Sweeping the Pistons 4-0, the Eagles became the first team to advance in the second round!

For the series between the Hawks and the Pistons, the fans' focus has long been no longer on the outcome, but on the daily exchanges between Larry Brown and Stephen Jackson.

Even the Hawks have been ignored. The thing that gets the most attention in the East right now is not the Hawks, who were the first to advance to the conference finals, nor the anxious series between the Pacers and the Nets, which ended at 2-2. Fans

All the focus on the Eastern Conference playoffs is on the Pistons' soap opera.

The series between the Nets and the Pacers was very tense and became increasingly ugly. Except for the first game, which relied on Kidd and Carter to win a gorgeous counterattack on the road, the scores in the following three games were

Each game got lower than the last, and both teams began to fight defensively.

In the second game, the Pacers defended their home court 85-77. In the third game, the Nets returned to New Jersey and put up an even more ugly show with the visiting Pacers, 75-71. After the Pacers came to the away game, they lost their home court.

The advantage was regained.

In the fourth game, the defensive battle between the two teams reached its peak. The Nets defeated the Pacers 72-65 and tied the score at 2-2. The Battle of Tianwangshan will begin on May 9th.

Over in the West, the two-round series will be much better to watch. Relatively speaking, the gap between the strength of the Lakers and the Spurs in the series is more obvious. The Spurs lost Bowen and one of their top perimeter defenders, Malik.

-Rose is very good. The backup swingman Turkoglu and Devin Brown also tried their best to defend Kobe in turns, but the effect was not good. When they met the Spurs, Kobe exploded. In the first four games

The game was tied at 3-1, and that magical 0.4 seconds was no longer visible.

The Timberwolves and Kings played as anxiously as the Nets and Pacers. The two teams tied at 2-2. It was also a back-and-forth battle for home court advantage. The Kings took away the home court advantage from the Timberwolves in the first game.

The Timberwolves played a very difficult game in the second game. Fortunately, Garnett blocked a key shot at the last moment and knocked away Bibby's three-pointer, narrowly defeating the Kings.

In the third game, the Timberwolves relied on alien Cassel's buzzer-beater to regain the home court advantage and narrowly won 114-113.

In the fourth game, the Kings trailed in the first three quarters at home because the Timberwolves engaged in a defensive battle, holding the two teams to no more than 60 points in three quarters. Finally, the Kings finally broke out in the fourth quarter, scoring 24 points in a single quarter. The Timberwolves then

Bian only scored 14 points in the final quarter and was overtaken by the Kings. The Kings reversed the Timberwolves 83-76 and tied the score at 2-2. They were about to go to the Timberwolves' home court to play the Battle of Tianwangshan.

The game between the Kings and the Timberwolves is very interesting. In the entire series, the top three players in scoring average are all Timberwolves players, but the six players from fourth to ninth in scoring average are all Kings players. The three-headed monster and

Team basketball competition.

The three-round series seems to still have suspense. Even for the Spurs, people feel that there is still suspense. Duncan's consecutive MVP awards in the past two years and his single-handed defeat of all opponents to win the championship last season really give people a sense of suspense.

The impression it brought was so shocking.

…

…

On May 8, early in the morning the next day after playing the Pistons, Liu Mang followed the Hawks and left Detroit at light speed. After returning to Atlanta, the Hawks began to prepare for their next opponent.

Since all the energy was focused on the Pistons in the past few days, even though Liu Mang knew that the Pistons had no fighting spirit, the lack of fighting spirit did not mean that the opponent did not play well. It just lost the desire to win, but the tactical execution was still very perfect, especially

Regarding his flanking attack, Liu Mang clearly felt that the opponent's flanking strategy that focused on him had not relaxed at all, but because he had no fighting spirit, the continuous and layered defensive rotations that followed were not so active.

In order to avoid capsizing in the gutter, Liu Mang has never relaxed his vigilance against the Pistons, and it is even less possible for other players. In the playoffs, the opponent is still a team with 54 wins. How dare he be careless? The Eagles coaching staff has always been focused on

Focus on the Pistons here.

