The rest is just noise

After Yu Tiancan was canceled for the season, there was no suspense in the series between the Lakers and the Suns.

As long as you have basic sports knowledge, you will no longer have illusions about the sun.

Although the third game was played at the Suns' home court, it was like a public execution scene.

Everyone knows that the guy named Sun will die, but there will still be people watching, just to see if he will transform into a corpse after his death.

On this night, Benjamin Wilson followed Louis' instructions, reduced his personal offense, and gave up the stage.

If the boss occupies the center stage for a long time, there will be two chain reactions.

One is that the boss himself will be obsessed with the feeling of standing at the center of the stage, and the other is that the boss's younger brothers will gradually lose the ability to dominate the stage and they will become pure helpers.

This is not conducive to the team's championship.

Louis also doesn't want Wilson to develop into a ball-dominant player with a big core.

This is also the reason why the Lakers were able to defeat the Suns cleanly.

Now they need to wait.

The opponents in the semifinals will be between the Clippers and the Mavericks.

No one expected that the Clippers, third in the Western Conference, would be in a tough fight in the first round.

The Mavericks, ranked sixth in the Western Conference, actually forced the Clippers into a tough battle.

In order to find out what happened, Louis watched the video of one of the games.

The result left him speechless.

It's not that the Mavericks performed well, but that the Clippers' team cohesion has declined rapidly.

The cause of the Clippers' problems is their owner, Donald Sterling.

After the regular season, Sterling had a sudden idea and invited the players to a party at his manor.

But none of his players wanted to party with an owner with racist labels.

Barkley took the lead in not attending, so only a few players and coaching staff from the team attended the party.

Sterling was furious: "How dare those imbecile niggas treat their master like this?"

According to rumors, Clippers coach Jeff Van Gundy planned to resign that night.

It was Van Gundy's assistant coach who persuaded him to finish the season.

Sterling's comments came to light the next day.

The Clippers were in chaos, and when the players asked Van Gundy for the truth, they received a positive answer.

This is why the Clippers collapsed.

According to the current situation, even if the Clippers are defeated by the Mavericks, Louis will not be surprised.

"I stand with my players," Van Gundy told reporters. "Our request is simple - to be treated like human beings."

Unfortunately, in the 1990s, NBA owners still had a detached status.

One unequivocally racist statement alone will not bring down Sterling.

The desperate Clippers players decided to abandon their professional ethics, just like the protagonists in "The Silent Truth" who tried their best to seek justice.

This was a rare crash in the 1990s.

The Clippers were eliminated by the lowly Mavericks 3-1 without any injuries.

On the night after Game 4 ended, Van Gundy formally submitted his resignation, and all the prominent players on the Clippers team, without exception, applied for trades.

Even Barkley, who still has one year left on his contract, has adopted the attitude of "If you don't trade me, I will do it".

The Clippers' internal strife will disrupt the entire offseason, but that's a story for another day.

For the Lakers, this is pie in the sky.

Under normal circumstances, the Clippers will be one of the top five in the Western Conference - Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, Jazz, Trail Blazers - as long as they play well, they will be the top team in the Western Conference.

It was at their hands that the Lakers stopped in the semifinals last year.

Before the fans could wait for Louis to lead the team in revenge, the Clippers disintegrated themselves.

How can this not make people sigh?

"Let us congratulate the Los Angeles Lakers for advancing to the Western Conference Finals again after three years." - "Los Angeles Daily News".

On the other side, the Trail Blazers eliminated the Nuggets in three straight games.

The Warriors fought against the Jazz in five bloody games. With Payton's defense and Penny Hardaway's all-around performance, they overcame danger and successfully advanced to the semifinals.

The Lakers' semifinal opponent is the Mavericks.

There is no pressure on Louis, and this is by no means an underestimation of his opponent.

Except for the Mavericks themselves, no one thinks they have the strength to make the conference semifinals.

Although today's Western Conference is not as involution as it was in the early 1990s, the semifinals are a hurdle for most teams.

Being able to reach the semi-finals shows that you have the strength to compete for the championship.

Because the top four teams in the Western Conference back then all had luxurious lineups.

Over the past few years, retirements have occurred, aging has occurred, and injuries have occurred. The competitiveness is no longer what it was in the past, but it is still an important benchmark for measuring the strength of the team.

