As time goes by April, this means that the teams have officially entered the sprint stage.

During this period, the regular season ranking will gradually begin to stabilize.

At least at this time, the three teams in the Western Conference, including the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs, have completely secured their place in the playoffs.

Compared with these three teams, the Thunder seemed much embarrassed.

In fact, the Thunder are not the same as the current Thunder. The Trail Blazers, Rockets, Mavericks, Hornets, Jazz and Suns, teams with similar record performances as the Thunder are also in the competition for ranking wars.

Since these teams have very close records so far, the winning or losing of each game will directly affect the overall pattern of the Western Conference playoffs.

And at the same time, the Thunder have made sure that they will not encounter the Jazz in the first round, but for the Thunder, the biggest trouble is if they cannot operate properly in the future.

Then in the first round of this year's playoffs, the Thunder are likely to directly encounter the Spurs with the "three troikas". If the Thunder faces the Spurs in the first round, they will basically be alive.

So in this case, Yang Fan, the coaching staff and others are now busy. While ensuring that the team needs to win more games, they also have to try their best to avoid encountering the Spurs in the first round.

Even the final result is to meet with the same powerful Nuggets in the first round.

After all, although the Nuggets this year are very strong and are even able to compete with the Lakers, compared with the experienced Spurs in the playoffs, the Thunder will undoubtedly have the last chance.

As the whole of April gradually began to advance, the league's teams competing for the playoffs were even more out of the water.

More and more teams have already determined their final regular season rankings, and only a few teams in the Western Conference have been in a state of anxiety because of their similar record.

However, while the top teams in the league have begun to take large-scale rest and prepare for the playoffs, this means that the end of the regular season is getting closer and closer...

…………………………………

April 18.

As the Thunder deliberately lost to the Hawks in the last game, the Thunder's final record this season was frozen at 50 wins and 32 losses, ranking seventh in the Western Conference.

That's right, Yang Fan's task in this game was to lose intentionally, because in the Nuggets' game yesterday, the Nuggets' winning pushed the team to second place in the West, successfully leading the Spurs with a 0.5 win.

So in this case, the Thunder can only slide to the seventh position in the West if they lose to the Hawks in this game and meet the Nuggets in the first round.

Otherwise, once the Thunder wins in this game, they will surpass the Dallas Mavericks in front of them, making the team's ranking rise to sixth in the West, and have to challenge the experienced Spurs in the first round.

Although the Mavericks are not afraid of the Spurs, and even in terms of lineup experience, they are more abundant than the Spurs, Yang Fan decided to leave this kind of good thing to Nowitzki for handling...

Fortunately, although the Thunder's performance in the final stage of the season had some fluctuations, with the big data analysis of Yang Fan, Snyder and others, they finally got the chance to play against the Nuggets in the first round as they wished.

Even in the first round of the Nuggets, the overall winning rate of the Thunder will not exceed 40%, but in a sense, this is already the best choice that the Thunder can make.

After all, there is no truly weak team in this Western Conference playoffs.

Even the Hornets, who had 47 wins and 35 losses, and the Suns, who had 46 wins and 36 losses, could only miss the playoffs.

You should know that this data can only miss the playoffs in the Western Conference, but if it is placed in the Eastern Conference, it will directly rise to the fourth and fifth places in the Eastern Conference.

So from this point of view, it is not difficult to see how terrifying this year's Western Conference playoffs are, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that it is a fight between gods.

Even the Lakers, who had the first record in the Western Conference, had to face a strong rival like the Utah Jazz in the first round.

Even with the overall strength of the Lakers, it is only a matter of time before the Jazz will be eliminated in the end, but this can only be said that this year's Lakers are too strong. At least no one will say that this year's Jazz is not difficult enough.

……………………

April 19.

With the last batch of games in the league's 2008-09 seasons finished, the playoff rankings of the East and West games have been completely decided.

In the Western Conference, the top spot was undoubtedly occupied by the Los Angeles Lakers, while the second to eighth place were the Nuggets, Spurs, Trail Blazers, Rockets, Mavericks, Thunder, and Jazz.

It can be said that for this year's Western Conference team, none of these teams that can enter the playoffs can be called soft persimmons.

Even the Rockets, whose paper lineup looks weakest, have scored a terrifying record of 53 wins and 29 losses.

Because when McGrady was confirmed to have been reimbursed due to injury, the "tactic master" Adelman directly took Yao Ming as the absolute axis and built the Rockets into a truly team.

It is no exaggeration to say that when it comes to team basketball, the first thing people think of before would probably be the Spurs, but this season, the first thing people think of would definitely be the Rockets!!

In the Eastern Conference, under the leadership of "Little Emperor" LeBron James, the team has achieved the best record in team history this season, and is also ranked first in the league.

This season, the Cleveland Cavaliers' record was finally frozen at 66 wins and 16 losses. With this record, if nothing unexpected happens, James and head coach Mike Brown will probably win the regular season MVP and Best Coach awards without any suspense.

Even after the regular season, the Cavaliers and the Lakers are already considered the biggest favorites to win the championship this year, and many fans are looking forward to the showdown between No. 23 and No. 24 in the finals.

However, compared to the Lakers, it will undoubtedly be very difficult for the Cavaliers to reach the Finals in the East.

After all, neither the Celtics nor the Magic teams in the Eastern Conference are vegetarians, especially the Celtics, who are defending champions, are regarded as the biggest obstacle for James to win the championship.

In addition, with the end of the NBA regular season, the league also announced the start time of the first round of the playoffs.

Among them, the first game between the Thunder and the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs will start on April 22.

Before that, the two teams will have up to four days off so that players can maintain their condition and the coaching staff can make arrangements.

However, what is a bit bad for the Thunder is that since the Nuggets have a better record, the first two matches of the playoffs will be played at the Nuggets' home court.

As the famous "devil's home court" in the NBA league, the Pepsi Center Arena is because Denver is on the plateau and playing there, and the impact on away players is not too huge.

At least when the two sides are in regular seasons, the Thunder have some more or less uncomfortable things.

At this moment, both sides have to fight for many consecutive games in this round of series, which is obviously a bit bad for the Thunder.

Therefore, before the playoffs between the two sides started, the coaching staff led by Yang Fan not only had to develop targeted tactics, but also led the team to Denver in advance.

Try to help the players adapt to the plateau so that they will not be able to breathe after the playoffs start...
Chapter completed!