When it was time to prepare for the opponents in the second round, I realized that the other conference semifinals in the Eastern Conference were so anxious!

Liu Mang felt that he was promoted too early!

Since the first round was completed in just nine days, the second round started too early. The league hopes that the finals can start from June 1st to 4th, so the second round returns to the alternation of home and away games.

The schedule with two days of rest, that is, the Nets and Pacers series that was tied 2-2 on May 6, may not be completed until the 15th at the latest, and the Eagles may have to rest for up to ten days!

The latest start time of the next round may be postponed to the 18th!

Of course, rest is good, and it will be a great benefit for the recovery of veterans such as Stockton, Ratliff, and Ostertag, but for young players, three or four days of rest is fine. Ten days, maybe

The status is all gone!

…

Liu Mang felt that he had to do something, thought about it, and made some calculations. First, he had a good night's sleep. On the second and third days, he also did simple training at home or in the gym like other teammates. Liu Mang

Mang chose to spend the first three days after the Eastern Conference semifinals by training at home and playing games with Dinah, as well as Alexia, who inexplicably wanted to learn flower arrangement.

Counting the days when the Eagles came back from Detroit, the Eagles coaching staff gave the players a day off on the 8th and 9th. There was only regular training on the 10th, which was two tactical lessons for one and a half hours in the afternoon, and nothing else.

.

The remaining three series were as anxious as Liu Mang expected.

The Timberwolves lost to the Kings 76-80 at home in the Battle of Tianwangshan, and the defensive battle between the two teams was deadlocked.

The Nets suddenly started a violent attack mode. Not only Liu Mang could learn from the Nets, but Kidd also learned from the Hawks' ever-changing play style and came up with a dangerous move.

The offensive battle started, and the Nets really succeeded. 121 to 113, in the battle of Tianwangshan, they once again gained the home court advantage in the away game.

The two most anxious series went in completely opposite directions. They both thought the Timberwolves and Kings were about to break into an offensive battle, but ended up struggling defensively to the end.

And when everyone thought that the Nets and Pacers were going to have a more miserable defensive battle, the two teams scored more than 120 points to more than 110 points.

As for the Lakers and Spurs, the Spurs cannot be underestimated. It seems that they lost three of the first four games and lost a home court, but they played quite well when they went to the Staples Center in the fifth game.

The Spurs made a sudden change in tactics in this game. They learned from the Hawks' method against the Lakers in the regular season and jointly defended the perimeter. Nesterovich and Duncan took turns to defend O'Neal individually, locking down the perimeter and allowing O'Neal to play alone.

Although Duncan was outgunned by O'Neal and made 14 of 21 shots in three quarters. After the first three quarters, O'Neal scored 35 points and 11 rebounds in the paint. But by the fourth quarter, O'Neal was completely out of energy, and both offense and defense began to decline off a cliff.

After the game, he only had 38 points and 15 rebounds, and only scored 3 points in the final quarter.

Duncan also responded with 33 points and 13 rebounds. At the same time, the Spurs allowed Kobe to have his worst performance in the series. He only took 15 shots and scored 18 points on 7 of 15. Kobe's shooting efficiency was still good in this game. Beating the Spurs

Always so good, but made 6 mistakes!

Relying on this radical defensive strategy, and relying on Duncan and Nesterovich to risk their lives and O'Neal's one-on-one defense that consumed O'Neal's physical strength, the Spurs successfully tied the score to 2 to 3.

There is a possibility of a tiebreaker in all three series. Liu Mang has already anticipated this situation. Therefore, on the night of the 10th, the Spurs and Lakers tied 2-3. After all three series tied 2-3,

He has sent messages to all his teammates and it is time to take some responsibility.

The main thing is that Liu Mang waited for three days. No one in this group of teammates was like a senior. Even Stockton didn't do this. Only Liu Mang did it!

…

…

"Ace, you're starting to look like the boss now." Stockton patted Liu Mang's shoulder with satisfaction.

"...I said John, shouldn't this kind of thing happen to a veteran like you?" Liu Mang rolled his eyes.

