On May 12, after the fifth match of the Eastern and Western semifinals, a second team was born to reach the divisional finals. The Los Angeles Clippers in the West 4:0 the Los Angeles Lakers, the Houston Rockets 3:2 the Phoenix Suns; The Cleveland Cavaliers in the East 3:2 the Boston Celtics, the Orlando Magic 4:1 the Atlanta Hawks.

In the West, the battle between the Rockets and the Suns was divided, and the Rockets who finally had the home court advantage were born by luck in the last quarter of Gay, and now the Houston people have two match points, and the opponent of the Clippers Western Conference Finals is likely to be last year's Rockets.

In the East, the Big Three staged a big explosion on the road. Allen made 6-of-9 three-pointers, and Pierce and James scored a team-high 36 points for the Celtics, proving that he is still the most versatile small forward. Although Garnett didn't score much, his key frontcourt rebounds in the fourth quarter made the Cavaliers have to accept the bitter consequences of losing at home.

The Big Three of the Green Army fought hard to get back to a match point, but the overall situation is still very unfavorable for them, James didn't feel good today, but don't expect the next game of the little emperor still can't shoot accurately, the Cavaliers still have two match points despite the loss.

The Magic beat the Atlanta Hawks 25+20 with Howard, and it's hard to win against the Magic if your team doesn't have a star insider. Conversely, teams with strong interior lines, such as the Rockets, Clippers, Lakers, Spurs, etc., all have a high win rate against the Magic, while the Hawks only have one Horford who is more like the No. 4 position and Josh who is more like the No. 3 position. Smith, naturally, is powerless to fight against the violent monsters that are at their peak.

The two brothers were too lazy to care about the other teams at this time, and their red pandas were pre-sold on the 11th. In less than five minutes, the first batch of 1 million units was sold. This is still the speed achieved when the starting regions are only China and North America. It can be seen that the red panda has been favored by consumers as soon as it came out. Those users who didn't grab it then posted on the official forum to urge, hoping that Maofox Technology would do its best to carry out the next batch of pre-sales.

Jobs secretly hated in his heart, this damn red panda, chose to release their iPhone 4 before it went on sale, clearly against them. Apple has announced that the new generation of iPhones will be available at the end of May, and just two days after the news was announced, a bullshit red panda came out here.

April. When Extraordinary Panda was first released, Jobs satirized that today's mobile phones are all bigger, but he doesn't understand that 3.5 inches is the most suitable size for human hands. As a result, a few days later, Ji Guoyi fired a map cannon on Twitter, ridiculing only those with small hands who would say this, which offended Jobs, who was already unpleasant to him.

On May 14, the third team to reach the division finals was also born, and the Celtics were ultimately unable to achieve a big comeback, with James scoring 45 points and 10 rebounds in Game 6. Led the Cavaliers to overtime to crush the Green Shirts, who did not complete the feat of reaching the Finals for three consecutive seasons.

However, Celtic fans are not too sad about it. With their strength this year, even if they reach the finals, they are not the opponents of the Clippers, and they don't want to return home in the finals for three consecutive years, which is really faceless. Well, now the Clippers don't even know who their Western Conference Finals opponent is, but Celtics fans seem to be more sure than Clippers fans that the defending champions will make it to the Finals again.

In the Western Conference semifinals, in the sixth game between the Houston Rockets and the Phoenix Suns, Stoudemire scored 35 points, but was finally dragged to the tiebreaker.

Rudy. Guy is still too young, as the core he is not stable enough, this game was targeted by the Suns, and immediately did not have the excellent performance of the previous game, but turned into an iron god, staged a pit dad drama of 23 shots and 5 shots, and successfully killed the rocket.

Yao Ming, who made 12 shots in this game and scored 18 points and 12 rebounds, regretted losing Game 6, and the Little Giants said after the game: "Who knows what kind of team the Suns will be in Game 7? But we still have an advantage, and we'll have a strong grasp of it when we get back home, and this year is the strongest year for the Rockets in the last decade, and we believe that we will be the ones who will make it to the finals. ”

What is the most important thing to do against the Suns if you want to win?

Everybody knows it's Steve. Nash, and in the Western Conference, Marbury is undoubtedly one of the better players in terms of pinning down Nash.

But this year's situation was different, with Nash averaging 20.5 points and 10.2 assists per game in six games in the second round, and even Charles Barkley exclaimed, "I've never seen such a sharp Nash."

Marbury said of his opponent after the game, describing: "He choked us by the throat. ”

Scola shared Marbury's sentiments, saying, "Steve tore our defense to shreds. ”

Stoudemire expressed cautious optimism about the prospects after the win, saying: "We must not rejoice too soon, the Rockets are a team that has had a lot of glory and they know how to come back from defeat to victory in a series. ”

Nash maintained his usual humility, saying, "You never know how the fight is going to play and you have to give it your all, play aggressively and positively. For my part, I try to ignore the physical injuries, but you know it's not easy at all against teams like the Spurs and the Rockets, and I'm happy that today I was able to help the team win, but the next game is a do-or-die game. ”

Suns coach Erwin. Gentry has reverted to the Suns' run-and-gun style of play, with O'Neal playing just 20 minutes in the first round, but in six games against the Rockets, O'Neal's playing time has been increased to an average of 25 minutes per game.

