The league is happy to see the rise of your team, but at the same time they also like to see the revival of old-fashioned teams. The Los Angeles Lakers and the Seattle Supersonics belong to such a team. It is not the Los Angeles Lakers’ giants that are stronger. The Supersonics are at best just a rich man.

As a business alliance, every game needs to have extremely high attention so that it can attract more advertisers and get more broadcast revenue. This requires a gimmick. Each important game must have one or more highlights. Only then will the game be sought after by the media, the media will broadcast or report the game, attract more audiences, and earn more income.

Just like when the Seattle Supersonics meets the San Antonio Spurs, it is the confrontation between the Battle of Revenge and the Old Spurs. One refers to the Spurs eliminating the Supersonics last season, and the other refers to the origins of the two teams. If the Supersonics meet the Orleans Hornets, it is who is the real strongman to show in the same year. Although such a slogan is a little weak, it can also attract some people.

If the Supersonics meet the Denver Nuggets, they are two offensive teams. Who has enough firepower? The two teams competed in six matches in the semi-finals, and each of them scored more than 120 points, attracting enough attention. If the Rockets meet, it will be Yao Ming's counterattack. This has been staged. If the Rockets were not slightly inferior in strength, they would have lost the suspense early, and they could also attract many people.

The league's least hopes that the Supersonics will meet are the Uta Jazz and the Dallas Mavericks, because they have no highlights or hype against them. At the same time, what the league doesn't like is that the Supersonics meet the Los Angeles Lakers too early. As the two most popular and most appealing teams in the West, what the league hopes most is that they will stage a king's showdown in the Western Conference Finals. If they meet too early, the two teams will inevitably eliminate one, and the subsequent games will lose their appeal.

So these two teams entered the Western Conference Finals, which made the league's commercial promotion department very happy. Various kinds of striking methods such as advertising, publicity, interviews, etc. were used. Under this powerful promotion, the showdown between these two teams attracted hundreds of millions of attention.

Stephen and Kobe Bryant have the same height and position. Although they play and skills, they are both players with crazy scoring ability and are both top-notch scoring masters of the times. In the past two years, Kobe Bryant no longer minds appearing as Michael Jordan's successor, but he encountered the challenge of a player who is also considered to be comparable to Michael Jordan. This gave him a strong sense of challenge, and at the same time he felt that time was fleeting. He was too late, so it would be great if he had been two years earlier.

Stephen's youth made him a little envious and jealous, but Stephen's performance made him a little respectful. Kobe Bryant did not admit that Stephen was better than him, but he had to recognize that Stephen was a player of the same level as him and was also the only player in the league who could compete with him. Of course, in the eyes of fans, the same is true.

Kobe Bryant also has extremely high popularity in China. He is the most popular among basketball players except Yao Ming and Stephen. The showdown between the two naturally attracted the popularity of domestic fans. The only regret for fans is that the showdown between the two is not in the finals, which would make sense. Of course, it is OK now in the Western Conference Finals.

zhongyāng TV also sent a live broadcast team in the division finals for the first time. In the past, they only did this in the finals. At the same time, they also carried out a lot of publicity work in China, which is expected to create a high rating since the ratings, because there are three fans of Stephen, Yao Ming, and Kobe Bryant, who are the most appealing players in China.

The team, league, and media attach great importance to this game, and the merchants endorsed by several people are also very optimistic about the stage of the division finals. It's still the same sentence, but it's a pity that it's not the finals, otherwise the effect will be better. With the joint efforts of several parties, the showdown between the Seattle Supersonics and the Los Angeles Lakers has gained unprecedented attention.

Relatively speaking, the confrontation between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers was not so sensational, because the Cleveland Cavaliers had only one, LeBron James, which had a relatively outstanding market effect, while Boston was much worse. Their three giants were only more successful at the competitive level, and Kevin Garnett was still OK at the commercial level, but now it is already a twilight mountain.

Since the Supersonics have a home advantage, they have to play two games in Seattle before going to Los Angeles again. Therefore, Seattle has been very lively these two days. Foreign fans and media personnel have filled all the hotels near the court. Fortunately, the basketball court can accommodate a limited number of people, and basketball does not have the habit of following the team to watch the game away, otherwise the entire Seattle city would have to be busy.

The ticket sales work has naturally started long ago and ended early. In the current hot situation, it was naturally over. Even so, a large number of fans were still unable to buy tickets. Many fans proposed to buy tickets at twice or triple prices, but only a few were sold, because the Supersonics' market was so booming, and the scalpers had not yet been cultivated. Those who bought tickets were real fans, so how could they transfer the tickets?

The game started in this atmosphere. For the Supersonics, many players entered the division finals for the first time. Only Stephen and Cott Thomas had such experience, so at the beginning of the game, the Supersonics were a little timid and seemed to dare not exert force. On the contrary, the Lakers were experienced. At the beginning of the game, they discovered the tension here and launched a powerful offensive, intending to defeat the Supersonics in one fell swoop.

Fortunately, Yao Ming quickly stabilized at this time, and the inside defense line formed with Cott Thomas firmly blocked the Lakers' offense from the defense line. Especially Andrew Bynum, who has always been the pioneer of the Lakers' offense, faced Yao Ming in this game, but he could not open the situation and could only rely on Paul Gasol to shoot outside to score.

At this time, Stephen also began to strengthen his cooperation with Yao Ming. The two of them, one inside and one outside, played several consecutively from the pick-and-roll, and caught up with the score. At this time, Stephen and Kobe Bryant did not even really match up, but each played their own.

Suddenly, Earl Watson, who was dribbling forward, was blocked by Derek Fisher, and fell to the floor as he slipped under his feet. Looking at him covering his ankle, he knew that the injury was not that simple. Sure enough, when the team doctor came over, he had already seen obvious swelling, so he had to help him down and put on Russell Westbrook.
Chapter completed!