Paul's trip to the Big Apple, although the results were not good, after his injury, the New York media also continued to sneer at him, the Knicks also withdrew their contract extension offer for him, and when he was traded, New York reporters were celebrating that the Knicks avoided the birth of the next Houston-style contract.

During his year in New York, Paul experienced the sensation of being touted to the sky, at one point ranking at the top of the MVP rankings, but ended up hitting rock bottom and experiencing tragic ups and downs.

But there have been some improvements, such as learning better fast-break playmaking under D'Antoni.

Although Paul is more suitable for positional warfare, especially now that his physical fitness has declined due to injury, positional warfare is his preferred style of play, and he can also show his ability on the defensive end.

However, with Nash who is already this age, Paul is really worthy!

This group of teammates is much stronger than the original Knicks teammates, with a total salary of more than 91 million, and not a full middle-class contract, which is the key for the Lakers to enter the Finals for three consecutive years and complete a title defense in the Koga era, which is something that the Spurs could not compare with when they won the previous four championships.

Without a middle-class contract, there is no middle-class crisis!

At the beginning of the century, during the OK combination period, there was also a middle-class crisis, five or six middle-class contracts, and the salary was more than half of the salary cap, so that the Lakers in the OK era had almost no way to recruit reinforcements, and the OK combination was invincible and won three consecutive championships.

And every time the Spurs win a championship, they spend a year cleaning up the middle-class contracts that turn into junk contracts after winning the championship.

The Lakers have long had experience in this area, and in recent years they have hardly seen the players they have signed mid-level contracts.

There is also the fact that the depth of the Lakers' roster of more than 90 million is really good to explode.

I don't know if the owner of the Rockets is the son of the owner of the Lakers, and he actually gave Jordan Hill to the Lakers for free, which made Sun Ce think of the lack of point guards in the Lakers in the original time and space, and the Rockets sent Jeremy Lin to the Lakers for nothing, and also posted a first-round selection of Larry Nance for the Lakers.

Sun Ce looked at the seven-man rotation of the opponent's lineup, in addition to the five starters, the seven-man rotation of the substitute lineup, Sessions, Capono, Matt Barnes, Blake, McRoberts, Jordan Hill, and Odom.

Goodlock, Darius-Morris, two rookies to develop the league, and Murphy wore a suit.

This is the second-highest-paid lineup in the league after the Mavericks, and the depth is too explosive.

The Lakers had nine players on the floor in the first quarter, allowing Paul to easily grab four assists in a single quarter without much difficulty.

When Sun Ce was about to go all out in the second quarter and just started to scare the opposite side of the second half, Coach Hollins waved at him, asked him to sit down, called the names of Nash, Neil, Klay Thompson, Randolph, and Aaron Gray, and did not continue to let Sun Ce play.

On the Lakers' side, the lineup of Sessions, Blake, Barnes, Odom, and Pau Gasol played.

After the start of the second quarter, Sun Ce sat next to Coach Hollins and said, "I think I was in good shape today. ”

"I know, but we're going to look at more possibilities, and we're going to get to this stage of the season and we're going to start preparing for the playoffs......"

Coach Hollins is also looking forward to Sun Ce's outbreak, but the playoffs are not two games a game, nor is there only one series, and you can't always point to Sun Ce alone in every round of the series.

The lineup is so good, the Lakers dare to put Kobe Bryant and Paul on the bench together to rest the two, and the depth of the lineup on his side is no worse than that of the Lakers.

Sun Ce chatted with Coach Hollins and sat down quietly.

He had only focused on the Lakes and Cows, treating the Thunder as an "unimportant" opponent who "will be disbanded one day."

Listening to Coach Hollins say this, he found out that in addition to meeting at least one team in the playoffs, there is also a Thunder team!

In other words, if their Grizzlies can at least make it to the Western Conference finals, they will have to play against at least two of the Lake, Horse, Bulls + Thunder!

It's unrealistic to expect the Lakers, Spurs, Thunder, and Mavericks to rank second, third, sixth, and seventh, respectively.

If hell it does, the Mavericks drop to eighth and enter the playoffs, and the Lakers, Spurs, and Thunder are in 2-4 places...... That's simple, of course, if this is the case, for the five teams, it will be a half-dead situation, and the internal friction will collapse.

But it's hard to say about the competition! Neil and Klay Thompson went up and threw three three-pointers in a row, hitting a wave of 9-5, more than two minutes, and tied the score!

Sun Ce felt that he was right to sit down, and he was going to do it himself, but it might not have been as good as Neil's two three-pointers in a row and Klay Thompson's three-pointers immediately after that.

Sessions is also very good, shooting 46 percent from the field and 48 percent from three-point range! Not much, but accurate!

After Klay Thompson hit the Grizzlies' third three-pointer of the second quarter, Sessions took advantage of Gasol's return pass and hit a three-point shot to help the Lakers temporarily ease the crisis.