The Mavericks were lucky enough to reach the semifinals, which was an opportunity for the young team to boost their confidence.

But that's all.

In addition to gaining confidence, they will also be severely punished by their opponents.

Rather than studying the Mavericks, Louis is more willing to evaluate the chances of winning the Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and Trail Blazers.

For this matter, Louis gathered assistant coaches and invited Jerry West and Mitch Kupchak to analyze together.

The result is that the series can last until the sixth game, even if the trip to the conference finals is not in vain.

Although the Lakers and Trail Blazers had wins and losses in the regular season, the opponents have always had a tradition of "transforming" in the playoffs.

Once he entered the playoffs, Jordan spontaneously flipped a switch on his body.

The Blazers only have two problems.

Thomas is no longer a star, and the conflict between Olajuwon and Mourning's styles remains unresolved.

But with just these two, the Lakers' problems can't be solved even if they are ten.

Unless Wilson averages 66 points per game, there's no chance.

It looked like there was no chance, but Louis still studied the Blazers' game carefully, trying to find some flaws.

At this time, Jerry West came unannounced, holding in his hand the "Victory Moment" Coke specially launched by Coca-Cola Company for Louis.

"Coach, are you watching the video?" West said with a flattering look on his face.

"Yeah, Jerry, what's the matter?"

"I heard that you like to drink Coke... uh... I just happened to pass by and brought one... I hope it suits your taste."

Louis glanced at the Coke that West brought "by the way, just in time."

At least, what he bought wasn't Pepsi.

"Thank you, I like it very much."

At this time, the video played a round. Jordan played with his back, passed Olajuwon with both hands without looking at anyone, and assisted Olajuwon for a dunk.

West praised: "MJ is indeed an impeccable player."

Jim joked: "Isn't it possible?"

West could not have imagined that this playboy would dare to question himself.

"What do you think, Jim?"

Bass smiled like a clown and said: "I admit that from my perspective, I cannot criticize his skills, but Michael is not an impeccable player. I think if there really is an ET alien in the future,

When he visits Earth, the first few things he will learn are that the United States won the Cold War, Coach Lu is the best coach in history, lions are stronger than tigers, sweet is better than salty, delicious is better than Pepsi, Benj will always be greater than MJ, because

MJ doesn’t have a championship.”

What West hates most is championshipism.

Because if the championship is everything, then his good brother Baylor doesn't even have a place in history.

"Champions don't explain everything!" West said solemnly, "Big O only has one championship, but no American would rank him among the top ten in history."

These words really left Bass speechless, because what he was thinking was - who is the Big O?

Louis had a different view, but he didn't say it - Big O's historical status is mainly made up for by a series of contributions off the court. For NBA players, he is as great as Ai Iijima breaking the dimensional wall of the industry. It's a pity that

Unfortunately, his glory was eventually tarnished by another man named Russell.

Because Russell averaging a triple-double per game was as easy as drinking water, some fans felt that the Big O's historical status was about to drop off a cliff.

In fact, for Big O, averaging a triple-double per game is a bonus to his historical status⑴, but fans in later generations will basically not understand other things. They only look at honors and statistics, so,

There is no solution to this matter.

Therefore, Louis feels that when the generation that knows how great Big O is gets old, the divinity of Big O will disappear, and all he will leave to the fans is a championship and a triple-double average.

Louis turned West's attention back to the topic.

"Jerry, do you have anything else to do with me?"

"Yes, I really can't hide it from you." West smiled flatteringly, "About that kid in Philadelphia..."

Louis immediately changed his face: "Jerry, I've said it a million times, I'm not interested at all in the idea of ​​adding another high school player to the team, don't talk about it again!"

It seems that this is a big deal that even asking Louis to drink Coke can't solve it.

But West will not give up just yet. The boy named Kobe has a unique power. If he misses him, he will live in regret for the rest of his life.

⑴ At the end of his playing career, Big O didn’t even know what a triple-double per game was. It wasn’t called that at that time. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the media discovered that Magic had scored in double figures in two consecutive games.

I came up with a term, and then I checked the data and found that there was an ancient mythical beast that once averaged a triple-double per game in the season...