sent Gasol Jr. and Conley.

This change caught the attention of Trail Blazers coach McMillan, but he only regarded it as Carlisle's dissatisfaction and didn't take it to heart.According to the current point difference, he doesn't think his team can't beat the Grizzlies with a semi-main force.

The Blazers players on the field are full of momentum, and naturally they don't feel that the situation will change, and they are still full of confidence.

When Li Chongxiao sat off the court, he had already seen through the Trail Blazers' routine today, and after he came on the court, it was Webster's single defense.

Now almost no team dares to send only one defender when Li Chongxiao is attacking. The Blazers won too smoothly today, and they are a little arrogant.

Faced with this situation, how could Li Chongxiao be polite, he came up with a three-point three-hit combo, scoring 9 points in a row.

Not only that, on the defensive end, he also defended against Roy's two rounds of offense in a row, and locked the Blazers' offensive sharp knife in the cabinet.

Before McMillan came back to his senses, the situation on the court was reversed. The Grizzlies scored 15:4 and directly narrowed the point difference to 18 points.

Seeing that the lead was lost, the Blazers quickly called a timeout, rearranged their tactics, and stabilized the morale of the army. Only then did the game turn into a stalemate.

However, the Blazers' offense was disrupted, which had a greater impact on them, and the point difference was gradually narrowed.

At halftime, their lead was down to 11 points.

……

At the start of the second half, Li Chongxiao sat on the bench again, which made the Trail Blazers heave a sigh of relief.

But they ran out of touch in the first half, and they didn't make any shots, and they didn't widen the point difference in a quarter, still 11 points.

The Grizzlies' substitutes will not be humble. Only by performing well can they have more opportunities, so they become more courageous as they fight. Although the shooting rate is not high, but the defense is in place, so that the Blazers players cannot play efficient attacks.

This made the opponent become impatient. In the third quarter of the fourth quarter, when Lowry scored a goal and turned the point difference into 9 points, the Blazers were a little confused.

Aldridge was caught by Big Ben on offense, and turned around in desperation and gave the latter an elbow.

Big Ben is not easy to bully, back then when the Palace of Auburn Hills fought, he was a ruthless person that even Artest dared not provoke.He turned around and pushed over, and Aldridge was pushed directly into the air and fell to the Blazers' bench.

The referee hurried over to separate the two sides, so that the fight did not start.

After both sides calmed down, the referee watched the video and gave Aldridge a common foul.

This reassured the Grizzlies. Since elbows are common fouls, the big push is at most a technical foul.But the referee didn't think so, and directly made a second-level malicious foul and sent Da Ben off the field.

This made the Grizzlies very angry. Carlisle stepped forward to argue and got a technical foul.

The Trail Blazers got 3 free throw opportunities, and then followed the chaos on the court, and scored another three-pointer, opening the point difference to 15 points.

The Grizzlies were a little excited, and Carlisle took advantage of the opportunity to send Li Chongxiao on the field, but did not play Gasol and Conley.

Li Chongxiao couldn't bear it anymore off the court, and when he came up, he didn't care, and threw a wave.His touch is really good today, and the Trail Blazers were still not ready, allowing him to score easily, and quickly turned the point difference into 8 points.

The frightened Trail Blazers quickly called a timeout to stabilize the situation.

Carlisle also persuaded Li Chongxiao a little bit, telling him not to use too much force. This meeting has scored 43 points, so he can stop.

But Li Chongxiao finally got on the court, so he was naturally unwilling to give up like this. After the timeout, there was another round of "scratching" and hitting, unexpectedly leading the score by 3 points.

The Trail Blazers had to call another timeout in an attempt to counterattack.But their own offense was weak, and Li Chongxiao was too stable at this point, and they couldn't defend against it.

In the last minute and a half, they attacked 6 times, but only scored 2 goals and scored 4 points.On the other hand, the Grizzlies had only 3 offensive opportunities, and Li Chongxiao made all three shots and scored 7 points.

At the end of the game, the Trail Blazers dramatically lost this key battle at home and were eliminated from the playoffs.

……

At the press conference after the game, although Carlisle wanted to cover up for Li Chongxiao, the latter didn't mind showing off his victory: "I originally wanted to score 70 points, but now I am more happy to win. This victory is for Bo Telan city government, if you have nothing to do, pay more attention to the entertainment activities in your own place, and less interfere with our country's affairs."

(End of this chapter)