After a stalemate for a while, the Grizzlies replaced Aaron Gray with Yi Jianlian, and when they came up, they received a three-point shot from Randolph in the bottom corner, and the Grizzlies overtook the Lakers by 1 point at 39-38 at 5:09 in the second quarter!

In the past 5 minutes, the Grizzlies have played a wave of 15-10!

The Lakers' side was stable, and they dragged on until the 7:03 minute when the dead ball entered the official timeout before making a substitution.

Sun Ce's side was finally replaced, and when he came on the court, the Grizzlies led the Lakers by 3 points at 45-42.

Sun Ce rested for more than half a quarter to play, and now his physical condition is good, but he didn't expect to really give an advantage, Mr. Na and other teammates worked hard, especially in the face of Da Gasol's singles Randolph, who was not very effective, and the offensive rebounding was very hard.

It's not scary to chase points......

The teammates who played with Sun Ce were a combination of Tony Allen, Paul George, Batyr and Gasol Jr.

On the Lakers' side, the strongest combination of Paul, Kobe, Barnes, Josh McRoberts, and Pau Gasol played.

Sun Ce put away his regret that Little Jordan couldn't play and devoted himself to the game.

He knows that the teammates who are currently playing with him ...... It's a little uncomfortable on the offensive end, he's "used"!

Their lineup is used to consume Paul and Kobe.

But the team's strategy has such a need, and Sun Ce has to do his best to implement it.

……

After the game restarted, the Grizzlies began to defend stubbornly, and there were noticeable changes, with Tony Allen defending Paul, Paul George defending Bryant, Battier defending Barnes, and Sun Ce defending Josh McRoberts.

Josh McRoberts is a versatile and non-technical role player who can do anything, everything is average, and he can't be expected to do it well.

Sure enough, as Sun Ce and Battier communicated when they chose to switch defenses when they came on the court, Paul didn't continue to block and dismantle Sun Ce's defenders, and McRoberts could do anything, but he didn't really have a strong point, and he didn't even have a fierce cut like Ci Shiping.

McRoberts has almost no low-post skills, and his back play is better than last season's James, and Sun Ce also chooses to empty McRoberts to shrink the inside line most of the time, and forms an inside no-fly zone with Gasol Jr., forcing Paul and Kobe to shoot more on the outside.

With a younger brother stuck with an older brother, the Lakers' offensive rebounding was not good, even if Kobe Bryant scored 6 points on 2-of-4 shooting and 2-of-2 free throws in the last 5 minutes, the Lakers didn't play well at this stage, scoring 8 points in 10 minutes.

Even the Grizzlies only scored 8 points during this period, but they maintained the lead, and at halftime, the Grizzlies led by 3 points at 53-50 and went into halftime!

……

In the third quarter, the game entered the white heat, although the Grizzlies were on the defensive end, and the Grizzlies were no match for Mike Brown, but Coach Hollins showed his big picture and rotation strategy that was far stronger than Mike Brown.

Each coach has his own style, and Coach Hollins has gradually established his style during these three years - the poor man's version of the Zen master.

Sun Ce and his teammates went all out, Sun Ce put himself on the defensive end, grabbed rebounds, setters, scored points, and didn't forget it, no longer thinking about how many points to score and compete with Kobe and Paul like in the first quarter, he worked with Gasol Jr., Mr. Tony, Battier, and Paul George to get up the defense and consume Paul and Kobe.

Even when they were replaced in the 9th minute of the third quarter, the Grizzlies were overtaken by the Lakers by 4 points, and the Grizzlies only scored 12 points in these 9 minutes, and they were beaten 19-12, and Sun Ce and others also insisted on implementing the strategy.

The effect was obvious, after the Grizzlies called a long timeout, they replaced the combination of Nash, Neil, Klay Thompson, Randolph, and Yi Jianlian, and played a wave of 9-3 in the last 3 minutes of the third quarter!

The Lakers played well in the first 9 minutes of the third quarter, although they only scored 19 points in 9 minutes, which was not efficient, but they defended the Grizzlies' almost lame lineup on the offensive end very well, but Sun Ce and others also had a lot of consumption on the Lakers' dream backcourt, and it was okay when they didn't call a timeout, and they could hold on, but Coach Hollins seized the opportunity and called a timeout at the stage when the opponent could continue to hold on but wanted to take a break.

Sure enough, after the timeout came back, the Lakers' hand plummeted, except for Kobe Bryant's three-point line, which caused Klay Thompson to foul and hit all three free throws, and the Lakers did not score in the field of action in these 3 minutes!

After the third division, the Grizzlies took a two-point lead again at 74-72.

Bryant, on Bryant's side, played 26 minutes in the first three quarters, shooting 9-of-16, including 3-of-6 three-pointers, and 6-of-7 free throws to get 27 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists, while Paul played 29 minutes and scored 10 points, 5 rebounds and 8 assists.

This fantastic backcourt, the offensive and defensive ends are simply crazy!

But Sun Ce found that the opponent was not without flaws, and the opponent's head coach seemed to be almost useless in other aspects except defense!