On the 26th, the Thunder played against the Lakers at home.

ESPN is responsible for live broadcasts across the United States, and it is vigorously promoting the pre-match game that is a Western Conference Finals preview, which has attracted a lot of attention.

Su Yang got the scout report and found that Bynum was absent due to injury. He immediately discussed with Snyder and others to adjust the game goal, mainly to arrange Westbrook to attack Fisher. After all, the Lakers lost important frame protection, and Westbrook is very likely to perform well.

If Westbrook beat Fisher and then affects the Lakers' defensive strategy when encountering the Thunder in the playoffs, the Thunder will take the lead in the series. Although they think a little far, Phil Jackson is making tricks in advance to put pressure on the referee.

After making up his mind, the training ended at 6 pm, Su Yang publicly challenged Westbrook in the locker room.

Westbrook calmly accepted the challenge, and Su Yang adjusted the offense and defense focus, allowing the whole team to run tactics around For the Younger.

The game started at 7 o'clock, and Westbrook cooperated with Ibaka at the beginning of the game, assisting Ibaka to score two points.

The Lakers attacked by the Yibian Lakers, Fisher ran a floppy tactic and stopped to catch the ball and flipped.

Westbrook immediately assisted Durant to score and put pressure on him, and Fisher received a pass from Kobe and made a layup.

Seeing that the two of them were fighting, the audience cheered Westbrook and booed Fisher and disturbed him.

Perhaps due to interference, Fisher took the ball for the third time and ended with a iron shot. When he turned around, Westbrook made a strong breakthrough and caused Fisher to foul and scored two people. He stole the ball that Kobe passed to Fisher, and quickly assisted Sefrosa to dunk and scored...

In the entire first quarter, Westbrook joined forces with Seifrosa to completely suppress the Lakers' backcourt, handed over 6 of 9 shots and 1 free throw, 13 points, 3 assists, 3 steals, 2 rebounds, 1 turnover and 1 foul, helping the Thunder lead the Lakers 27-15.

In the second quarter, Kobe seemed to have a low desire to attack. He played for more than eight minutes, only 4 shots and 3 mistakes.

The Lakers were unable to catch up, and the tone of the game was set like that. After three quarters, the Thunder led by up to 33 points.

In the fourth quarter, Phil Jackson replaced Artai and arranged for the entire substitute to play.

Su Yang plans to make the players calm down when facing the Lakers. Except for Westbrook, Durant and Chandler, the other players who stayed on the court are still rotating in the main players, specifically allowing Harden to lead the team to play normally, and finally defeated the Lakers 119-75.

At the moment when the whistle sounded in the final game, Su Yang sighed: It’s really difficult to win 58 points, how to do it?

The Lakers lost 44 points to the Thunder, which caused a lot of discussion after the game, and various statements emerged one after another. Some people said that there was nothing strange. The Lakers were in poor form and the main player was injured, so they intended to play one game, while others felt that Bynum would also lose.

Su Yang attended a press conference after the game and decided to counter the Phil Jackson first team, and took the initiative to talk about the Lakers' free throws 24 times in the game: "I think the Lakers have received too much preferential treatment, that's not what the game should be like, this league needs more..."

Back in the locker room, he specially praised Westbrook with a data sheet: "Russell played 28 minutes tonight, made 10 of 13 shots and scored 23 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds and 4 steals. I think he should win the fastest-progress player award this year..."

The Thunder generals agreed, and Durant joked: "Russell, who has fewer rebounds, is the strongest point guard on the planet."

After playing against the Lakers, the Thunder's total record reached 59 wins and 12 losses, leaving the league's Second Cavaliers three wins.

With the idea of ​​keeping the league's first throne, the team will face the Trail Blazers at home.

Su Yang had previously discovered that the Trail Blazers were on the edge of the playoffs and had thought about whether to play one game, but after the Thunder defeated the Rockets, the Trail Blazers could enter the playoffs no matter what, but the ranking may be between six, seven, and eight, which is difficult to determine.

The situation in the West is too complicated, the Thunder emerged, the Spurs declined sharply, the Trail Blazers were seriously injured, etc., which combined, resulting in the ranking of the three teams, the Jazz, Spurs and Trail Blazers, which may have to wait until the last game day to determine.

During the warm-up before the game, Su Yang chatted with McMillan and Monty on the sidelines to discuss the possibility of a meeting in the playoffs.