"Theoretically, that's the case. The premise is that I am a veteran player of our team, and with my 20-year career experience, there is no problem. But I am a new veteran, and it is not appropriate for me to do this kind of thing." Stowe

Cotton explained.

"But those bastards, why didn't I call them? They were just going to come to regular training and then go back? They don't have any sense of crisis!" Liu Mang thought, why don't these teammates have any sense of crisis?

Liu Mang sent a text message to all his teammates last night, and they gathered at eight o'clock this morning. He didn't reply to the confused text messages, and his attitude was rather tough. Everyone came this morning.

Liu Mang was the first to arrive. He discussed it with coach Kruger in advance. The trainer, shooting assistant, physical therapist and others also came to the arena in advance to cooperate with Liu Mang.

Regarding Liu Mang's responsibility for the team, Coach Kruger wished that Liu Mang would do more and cultivate Liu Mang's awareness of being the boss.

After the teammates arrived, they realized that Liu Mang wanted to organize a more intensive training. Seeing Liu Mang's rare seriousness and the sense of oppression brought by the power of the head of state, the teammates also became serious and were preparing for the training.

To prepare for the warm-up, I went to see the training planned by the trainers for today one by one.

The amount of training is not too exaggerated. The players are only asked to compete in a 40-minute half-match every other day. The amount of training on the rest days is also increased, but since it is not an official game but just training, it really takes a lot of effort and energy.

The consumption is not as great as in a real game, and it is easier to recover.

Liu Mang summoned his teammates together. In order to maintain their combat effectiveness and prevent them from getting distracted, their teammates also responded positively.

Liu Mang was quite satisfied that his teammates did not complain after receiving the task of increasing the amount of training, but he still asked his teacher a little puzzled.

Stockton did not answer, but asked: "Ace, who are you talking about?"

"Who are they? Jason, Sharif, Rashid..." Liu Mang counted the star players of his team.

"Ace, did you understand something wrong?" Stockton said with a smile.

"Did you understand something wrong? What is it?" Liu Mang didn't understand.

"They are just role players. Do you expect a role player to have a good sense of crisis?" Stockton calmly said the words that made Liu Mang want to cover his teacher's mouth.

After looking around and seeing no one else, Liu Mang breathed a sigh of relief and growled to Stockton: "John, are you going to cause conflicts within the team?"

"Ace," Stockton said without feeling that he said anything wrong at all, "do you think anyone else on this team besides you will become a superstar?"

Super star?

Liu Mang looked at the group of teammates. The most talented ones were probably Raheem and Kwame Brown. They didn't seem to have a chance to become superstars. Raheem was already in his prime, and Kwame Brown was a golf strategist.

question.

Rasheed Wallace and Jason Terry... don't have much room for improvement, and Ratliff is getting old... Although Boozer was strong in his prime, it doesn't matter that he was a superstar.

The ability to change a team.

Korver, no matter how late a bloomer he is, is only a fringe All-Star player...

Stockton continued: "These people, before you came to the Eagles, before you grew up, were nothing. It was because of you that they achieved their current achievements. Like these teammates on our team, I

I have seen too many players who are as talented as them but can't make any difference even when they are together. Glenn Robinson, Shawn Kemp, Vin Baker, Antonio McDyess... there are too many talented players.

People, but without the possibility of superstars, our current teammates are indeed good, but without you, they are nothing."

Stockton's vision was quite vicious! Liu Mang was frightened by Stockton's words. He didn't expect his teacher's analysis to be so accurate!

"In addition to strength and talent, a superstar's brain is also very important," Stockton said to Liu Mang. Liu Mang also listened calmly and honestly. Stockton was very satisfied and continued: "Your teammates

They have all handed over the scepter to command them into your hands. They could not have thought of so much, and even if they had thought of it, they do not have the power to command everyone. You are the future superstar of this team. These

Things are what you have to bear, and your needs must be met by your teammates and sacrificed for you instead of waiting for your teammates to react."

Stockton's words greatly touched Liu Mang, and he had never thought about this idea.

To be honest, it's so selfish!

But who among superstars is not selfish?

Isn’t it the sacrifice of Wade and Bosh to make James the future Heat Big Three?
Chapter completed!