Bishop of the Devil

After the All-Star weekend, nearly two-thirds of the regular season schedule has been completed, and the Clippers continue to maintain the eighth position in the Western Conference.

Judging from the current situation, it is still a bit difficult for the Jazz to catch up with the Clippers. After all, the two sides are now three wins apart, so it is not that easy to catch up.

Ranking seventh in the Western Conference is the Thunder, which currently has two more wins than the Clippers. It is not impossible for the Clippers to catch up with the Thunder in the future.

In the blink of an eye, time entered April, and just as Richard expected, the Clippers caught up at the last moment and finally caught up with the Thunder before the end of the regular season and sat on the seventh place in the Western Conference.

In fact, regardless of whether they are seventh or eighth, there is no difference between the Clippers and the Thunder, because they are almost destined to end in the first round.

The Spurs are first in the Western Conference, and the Lakers are second...

In the playoffs last season, these two teams were very miserable. One was defeated and the other was swept in the second round. It is obvious that they cannot make the same mistake again this season.

And this season, both teams have improved to varying degrees, and they got quite outstanding rookies in the draft.

Especially Jimmy Butler, whom the Spurs acquired this year, after a year of training from Popovich, has now perfectly replaced Bowen's role in the Spurs, and is even more useful than Bowen. After all, Bowen has no offensive ability, but Butler is still quite good in this regard.

Butler's offensive ability is even better than Leonard's right now.

On the defensive end, under the guidance of Popovich, Butler's current defensive strength cannot be underestimated and will definitely come in handy in this year's playoffs.

…

All in all, whether it is the Thunder or the Clippers, if they meet these two teams, the hope of promotion is very slim. Even Richard himself does not think much about promotion.

It is true that if Richard is willing to spend a lot of money, it does not mean that there is no chance of advancement.

But what's the point? Richard would definitely not do this kind of business that was not worth the gain.

It’s not like I don’t have a championship at hand. One more is not too much, and one less is not enough. There is no need to spend money to compete for the championship.

Besides, many of the things Richard had on hand were prepared for his son...

…

On April 15, the regular season schedule was finally settled.

The Los Angeles Clippers rank seventh in the Western Conference with a record of 45 wins and 37 losses.

If you look at the Clippers' record at the start of the season, I'm afraid no one would have thought that the Clippers would make the playoffs this year. In the eyes of most fans, this year's Clippers are expected to be a lottery team again...

Even if the Clippers are still among the bottom three in the Western Conference this year, fans won't say anything.

After all, the team's lineup is there, and there is not a single star who can stand out in the league.

With such a lineup, who can expect them to have a good record...

But now the Clippers have made it to the playoffs, which really makes fans a little bit overjoyed.

What surprised them even more was that the Clippers faced the Lakers in the playoffs.

A playoff derby in the same city is the first of its kind in NBA history and has never happened before.

Although everyone knows that the Clippers are no match for the Lakers, they still made Los Angeles fans very excited from start to finish in this series.

Before the playoffs started, Kobe called Richard and asked him to have dinner...

As a result, Richard didn't go. The playoffs were about to begin. Who would want to have dinner with Kobe?

Although there is no hope of advancement in this series, Richard certainly cannot give up resistance just like that. His goal is to win at least one game against the Lakers.

…

During the regular season, the Clippers and the Lakers met only once in four games, and the one they won was when Kobe Bryant took a rest.

"Beep!" The referee blew the whistle to start the game.

"Little cutie, after you come on the stage, remember it for me and keep an eye on Kobe. I don't care about anything else in this game tonight. Even if we lose, I can't let Kobe score more than 20 points!" Before going on stage, Richard gave Leonard another instruction.

He has said this to Leonard many times in the past few days.

Hearing Richard call Leonard "cute", several players on the team couldn't help but grin...

They didn't know why Richard gave Leonard such a weird nickname. After all, Leonard's robot face had nothing to do with being cute.

When I asked Richard why he had this nickname, Richard remained silent...

Leonard seemed not to have heard the nickname Richard gave him. He nodded at Richard without any expression, and then appeared on the stage with his head down.

In the jump ball session, Monroe beat Gasol and won the ball for the Clippers in the first offensive round.

Thomas is advancing with the ball. Although he is short, he is very efficient at advancing with the ball. He has speed and strength. Not many people in the league can stop his advancement, at least Lao Yu. Not Fisher.

If you are an ordinary person with a height of 1.75cm, it is no exaggeration to say that if you encounter an opponent's full-court press in the NBA, it will be extremely difficult to control the ball to the frontcourt.

When the ball reached the frontcourt, Thomas paused for a moment, then suddenly accelerated, passed the old fish directly, and rushed toward the basket.

Laoyu also has quite a lot of defensive experience. After seeing himself out of position, he did not rush to take action. Instead, he followed closely behind Thomas, waiting for interference when Thomas took action.

Thomas has suffered a lot of this kind of losses this season. Seeing that Ben has blocked his path, and there is Lao Yu chasing behind him, he immediately gives the ball to Horford.

Then Horford saw Gasol's tight defense, and he didn't have a good opportunity, so he passed the ball directly to Thompson.

Thompson used Leonard's pick-and-roll to get a comfortable shooting space and scored a long two-pointer directly.

It has to be said that in the first offensive round after the Clippers opened the game, the ball flow was very smooth, and it was completely impossible to tell that this was a new lineup.

This is the result of hard work in daily life.

Richard can guarantee that no team in the league will spend more time on training than the Clippers!

…

When the ball came to the Lakers, it was naturally Kobe who took charge of their first possession.

There is not much pressure on Thomas to defend Fisher, who is not a flying point guard, but a ground cannon. He is not as fast as Thomas, and he has no advantage in strength, so today Thomas will definitely not be blown away at this point.

Since Thomas will not be exposed, Leonard can naturally devote more energy to taking care of Kobe.

…

Looking at Leonard's defense, it is absolutely textbook level. There are no fancy and superfluous defensive moves. The whole person is like a robot and strictly follows the procedures.

"DUANG..." Under Leonard's death grip, Kobe's first offensive round ended in a blacksmith.

In the next Clippers' offensive round, Thomas threw a shot and was picked up by Monroe for a rebound. However, under Ben's defense, Monroe's second attack failed.

It was the Lakers' offensive round again, which seemed to be a replica of the previous offensive round. This time Kobe missed again under Leonard's defense.

Playing for two consecutive rounds reminded Kobe of the painful experience of being swept by the Mavericks in the playoffs last season.

Speaking of why the Lakers were swept last season, even Kobe himself must admit that this matter has nothing to do with him.

In this series, Kobe was so eager to win that he consumed too much of the ball, playing various singles with the ball, and his shooting percentage was very poor.

After losing one game, Kobe became more and more eager to prove his ability to save the situation. As a result, because of his paranoia, the Lakers lost three more games in a row.

If Kobe was young, I'm afraid he wouldn't care about this kind of thing at all. But now that he is not young and has matured a lot, thinking of the painful experience of the last playoffs, he feels that he needs to make a decision. Some changes.

Of course, what really prompted Kobe to want to make changes was that Kobe didn't want to lose to Richard in this series.

Since he left the Trail Blazers, every time he met Richard in the playoffs, he always ended up losing...

This time he finally caught the opportunity when Richard's team was weak, how could he miss it.

If he misses this time, Kobe has a hunch that he may never be able to defeat Richard in the playoffs.