Originally, the Thunders’ problem was the dispute over ball possession, the compatibility issue with two big ball-handlers.
But after watching this playoff ga, fans felt sothing else entirely.
The eighth seed playing the first seed, no matter what the reasons are, the difference in strength is obvious.
Since the NBA implented the 16-team playoff format in 1947, in its 66-year history, there have been only 4 "Black Eight" miracles in 130 instances.
Especially since the first round adopted the best-of-seven format, there have been only 2 occurrences, and one of those was because Ross was injured.
To put it bluntly, this is a practically unwinnable match.
Just like Hansen said last year, failure divides people in different ways, and so does adversity.
Westbrook did not shrink in the face of adversity; he lost standing.
By contrast, after being trashed-talked by Hansen, Jas just disappeared, padding his stats during garbage ti and staggered shifts.
It’s foreseeable that in the annals of ti, fans won’t rember what happened in this ga. They’ll see almost identical stats for Jas and Westbrook, and that the Thunders did their best.
But that’s for the future. What fans are seeing now is heroes and cowards.
Especially since Jas also pulled off that shocking kneeling stunt, fans’ perceptions are only going to deepen.
"Why would Nike choose a coward as their leading figure? Is this their brand identity?"
That was a popular comnt, which was soon followed by another fan saying,
"I’d rather choose KD; at least he’s not spineless."
This comnt suddenly woke a lot of people up—Nike’s stars aren’t only about Jas!
Kobe is getting older, and since he switched from Adi, he’s not the face of the brand, but Durant is a younger star than Jas.
And he led the Heat Team to 70 wins this season, sothing only Jordan had done since.
Why couldn’t Nike switch to Durant as their leading figure?
"Do you think Nike would switch?" This topic was so hot that Rondo even discussed it with Hansen.
"When does LeBron’s contract with Nike expire?" Hansen hadn’t paid much attention to this; he only rembered that when Jas first joined the League, Nike signed him to a 7-year, 96-million-dollar contract.
Ti-wise, that contract expired in the sumr of 2010.
"They renewed in 2010 with a 4-year, 80-million-dollar contract." Rondo had a good grasp of this information.
"2010, 2014."
Hansen was muttering these two years as if he’d discovered a new continent.
The 2010 Decision One, brotherhood basketball; the 2014 Decision Two, hotown basketball.
This was definitely not a coincidence.
He seed to understand a lot of things all of a sudden.
The playthings of capital.
Just like Carrell said back then, "Nike propelled LeBron to the throne," Jas was chosen by Nike and then mythologized.
But this false god was just a tool, and as a tool, it certainly could be replaced.
"If LeBron doesn’t win a championship before 2014, I think that will be KD’s chance," Hansen predicted.
Durant has no charisma, but is Jas’s charisma any better?
Without all that packaging, Jas might not even asure up to Durant.
That’s the power of Nike; it could turn you from crap into sothing that tastes like chocolate.
Compared to that, whatever negative stuff about Durant hardly seed to matter.
He suddenly found himself quite looking forward to the sumr of 2014.
After a two-day break, the G2 between the Grizzlies and the Thunders continued in mphis.
The course of the ga wasn’t much different from G1.
In fact, even if Jas and Westbrook could handle the ball possession issue, the Thunders would still have a hard ti beating the Grizzlies.
Because their skills overlapped too much, combined they were less than the sum of their parts.
Of course, the Thunders’ managent was solely focused on making money, not on setting out to beat the Grizzlies or the Lakers.
It’s just that managent didn’t anticipate Westbrook improving so fast and the conflicts between the two flaring up so quickly.
It wasn’t that they were dumb. Without foresight, wouldn’t Westbrook, Afflalo, Jas, Ibaka, and Little Lopez make a lineup several tis stronger than the Nuggets?
Achieving a top-four finish in The West and making it to the second round would have already fulfilled their goal.
The Grizzlies had firmly established their ga advantage early on, even more so than in the first ga, leading by 15 points just before halfti ended.
Then, that’s when conflict arose on the court.
Jas, while contending with Randolph, first annoyed him with minor provocations and then elbowed Randolph in the neck.
Despite Coach Joerger’s earlier warnings, Randolph, with his explosive temper, couldn’t tolerate this and imdiately grappled with Jas, wrestling him to the ground.
The referee ultimately called a technical foul on Jas, while Randolph was ejected from the ga.
So Jas didn’t dare to play dirty, only sly.
After the technical tiout, Coach Joerger decisively sent in Jones.
Jones proved to be a real talent, as he actually mimicked Jas’ behavior, provoking Westbrook in various ways.
"You can’t win a ga without KD!" his words after an elbow strike finally enraged Westbrook, and the two scuffled together until both were ejected from the field.
It’s worth ntioning that this was the first ti Westbrook was ejected from a playoff ga in his career.
Although he’s known for his stoic deanor, his emotional control on the court has always been quite good.
The reason for his loss of control this ti wasn’t entirely due to Jones.
From his pre-ga confrontation with Stan, it was evident he wanted to win.
Even if he couldn’t win, he didn’t want to be humiliated again and again like Jas.
When he finally left the court, his expression appeared calm, but his inner rage and dissatisfaction had likely already boiled to an uncontrollable level.
After Westbrook left the field, Jas began to take control of the ball, scoring, rebounding, and assisting in everything.
Except the point difference remained the sa.
The situation changed in the second half because the point difference grew even larger.
In the end, despite so minor incidents, the Grizzlies still triumphed at ho court with a 103 to 88 victory, taking the series to a 2-0 lead.
Jas got a triple-double with 31 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists.
You can question any of Jas’ abilities, but you can never doubt his ability to rack up stats.
The League’s punishnt for the skirmish was identical to that of the previous finals, issuing fines but no suspensions.
Although the match was one-sided, it garnered the highest viewership ratings of the first round; Stern wouldn’t let money slip away.
The third ga of the series was set to take place in Oklahoma City.
Before departing, Coach Joerger spoke with Hansen about the incident with Randolph.
Because on many occasions on the court, it had been Hansen who cald Randolph’s emotions.
However, during their conversation, Hansen shared so of his thoughts.
He believed that Jas’ behavior wasn’t repetitive.
Given Jas’ character, he was the kind of person who would only resort to violence when pushed to the brink.
But this ti, his actions were sowhat linked to discussions on social dia about Nike’s lead endorser.
Since being called a softie didn’t match Nike’s brand image, he toughened up once to quiet the negative voices.
Of course, that was just one aspect.
On the other hand, Hansen believed that being significantly behind in points had also played a role.
It was a peculiar angle, but he had his reasons.
He had reviewed instances when Jas had conflicts with others, not all, but mostly when there was a large deficit in the score.
Or perhaps this wasn’t unique to Jas, many skirmishes occurred when one side was frantic to avoid losing.
Just as Coach Joerger had emphasized from the start, the Grizzlies had greater ambitions than to engage in tit-for-tat gas in the first round.
So, how to smoothly advance to the finals was their top priority.
After all, facing the Heat without a key player would truly leave them with slim chances of victory.
"Dave, do you know about Chinese cuisine?" Hansen suddenly asked an even stranger question at that mont.
Coach Joerger was completely baffled; they were discussing the ga, why did Hansen suddenly bring up food?
But it seed Hansen didn’t care whether Joerger knew or not and just went on to explain on his own.
"In our Chinese cuisine, there’s a very famous dish called ’braised pork belly.’"
Coach Joerger still didn’t understand what Hansen was getting at.
"Its cooking thod is simple, sumd up in eight words: ’simr gently over low heat, thicken sauce over high heat.’"
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