After All-Star Weekend, nearly two-thirds of the regular season was completed, and the Clippers remained in eighth place in the West.

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

Ranked seventh in the West is the Thunder, who currently have two more wins than the Clippers, and it is not impossible for the Clippers to catch up with the Thunder in the future.

In the blink of an eye, the time entered April, and it was really as Richard expected, and the Clippers fought hard at the last minute, finally catching up with the Thunder before the end of the regular season and sitting in seventh place in the West.

In fact, whether it is 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 in first place in the East, and the Lakers are in second place......

Last season's playoffs, these two teams were miserable, one was blackmailed and the other was swept in the second round, and this season it is clear that they can't make the same mistake again.

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

Especially Jimmy Butler, who the Spurs got this year, under Popovich's one-year tutelage, is now a perfect replacement for Bowen's role in the Spurs, and even better than Bowen, after all, Bowen has no offensive ability, and Butler is still quite good in this regard.

Even at the moment, Butler's offensive ability is a little better than Leonard's.

On the defensive end, under Popovich's tutelage, Butler's current defensive strength should not be underestimated, and it will definitely come in handy in this year's playoffs.

……

All in all, whether it is the Thunder or the Clippers, against these two teams, the hope of advancing is very slim, and even Richard himself did not think much about the matter of promotion.

It is true that if Richard is willing to spend his blood, it does not mean that there is no chance of promotion at all.

But what's the point? This kind of business that does not outweigh the losses, Richard will definitely not do it.

It's not that I don't have a championship in hand, one more is not more, and one less is not a lot, so I can't afford to spend money to win the championship.

Moreover, many of the things that Richard had on hand were for his son......

……

On April 15, the regular season schedule finally settled.

The Los Angeles Clippers are seventh in the West with a 45-37 record.

If you look at the Clippers' record at the beginning of the season, I am afraid no one would have thought that the Clippers could enter the playoffs this year, and in the eyes of most fans, this year's Clippers are estimated to be a lottery team......

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

After all, the team lineup is there, and there is not a single star who can be on the table in the league.

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

But now that the Clippers have reached the playoffs, fans are really overjoyed.

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

The same city playoff derby, the first time in NBA history, has never happened before.

Although everyone knows that the Clippers are not the opponent of the Lakers, they still made Los Angeles fans very excited from the beginning to the end of this series.

Before the playoffs began, Bryant called Richard and asked him to dinner......

As a result, Richard didn't go, seeing that the playoffs were about to be played, who had the heart to eat with Kobe.

Although there is no hope of advancing in this series, Richard will certainly not give up on resisting, and his goal is to win at least one game against the Lakers.

……

In the regular season, the Clippers and Lakers won only one of the four meetings, and the one won was won by Kobe Bryant.

"Doot toot!" The referee blows the whistle for the start of the game.

"Little cutie, after a while, remember it for me, give me a dead eye on Kobe, I don't care about anything else in tonight's game, even if I lose, I can't let Kobe score more than 20 points!" Before appearing, Richard told Leonard again.

He's been saying this to Leonard many times in the last few days.

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

They don't know why Richard gave Leonard such a strange nickname, after all, Leonard's robotic face has nothing to do with cuteness.

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

As if he hadn't heard Richard's nickname, Leonard nodded at Richard without the slightest expression, and then appeared on the stage.

In the jump ball session, Monroe jumped to win the ball over Pau Gasol and won the ball in the first offensive round for the Clippers.

Thomas Jr. holds the ball and advances, although he is short, but the work of holding the ball is quite neat, with speed and strength, there are not many people in the league who can stop him from advancing, at least not the old fish Fisher.

If you are an ordinary person with a height of 175, it is not an exaggeration to say that if you encounter the opponent's full-court pressure on the NBA court, it is not easy to control the ball to the front court.

When the ball reached the front court, Thomas Jr. paused slightly, and then suddenly picked up, directly past the old fish, and rushed towards the basket.

Lao Yu's defensive experience is also quite rich, and after seeing that he was out of position, he did not rush to get started, but followed closely behind Thomas Jr., waiting for Thomas Jr. to interfere when he made a move.

Thomas Jr. has suffered a lot of such losses this season, seeing that Big Ben has been blocked in his breakthrough route, and there is an old fish chasing behind him, he immediately gave the ball to Horford.

Immediately after that, Horford saw that Gasol was defending tightly, and he didn't have a good time, so he passed the ball directly to Thompson.

Thompson took advantage of Leonard's pick-and-roll to get a comfortable shot and scored a long-distance two-pointer.

I have to say that in the first offensive round after the opening of the Clippers, the ball flow was quite smooth, and it was completely impossible to see that this was a lineup composed of new melons and eggs.

This is the result of hard work on a daily basis.

Richard can be assured that no team in the league will spend more time in practice than their Clippers!

……

The ball went to the Lakers' side, and naturally Kobe Bryant came to handle their first round.

Thomas Jr. doesn't have much pressure to defend Lao Yu Fisher, and Lao Yu is not the kind of point guard who flies away, but a sitting gun style, the speed is not as good as Thomas Jr., and there is no advantage in strength, so Thomas Jr. will definitely not be blown up tonight.

Since Thomas Jr. will not be blown up, Leonard will naturally be able to devote more energy to taking care of Kobe.

……

Looking at Leonard's defense, it is absolutely textbook-level, there are no bells and whistles and superfluous defensive actions, and the whole person follows the program strictly like a robot.

"DUANG......" Under Leonard's death, Kobe's first offensive round ended directly with iron.

In the next offensive round of the Clippers, Thomas Jr. threw and hit the iron and was picked up by Monroe for the rebound, but under the defense of Big Ben, Monroe's second offense failed to score.

It's the Lakers' offensive round again, as if it was a remake of the last offensive round, and this time Kobe Bryant missed again under Leonard's defense.

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

Speaking of last season, why the Lakers were swept away, even Kobe himself has to admit that this matter is inseparable from him.

In this round of the series, Kobe Bryant was eager to win, consumed too many balls, played all kinds of ball-holding singles, and the shooting rate was very bad.

After losing one game, Kobe Bryant wanted to prove more and more that he was capable of salvaging the situation, and as a result, because of his paranoia, the Lakers lost three more games in a row.

If Kobe Bryant was younger, I'm afraid he wouldn't have cared about this kind of thing at all, and now that he's not too young and mature, he thinks he needs to make some changes when he thinks about the painful experience of the last playoffs.

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

Every time he met Richard in the playoffs since he left the Trail Blazers, it was a loss......

This time, it was hard to catch the weak opportunity of Richard's team, how could he miss it.

If he misses this time, Kobe Bryant has a hunch that he may not be able to beat Richard in the playoffs in his life.