Su Yang sincerely praised the Trail Blazers for their good defense. Roy and Oden were injured and absent. The Trail Blazers have been the third-last in the league this season, but they did not say that part of the reason was that the Trail Blazers were deliberately suppressing the pace and reducing the rounds.

In comparison, although the Thunder averaged about 3 points more points than the Trail Blazers, they prevented their opponents from scoring every 100 rounds, and the Thunder had about 2.5 points more than the Trail Blazers, which means that the real defense effect was a little better than the Trail Blazers.

Of course, McMillan is undoubtedly an excellent defensive coach, and many defensive strategies are even very bold.

The game started at 7 o'clock, and the Trail Blazers tried their best to beat the rhythm and used the joint defense to defend the inside line, deliberately making three points.

Seifrosa and Westbrook's three-point shooting percentages were still average, and they could only use regular cover routines to break the joint defense, and were forced to fight with the Trail Blazers, which made the game very difficult. Until the last moment, the Thunder narrowly defeated the Trail Blazers 92-87.

After a day off, the team flew to Philadelphia, easily defeated 76ers, and then flew back to Oklahoma overnight.

On the last day of March, the Thunder played back-to-back against the Celtics at home. The two-sided separation tactics successfully resolved Garnett's wide-range defensive advantages and further amplified Perkins' slow movement shortcomings. Westbrook scored 11 points and 4 assists in the first quarter.

Su Yang also learned from McMillan's defensive ideas and asked Ibaka and Chandler to try their best to grab the frontcourt rebounds. He organized a second offense if he got it. If he couldn't, he took advantage of Ibaka and Chandler's flexible maneuverability advantages and tried his best to prevent the Celtics from starting quickly.

In that way, the Celtics, who are extremely good at defense and turn off attack, only scored 47 points in the first half and rarely played fast attacks.

In the second half, the Celtics failed to make any changes, and the Thunder won 109-94.

At the post-match press conference, the reporter asked how to do such a good defense. Su Yang replied: "I have to thank Nate McMillan. The Trail Blazers came to play the game before. We had a conversation. Where did I learn a lot of new ideas from him."

The interview answer was soon posted to the social network, and many fans were surprised and thought Su Yang was schizophrenia.

Famous commentator Bill Simmons tweeted: "Compared with the arrogant remarks that guarantee the championship, Su Yang has been modestly learning from other coaches in the league, such as learning offensive tactics from Carlisle and defensive strategies from McMillan. He is a 26-year-old head coach and a company's valuation of one billion yuan, which is a wonder on earth.

Believe me, almost many people who have achieved him think they are the sons of destiny."

Defeat the Celtics, the Thunder took two days off, flew to Dallas on April 3 to challenge the Mavericks away.

In the first quarter, Durant and Nowitzki scored against each other, but in the second quarter, both of them were targeted.

But Nowitzki was restricted, the Mavericks' offense was silent, Durant was restricted, and Westbrook and Green took turns to stand up.

After halftime, the Thunder led by 8 points.

I thought the tone of the game was set, but who would have thought Kidd had a great power in the third quarter, making 5 of 8 shots and scoring 13 points, forcibly helping the Mavericks bit the situation, and continued to score points and assist in the fourth quarter, dragging the game to the last moment.

Carlisle also used a penalty kick tactic, but fortunately, the Thunder team was not ruthless in free throws and finally narrowly won 121-116.

After attending a press conference after the game, Su Yang bluntly stated that he was frightened by Kidd and actually scored 24 points in the whole game!

That night, the Thunder flew back to Oklahoma overnight and faced the Timberwolves back to back at home.

Perhaps it was because of the previous Thunder Triangle attack that caused the entire Timberwolves to have a psychological shadow. Cote Lambis finally did not force the Timberwolves players to perform the triangle attack, but instead laid the basic pick-and-roll and pass-cuts, how to do it comfortably.

Unfortunately, the talent gap between the two teams was too big, and Su Yang deliberately did not command throughout the whole process, so Thunder still won easily.

The next morning, the team did not conduct training as usual, but Su Yang still ran to the base to watch the video.

Snyder and several assistant coaches were also there, and they talked about the topic of first-round opponents during chats. The Thunder has a great chance to designate their first-round opponents, because according to the order of the schedule, they will face the Jazz and the Trail Blazers backwards, and they can decide the rankings in a game.

Assistant Brian smiled and said, "I think Portland would be a better choice than San Antonio."
Chapter completed!