The young OG's current level is still a little behind.
Although the performance since entering League has been very good, it is only good.
He still needs a certain amount of time and experience for him to grow.
Thunder attacks again, Westbrook takes possession of the ball and comes to Frontcourt, Top of the Key waits for Chen Xi to lift up, and then Hand-off passes the ball out.
After Chen Xi gets the ball, he stops at the left position of Top of the Key, waits for Little Sabonis On-ball Screen, and continues to call Valanciunas.
The concise and clear intention was immediately seen through by Raptors. Faced with the same starting move, Raptors's choice this time was to let Siakam, who had better defense, raise the ball. Switch defense in front of Chen Xi, then Valanciunas stands to the left, take two steps Gordon, and at the same time, be ready to return Rim Protection at any time.
Chen Xi will call High Wing as usual. I don't care if you are Valanciunas or Siakam? That's it!
Continuous Crossover Dribble, Chen started cooking in front of Siakam.
Overly flashy moves are actually a bit insulting to the world's top professional players. (PG and Oubre did this once.)
But fortunately, Siakam's character is still relatively calm, and his emotions are not rising. He can still look at Chen Xi calmly and wait for his change of moves.
Chen Xi's choice was to quickly follow Step-back and Three-pointer pull-up jumper to take action after another change of hands on the crotch.
Siakam, who was always on guard for a breakthrough, didn't have time to react. He took a step forward and tried to interfere, but it was too late.
Basketball flew out from Chen Xi's fingertips, passed through the sky above Raptors's half, and smoothly fell into the net.
81 to 65
Raptors's lagging score was once again rewritten to 16 points.
At the beginning of Third Quarter, Third Quarter chased hard and finally pulled back a small point difference, but in the blink of an eye Chen Xi clawed it back.
This is still the case when Starting Lineup is present.
Casey had no other choice. He would not have fallen so far behind in the first place. Raptors's hard power was still there, but due to his own operations, he became an undercover agent and helped Thunder.
"I regretted it at that time, I regretted it very much~~"
But time is still passing, and reality must be faced.
Raptors continues the attack.
Lowry holds the ball to Frontcourt, lobs the ball again, passes it to DeRozan in the low post, and continues his Isolation.
DeRozan, who is aware of the team's plight, hopes to do something to help the team.
He is not good at words and cannot say anything inspiring, so he can only use his own actions to explain his thoughts.
With Butler on his back, he was a very uncomfortable opponent who limited him in the first half.
DeRozan chose to continue using the weapon he is best at.
I arched inward twice in succession. Although the effect was not good, it was still able to squeeze out a small amount of space.
DeRozan collected the ball and shook his shoulders to confuse Butler's judgment, then quickly turned to the right and turned back.
Butler, who was well prepared, jumped up immediately to follow, causing interference.
Although JB's defense is very good and he is very experienced, Physical Talent cannot be changed.
Butler once again suffered a loss in wingspan. Even if he had predicted it. He stretched his arms, but he still couldn't touch Basketball.
This is also one of the reasons why the technology Fadeaway Jumper is so awesome.
Relying on the strong strength of the waist and abdomen, lying back, with the blessing of the height in the air and the range of the back, even if it is predicted, it is still difficult to interfere.
DeRozan, in the air, lean back greatly, and then slowly release the ball.
The gentle Touch guides Basketball to fly to the destination.
Fall into the box smoothly.
Two points scored!
After landing, DeRozan did not celebrate or express his emotions, but silently turned around and returned to defense.
Back to Thunder attack.
Westbrook Top of the Key Hold the ball Isolation Lowry, use a Push Dribble Change of Direction, rush in, face Anunoby Help defense, Sam Good changed direction again, passed two people and rushed in. Layup took off and flew in.
Thunder, never lacks offensive talent.
As time passed by, Raptors finally gave up the game after seeing that the score was not turning around and the situation was over.
Fourth Quarter After two minutes, Casey replaced all Starting Lineup and announced their surrender.
After replacing a few new players on the bench, training began.