In Phoenix's team, only this fat shark can slightly restrict Yao Ming in the penalty area, although O'Neill is no longer the opponent of the little giant at this time, but it is much better than letting Xiao Si go up to carry Yao Ming who is 300 degrees pounds.

Ji Guoyi, as Nash's national team teammate, said in front of the media at this time: "If you want to suppress Nash, the best way is to attack against attack, because his defense is terrible, but you can't prevent him, and scoring more points than him is the best way." ”

The media said that you just sold your teammates like this? So Ji Guoyi quickly added: "If our opponent in the Western Conference Finals is the Suns, we plan to do so." ”

On May 15, the Clippers had another week off. The whole team got together today. Watch the seventh battle between the sun and the rockets.

The Rockets finally limited the Suns' pick-and-roll at a certain point in Game 7. Of course, this may have something to do with Xiao Si's poor condition, the Rockets chose to retract the basket after blocking and dismantling today, and put Stoudemire to shoot the mid-range, but Xiao Si's previous steady mid-range did not bring a crosshair today, and the Suns began to fall into passivity.

The Suns also had another piece of bad news, and that was that they spent tens of millions to bring in former dunk king Richardson's three-point shooting was similarly bad, so the two teams played 27-21 in the first quarter. The Rockets took the initiative at the Toyota Center, and the light of the day to advance to the Western Conference Finals reached the Rockets.

In the second quarter, when his 3-point sense dropped sharply, Richardson chose to rush to the basket with the ball, although the Rockets stood on the inside with Yao Ming, David Lee and Scola such excellent inside, but on this day, Richardson, the former dunk king, knew that he had no choice. The team has been behind in this lose-or-die-and-go game, and he needs to give the team a little help, especially after Nash and Stoudemire's pick-and-roll was crushed by the Clippers. His play will be crucial.

Richardson relied on his strength and bounce to inflict damage on the rocket's inside line. Sure enough, his breakthrough in the second quarter left the Rockets exhausted, and in desperation, they chose a tough foul to stop Richardson. The former dunk king was frequently taken to the ground by opponents throughout the second quarter, and then used free throws at the free throw line to help the team transfuse.

The fact that the Suns have been able to go so far this year is directly related to Richardson's outburst, which has not been able to find his groove since the Bobcats were traded to the Suns, even in the first half of the season, when the Suns' third-highest-paid player stumbled and was unnoticed on the trade market because of his high salary. But Richardson found a feeling in the second half of the season, especially the tacit understanding between him and Nash, which made his projection from outside the 3-point line like a fish in water, and the Suns' outside offense, Nash's first choice was always Richardson.

Although there is still a slight gap between Richardson's value and his annual salary of $13.33 million, compared to the Mr. 100 million in Orlando, Richardson's performance in the playoffs is quite perfect, especially in today's life-and-death battle, Richardson did not hesitate to risk injury, in order to touch the floor of the Western Conference that he had never touched.

At this time, Suns fans vaguely remember the 2007 team that ran the Suns, and their gorgeous style of play fascinated everyone, but they fell gorgeously in front of the ferocious Hawley and the Spurs, and achieved the latter's dream of winning the championship. It's not because the strength of the sun is not good, but because they lack a ruthlessness. However, the Suns who appeared in the center of Toyota today played their iron spirit, and under Richardson's lead, Xiao Si also began to hold the ball and attack the inside, even if he couldn't shoot, at least he had to stand on the free throw line to get a free throw opportunity.

The Rockets actually slowly lost the "momentum" on their home court, and the breakthrough of Smalls and Richardson inspired the momentum of the Suns, and once a team like the Suns played the "momentum", their offensive power was enough to crush any team.

Now it can be seen that there is still a gap between the Rockets and the Spurs in 07, and this gap is not in strength, but in the experience of both sides.

The Suns have fallen to the Western Conference semifinals and finals more than once since '04, and the Spurs, who have always eliminated them, have also fallen to the Lakers several times in the early years. These defeats were invaluable lessons, and it was with these defeats that the Spurs were able to beat the Suns in key battles because they had a deep understanding of the small details that can make the difference between winning and losing.

Taking a step back, didn't the OK duo suffer several defeats in the playoffs before winning the triple championship?

Now is the time for the Rockets to pay tuition, the only difference is that the Spurs and Suns and even the Lakers were still young when they paid tuition, and they could turn the experience of failure into the accumulation of success in the future, but the current Rockets can no longer afford to fail. (To be continued......)