NBA: Expansion becomes stronger

The Lakers had a day off after their game against the Celtics before heading to the Raptors on the road.

The Toronto Raptors are one of the youngest teams in the NBA, founded in 1995 and joined the NBA in the 1995-1996 season.

The history of the Raptors is very short, but after joining the NBA for a few years, they quickly became one of the most competitive teams in the East, especially last year, when they directly entered the Eastern Conference Finals and created the best playoff results since the team's establishment.

This season's Raptors are a little depressed, obviously the strength is still very good, but I don't know if it's a run-in problem, or there are contradictions within the team, this season's performance is very struggling, and now it is ranked eighth in the East, struggling to get a playoff spot.

However, in this game against the Lakers, DeRozan, one of the Raptors' famous garbage brothers, did not play, so this game was much easier for the Lakers, equivalent to Jurassic Park, without dinosaurs.

But there are very few times Jurassic Park without dinosaurs like this, from Damon Stoudemire, Vince Carter, Chris Bosh, Rudy W. Guy, and now the garbage brothers, the dragon king of the Raptors feels that the grade is getting lower and lower, but the Raptors' results in both the playoffs and the regular season are very good, mainly because the growth of the role players of the Raptors is getting better and stronger.

In this game, the Lakers' starting point guard is Ball Lonzo, scoring guard Kentavios Cardwell Pope, small forward Kyle Kuzma, big forward is Brandon Ingram, and the center position is "monster newcomer" Chen Hao!

The Raptors started with point guard Lowry, scoring guard Myers, small forward Siakam, power forward Serge Ibaka, and center Valanciunas.

As soon as this lineup came out, I knew that the Raptors were going to target Chen Hao very much, Siakam belonged to the kind of player in the No. 4 position, and Ibaka and Valanciunas were both very powerful insiders, and the Raptors wanted to rely on wheel battles to consume Chen Hao.

At the beginning of the game, the first offensive right was the Lakers, and in the face of this offense, Ball originally wanted to play blocking and dismantling with Chen Hao, but was rejected by Chen Hao, and signaled Ball to try to find an opportunity to hang the ball directly to himself and solve it directly.

Ball relied on his excellent ball control and passing to hoist the ball into the interior.

At this time, Valanciunas leaned on Chen Hao to prevent Chen Hao from dunking directly, but he was completely thinking too much, Chen Hao's turn, he had no way at all, and after a confrontation with Chen Hao, he flew directly, and at this time gave Chen Hao a chance to score easily.

In the opposite past, the Raptors attacked.

Lowry, one of the garbage brothers, was on the ball, and at this time, the Raptors made an inside play to Siakam for a no-ball block.

Siakam was selected by the Raptors with the 27th pick in the first round in the 2016 draft, and now Siakam is already the team's main bench, and there is still a certain gap from the starter, but in this game, in order to increase the height of the team, he was specially put on the court.

Siakam received the ball from Lowry in the low post and turned his back to Chen Hao.

But when Siakam was ready to rely on his physical advantage to chisel in twice, give Chen Hao an inertial thinking, and then use his footsteps under the basket to give Chen Hao a fatal blow.

He felt his success, because his first hit obviously succeeded in pushing Chen Hao, and then the second hit was also successful, and when it came to the third time, Siakam had a sneer on his face, and then turned around.

"Look how I humiliate you!" Siakam shouted loudly in his heart.

But what he didn't expect was that at the moment he turned around, Chen Hao, who was defending him, also sneered, because Siakam was completely fooled, how could he bump into himself with Siakam's small body, the first two strokes were obviously to seduce Siakam, and Siakam's careful thinking had already been seen through by Chen Hao.

Just when Siakam felt that he had succeeded in surpassing Chen Hao and was able to score easily, another hand appeared on the ball, completely covering the other side of the ball, and then Siakam felt as if he was a little overwhelmed, so he flew out with the ball.

"Oh my God, this is too brutal!" Barkley hugged his head, unable to believe what he had just seen.

"This has already booked 5 good goals, although it is not a goal, but he is more exciting than a goal!" O'Neill also said with a serious face.

"We have to admit that Siakam has made great progress in the past two years, but now he can't be strong in front of Chen Hao! I don't know who gave him courage!" O'Neill continued.

Chen Hao was not immersed in the cap just now, after all, this was a small meaning for him! He immediately reminded Kuzma to fight back!

Kuzma was reminded of this, and immediately reacted and picked up the ball that the cap had fallen into his hand just now.

One man quickly made a move to the frontcourt, and the Raptors players didn't react until now, allowing Kuzma to score on an easy layup.

At this time, the Raptors players came back to their senses in the referee's reminder and slowly returned to their half-court serve.

And this shot also seemed to completely stunned the Raptors, who lost confidence in the game in the first quarter.

Directly in the first quarter of the game, the Lakers beat the Raptors, leading by as many as 22 points in the first quarter.

The next three quarters of the game became garbage time, but Wharton let Chen Hao play in the second quarter, and then Chen Hao did not play in the entire second half.

However, even in this case, Chen Hao's technical statistics after the game are very gorgeous, and Chen Hao scored 42 points, 15 rebounds, and 6 blocks in just two quarters.

The Lakers also beat the Raptors by 40 points by 120 points to 80 points under the leadership of Chen Hao.

After this game, the Lakers did not stop in Toronto, but flew back to Los Angeles because they will face the San Antonio Spurs led by coach Popovich at home the next day.