Surprisingly, Norman Powell, who came on the court again in the last quarter, seemed to turn on Ren and Du Meridians. He combined with shooting and sudden shooting, scoring 9 points in a row, once chasing the point difference back to around 10 points.
Fortunately, Thunder's substitute was not bad. After being briefly beaten, he quickly stabilized his position, played steadily, and pushed the score back again.
This made Casey, who had just felt a glimmer of hope in his heart, sit back again Coaching Bench.
After a brief interlude, everything continued as usual.
In the end, Thunder ended the game with a 118-105 victory over Raptors.
Chen Xi made 10 of 17 shots and scored 29 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
Westbrook made 13 of 24 shots, 32 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists.
Butler made 9 of 15 shots, 20 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists.
The Big Three still performed stably.
Interestingly, the triple-double king, Westbrook, failed to score another triple-double in this game. Instead, Butler relied on playing the role of Playmaking Core for a long time and scored the first triple-double in Thunder's career.
The three of them combined, with a 57% shooting rate, and with high productivity and efficiency, it would be difficult for Thunder not to win.
After the match against Raptors ended, the next day, Thunder's next opponent had already landed.
Bucks from Milwaukee.
After years of failure, Bucks finally found a new cornerstone for their team. In the past two years, they had been making great progress, building momentum and launching a charge towards Playoffs.
In the First Round series last season, relying on the Greek Freak's outstanding performance, it once defeated Third in the Eastern Conference's Raptors in two games, and gave Raptors a head-on blow.
Let the Fanss of Milwaukee see hope for the future.
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However, after Middleton returned from injury, Bucks, who should have made great achievements this season, can only be ranked eighth in Eastern Conference.
This makes Fans people very puzzled.
After a period of turmoil, public opinion gradually pointed to the former super point guard League, now Bucks Head Coach, Jason Kidd.
There is no way. When a team fails to meet people's expectations, it has to find the problem. If it cannot be found, then in the NBA ecological environment, the first person to be fired is usually Head Coach.
This is the so-called candidate who takes the blame.
Kidd's coaching career cannot be said to be unknown, it can even be said to be outstanding.
After retiring in 2013, he reached a three-year contract with his parent team, the Nets, in less than 10 days and became the head coach, creating the fastest role-changing head coach in NBA history.
On February 4, 2014, Nets coach Jason Kidd was elected Eastern Conference Best Coach in January 2014. In March, Jason Kidd won Eastern Conference again. Best Coach, Best Coach twice in the season, which is enough to prove his level.
On June 30 of the same year, Nets reached an agreement with Bucks, and Kidd was replaced by Bucks, taking the role of Head Coach.
That's right, Bucks used two Second Round signatures and traded with Nets for their Head Coach. Although it is a bit magical, it is the fact.
Of course, Lao Li has to make a good start. After all, there has been a precedent for Clippers to obtain Celtics coach Rivers through a trade.
On April 13, 2015, after Bucks defeated Nets 96-73, they locked their spot in Eastern Conference Playoffs. They became the 8th team in history to advance from the bottom to Playoffs, and the first team to advance from the bottom to Playoffs after Heat Team in the 2008-09 season. Kidd also became the first Head Coach to lead two different teams to Playoffs in the first two years of his career.
For such a coach, you can hardly call him a failure. Moreover, Kidd later became assistant coach Lakers and Mavericks Head Coach, and also achieved success.
In Lakers, I got NBA Championship with the team for 20 years. In Mavericks, I took the team that was not optimistic from First Round and all the way to Finals.
Although in the end it was a pity that we lost to Celtics due to the gap in hard power, no one would say that Kidd's coaching this year was a failure.
After all, this result is already much higher than people expected.
However, this is the reality in the NBA. There are only a handful of Head Coachs who can become an evergreen tree in a team.
In most teams, Head Coach will be the one who takes the blame for the record first.
After all, the team can't just fire the general manager, or send away Star Player, the core cornerstone.
The same is true for Bucks now. There is a lot of discussion. Although the official has not made it clear that there is an intention to change the coach, reports from various media indicate that Bucks has already planned to fire Kidd.
When a team's Head Coach is caught in such a turmoil, can they still be expected to perform well?
