How could Harden perform so poorly when facing Wang Feng, who was serious about defending?
Many fans in front of the TV looked at this scene and found it incredible.
This season, although the Lakers had four games with the Rockets in the regular season, Wang Feng did not really seriously defend Harden in the first three games.
On the one hand, this is because after Wang Feng puts more energy and physical strength on the offensive end, the defensive end will only exert its full strength in key rounds. Normally, he only relies on the effect of the defensive shock badge to save energy by performing eye defense.
On the other hand, when the Rockets face Wang Feng, they usually use pick-and-roll tactics to separate Wang Feng and Harden, allowing Harden to single out other Lakers players with weaker defenses.
Wang Feng's ability to defend pick-and-rolls is still very average. Once he is separated by pick-and-rolls, he can only temporarily switch to guarding pick-and-roll players.
In today's game, both sides obviously wanted to beat their opponents to prove that they were more worthy of the regular season MVP award, so Harden did not call a pick-and-roll screen to score at the beginning.
But after these two rounds of confrontation, Harden completely calmed down. Especially when he saw Wang Feng with a calm face and facing him with his hands behind his back, Harden realized that if he continued to play Wang Feng in this way, his game might be ruined.
If you lose, you lose the team and you lose the game!
So in the next round, Harden decisively called for a pick-and-roll screen.
What does it mean if he can't beat Wang Feng? In other words, if the fans just complain a little, as long as his statistics in this game are not bad and he leads the team to win the game, the result will be the same!
Capela pulled out from the inside to cover Harden's pick-and-roll, and quickly rushed down to the basket after the pick-and-roll.
Lopez's pace was slow and he couldn't keep up with Capela. Therefore, Wang Feng could only catch up with Capela first to prevent Harden from passing the ball to the opponent to score at the basket.
As a result, the player defending Harden on the outside became the big man Lopez.
Facing Wang Feng, Harden was submissive, but facing Lopez, Harden was not afraid to punch hard.
Another three-point shot after stepping back to open up space. This time Harden successfully hit the shot and scored his first score of the game.
Harden gave up the confrontation with Wang Feng and took the initiative to give in, allowing the Rockets' offense to begin to recover, but for the Lakers, Wang Feng was not a vegetarian.
The most important thing is that Ariza was completely unable to guard against Wang Feng.
After a few rounds of offense, the player marking Wang Feng changed from Ariza to PJ Tucker.
But such a defensive switch makes no sense.
As a short power forward, PJ Tucker has an active defensive attitude, tough confrontation, and dirty moves. He is very annoying when entangled, and is much more difficult to deal with than Ariza.
P.J. Tucker's most famous defensive resume in his career was when he defended Durant with the Bucks in the future, successfully limiting his shooting percentage to less than 45% and making 11 turnovers in the entire series.
But that's Durant, not Wang Feng.
Wang Feng's technical characteristics on the offensive end are basically at the unsolvable stage except for double-teaming.
Facing flexible defensive players, Wang Feng can rely on the power of 88 to forcefully grind into the basket like James.
When encountering an opponent whose weight and strength are greater than his own, Wang Feng can use the speed and agility of 92 and 93, plus the blessing of the first step master badge, to easily defeat the opponent in one step.
Compared with breaking through with the ball, Wang Feng is more powerful in three-pointers and mid-to-long-range shooting, which is stable and efficient. With the fast shooter badge, his shots are extremely fast and difficult to block.
With Wang Feng's offensive ability, only Leonard at his peak in the entire league can slightly limit his scoring efficiency, and only slightly.
In the entire first quarter, they made 6 of 10 shots, 2 of 3 three-pointers, and scored 14 points in a single quarter. Relying on Wang Feng's scoring, the Lakers entered the second quarter with a 5-point lead at 28:23.
In the second quarter, Harden began to take a lot of shots, relying on pick-and-rolls to separate Wang Feng's defense, which indeed allowed him to find many good opportunities to score.
However, Wang Feng's scoring efficiency is obviously higher than him.
Harden made 4 of 7 shots in the second quarter, 2 of 4 three-pointers, and 4 of 4 free throws, scoring 14 points.
Wang Feng scored 17 points in the second quarter, including 4 three-pointers.
At halftime, Wang Feng had scored 31 points, while Harden had 22 points.
In the third quarter, the Rockets' role players began to work hard. Eric Gordon scored 9 points in a single quarter, Gerald Green scored 6 points, and Capela also scored 6 points.
Harden sent out 5 assists in this quarter, but failed to score a point. The two teams were tied in the third quarter and entered the fourth quarter with a score of 81:81.
"Unexpectedly, the Lakers can actually fight with the Rockets to such an extent? Or maybe the Rockets' regular season ranking has been determined and they no longer have the energy to fight, which leads to this situation?"
At least in everyone's eyes, the Rockets, who won 64 games in the regular season, are obviously a level stronger than the Lakers, who just won 50 games.
The game entered the fourth quarter, and Chris Paul began to take over the game.
He made 5 of 5 shots, including two 3-pointers, and scored 12 points in a single quarter.
But on the other side, Wang Feng also showed strong scoring ability in the final quarter. Even when the Rockets started to use double-team tactics, he could still score.
Throughout the fourth quarter, Wang Feng made 5 of 10 shots, 2 of 4 three-pointers, and 2 of 2 free throws, scoring 14 points.
The game lasted until the last minute.
At the last critical moment, Wang Feng hit the basket and dunked violently under double teams, resulting in 2+1 and ending the game.
As Harden missed a three-pointer, the Lakers narrowly won by two points, 105:103.
Wang Feng made 17 of 27 shots in the game, 8 of 14 three-pointers, 6 of 8 free throws, and scored 48 points, 13 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 steals.
In contrast, Harden made 6 of 15 shots in the entire game, relied on free throws to barely score 21 points and 10 assists, and had 6 turnovers.
The gap between the two players who were fiercely competing for the MVP was so intuitive in the direct confrontation between the two teams that it surprised everyone.
The victory over the Rockets brought the Lakers' record to 51 wins, and in the final game of the regular season, the Lakers faced the Los Angeles Clippers.
Facing this little brother from the same city, the Lakers, who had been suppressed for several years, were proud of themselves and struck hard, and it was a hearty killing.
121:100, a 21-point victory over the opponent.
In this game, Wang Feng only played about 28 minutes, scoring 25 points and 7 rebounds before taking a rest. Because the game entered garbage time before the third quarter was over, the Clippers now have no Paul or Griffin.
, the strength is no longer what it used to be.
At this point, all 82 games of the Lakers' regular season have ended. They finally achieved a record of 52 wins and 30 losses, with a winning rate of 63.4%.