Brooklyn – in October, when asked to pick the 2022 NBA championship, 83% of League general managers chose the Brooklyn basketball nets. Now, the nets are the first team to be eliminated from the first round of the playoffs.
It was a crazy six and a half months, and finally a flawed and understaffed team was exposed in the playoffs. The nets had a chance in Game 4 of the first round series against the Boston Celtics on Monday, but they just didn’t get the stop they needed. Marcus smart gave them a missed layup with 15 seconds left, but al Horford fell when he missed the layup, Kyrie Irving couldn’t stop him, and Kevin Durant couldn’t run back after stealing.
Here are some notes, figures and videos of the Celtics reaching the semi-finals with a 116-112 victory for the fifth time in the past six years.
1. Is there room for development for the best team in the league?
The story of leading with the nets may mask the lead, because this series is more about the advantages of the Celtics than the disadvantages of the nets. In short, Boston has been the best team in the League for three months. At the end of the regular season, the Celtics won 26 of the last 32 games (ranked first in offensive and defensive efficiency during this period), and now the Celtics are the only team to sweep the first round. They swept Kevin Durant and Carey Owen’s team.
Durant struggled, shooting only 37% in four games. His effective shooting percentage is 42.8%, which is the third worst score in his 30 playoff series. In the third game, he must be in the leading position. But the main reason for his struggle is the Celtics’ defense. Under the leadership of Jayson Tatum, Boston did not leave any space for Durant, which made Durant one of the greatest scorers in NBA history.
Boston’s defensive ranking in the playoffs is only eighth (115.0 points per 100 possession), because other nets shoot well. But the first task is to slow down Durant’s speed. Boston has done what anyone can expect.
Given the Celtics’ performance since the end of January, it’s not crazy to call them real champions. But in the past, some teams did so well in one or two series, but then they lost.
“One game at a time,” said Jay brown. “You can’t surpass yourself. We have a lot of players running in the playoffs, so we know what will happen and what will happen. Our mentality is the key, enter and be ready to play every game.”
Marcus smart is willing to look up to see the rest of the league, but he doesn’t necessarily have the idea of lifting the Larry O’Brien trophy in advance.
“I must have seen other series,” he said. “For me, I don’t think we’re the best team. We still have a way to go. We still have jobs. We don’t want to be too high at the high point or too low at the low point. So when I watch the game, I’m watching ‘we’re not the best team’. We have to play like this. We have to have a mentality that we’re not the best team, because once you have this mentality, you’re the best team 。” With the best team, you become complacent and bad habits become popular.
Concentration: the Celtics ended the game without Tatum
2. Competitive sweep
This is a strange series. The Celtics are obviously a better team, but they won only 18 points in four games, the third small victory gap in four games in NBA history.
For Brooklyn, a narrow profit margin may lead to some assumptions. What if Durant stayed in Tatum in the last game of the first game? What if they didn’t lead by 17 points in the second game? What if they didn’t make 13 on-site mistakes in the third game? What if Nick Clarkston didn’t make 1 of 11 free throws on the free throw line in Game 4?
Despite Durant’s poor personal performance, Brooklyn shot more than 50% in three of the four games. The Nets’ effective shooting percentage is 57.7%, ranking second in the playoffs. It is the highest team in the series that has won less than three games in NBA history.
For the Celtics, this narrow gap is proof of their growth. In the regular season, they have achieved the second worst record in the League (13-22) in less than five points in the past five minutes. When they made progress in the second half of the season, they just started to knock the team out. In the past 32 games, they won only 4 of their 26 games, and no more than 5 of the past 5 games.
But (although the second and third games hardly passed the “critical moment”), the Celtics are now leading 4-0 in five of the last five games of the playoffs. They scored 25 points in 21 key attacks and only 10 points in 17 key defenses.
Celtic coach IMER udoka focused on the team’s attack in the late game.
“I think a big part is that we have fine tuned something in attack as a coach,” he said. “At the end of the game, we sometimes stagnate.
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