The result is also obvious, Bucks's record is even worse.
The team is trapped in a vicious cycle.
Of course, this may also accelerate Kidd's layoff speed. After all, if Bucks does not make changes decisively, Bucks's season will be gone.
However, all this still has to wait for the management to make a decision, and the game will continue as usual.
Bucks's current Starting Lineup lineup is: Bledsoe, Tony Snell, John Henson, Middleton, the Greek Freak.
From the lineup point of view, it's not that interesting. Putting Giannis on top of Center, who cannot take advantage of his huge advantage, is a kind of weakening of himself. There are not many Teammates who can give him enough firepower support.
In vertical comparison, the future champion Bucks has a huge gap in lineup.
The future Bucks will have Zhu·Holiday and DiVincenzo on the back line, and Giannis will be on Wing., Middleton, Portis, PJ·Tucker, the center is still the most suitable Giannis Brook Lopez.
Only this kind of lineup is worthy of the level of a championship contending team.
But now, it's far behind.
Not long after the game started, Thunder defeated Bucks.
In the first quarter, the score was 37 to 24. Giannis was unable to support itself alone, and it was even difficult to protect itself.
Compared with Center, he has little advantage against Little Sabonis. Moreover, he is still in the process of gaining strength at this moment. Although he is much stronger compared to the Rookie Game season, there is still a slight gap compared to his peak mvp season.
Of course, if it is on Power Forward, then his height, body shape, speed, strength, and movement control skills are actually all excellent.
Now, it's just that it's not that comfortable to fight against the heavy Center.
There are also some rough back-up skills and poor outside shooting, which are all problems that hinder him from continuing to move up.
When Butler and Gordon frequently double-teamed Interior, Giannis's ball play and Bucks's role player's outside shooting were not efficient.
On the defensive end, Isolation was completely unable to guard against Chen Xi, so the team was naturally in trouble.
This dilemma has been with them the whole time.
Kidd, who was deeply involved in public opinion on the sidelines, failed to provide a good strategic plan.
In the end, Thunder defeated Bucks 120 to 98, continuing his winning streak.
But Bucks could only return to the cold Milwaukee with the regret of defeat.
After the game, watching Giannis walking back to the visiting team's locker room a little lonely, Chen Xi almost felt sympathy.
At this moment, Giannis still carries the tags of inspiration, hard work, sincerity, promising future, League, the second Ninja Turtle, etc.
In other words, before matching Nets of that year, Giannis had these labels.
After the confrontation...
As we all know, no one likes athletes who hurt other people's careers.
Wait... This guy seems to be All-Star, and his support rate is pretty high. What am I sympathizing with??
I'm just a nobody, right?
Chen Xi suddenly reacted. He was full again and was overflowing with unnecessary sympathy. He had no choice but Chen was so kind! Such a kind heart!
After the match with Bucks, Thunder successively played against Mavericks, Lakers, Clippers, and Suns, Trail Blazers, Timberwolves, Kings, achieved a record of six wins and two losses. (In eight games, Lakers played twice)
Among them, there were consecutive upsets, losing to Mavericks and Trail Blazers respectively.
Thunder's state in the past half month has not been very good. The outside shooting percentages of several role players have fluctuated, which is also one of the main reasons for the team's defeat.
Fortunately, the overall hard power is strong and the performance of the three giants is relatively stable, which stabilizes the basic market.
There is no point in rushing when it comes to finding your form. Players can only adjust themselves.
During this period of the schedule, the results of the two rounds of All-Star voting were also announced.
January 5, 2018, All-Star The results of First Round's voting were announced. The Greek Freak, Giannis·Antetokounmpo got 863416 votes, temporarily leading LeBron·James to become the vote king. James got 856080 votes. Kevin Durant got 767402 votes, leading Western Conference. Stephen·Curry beat Harden, getting 735115 votes.
Westbrook 538469 votes, Butler 291495 votes, Chen Xi 319522 votes, three people are in Western Conference, this number of votes, hope The hope is still relatively slim, especially for Butler. After coming to Thunder, although the efficiency and performance have improved, after all, there are many Fans who only look at the data.