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Durant didn't expect Wang Chong's shot to be so sharp and clean. After the ball was rejected, he was stunned for a moment and didn't react immediately.Durant was stunned, but Wang Chong was not. After completing the block, he immediately ran forward, picked up the basketball rolling on the floor, and sprinted directly to the Celtics' defensive zone at full speed.
His long legs were so fast that the Celtics players could only chase him desperately, and then they saw Wang Chong score a dunk right in front of their eyes.
Wang Chong immediately slapped Durant, which led to an explosion of cheers from the local Bulls fans.
Wang Chong against Durant, the clash between the main players of the two teams, this was the storyline that everyone wanted to see, especially because their own star, Wang Chong, had the upper hand from the start and gave Durant a great blow. It couldn't have been more perfect.
4:0.
The Celtics attacked and Rondo handed the ball back to Durant.
It was normal for the offense to fail once or twice. The Green Army was still waiting to see Durant compete with Wang Chong on the court.
In this attack, Durant was obviously much more cautious. After all, he had learned a lesson from each experience. After the painful lesson just now, he understood that frontal toughness was almost the same as his height, wingspan, and athletic ability. Wang Chong was even better than him. Going head-to-head with him wasn't a good choice.
But that didn't mean he couldn't score in front of Wang Chong. There were many ways to score offensively, including mid-range shooting, and he could also use fakes, jump shots, etc., to avoid the opponent's blocks.
Especially the fadeaway, which is the move that most shooters rely on. Even if you're facing an opponent taller than you with better rebounding, as long as you have a slight backward angle in your shot, it will be hard for the opponent to block your shot.
Durant did just that.
First, he called for a pick-and-roll from his teammates and used Millsap's screen to move to a mid-range position in front of the basket. Then he leaned against Wang Chong, backing up to the basket. Wang Chong, using his shoulders, applied pressure and used the rebound force to turn and lean backward.
The result of this move was actually good. After he released the ball, it passed Wang Chong's blocking palm and flew directly toward the basket, but... "Bang!" The ball hit the rim and missed. Sol, who was standing under the basket, immediately grabbed the defensive rebound.
While it's hard to defend when leaning backward, it also presents a high level of difficulty. After all, it's extremely hard to apply force when leaning backward in mid-air, which requires extremely strong core strength from the player.
Of course, Durant's backing technique wasn't an issue, but even if Wang Chong didn't directly block the shot during the process, the pressure from the defense had considerable interference on him. Also, Wang Chong now had multiple defensive badges, including badges for dealing with such attacks.
Defensive Stun, when a player with this badge interferes with an opponent's shot, it can reduce the opponent's shooting percentage.
This is definitely a versatile badge on the defensive side. The only downside is that Wang Chong's badge is at a relatively low level. When it was first activated, it was only at the lowest bronze level. With his outstanding performance on the defensive side, Wang Chong completed the upgrade conditions for the badge and successfully upgraded it to silver before, so the effect on the court is quite good.
Durant chose a difficult fadeaway shot, which hit the wall of defensive shock. It wasn't that it was completely impossible for him to score in this situation, but his shot speed was still seriously affected.
Durant missed three consecutive attacks, and Wang Chong was back again for the Bulls.
Still using the same simple moves as Durant, Wang Chong even went on to kill. He took the ball to the same spot Durant had earlier, used the same moves, and shot over his back.
Unlike Durant's shot, Wang Chong's shot smoothly went through the net, scoring another 2 points.
6:0!
The Celtics' head coach, Doc Rivers, couldn't stay still and decided to call a timeout to adjust.
After the timeout, the Celtics changed their offensive focus, and Durant no longer continued attacking with the ball. Instead, he served as a decoy in the fake attack, drawing Wang Chong to the weak side, while letting Pierce take over the task of attacking Billups individually.
Although Billups was successfully selected for the All-Defensive team this season, the size difference made it difficult for him to cope when facing Pierce. Pierce drove the ball to the basket and scored a layup with a low scoop.
6:2.
The Green Army finally scored, but before the whole team had time to sigh in relief, the Bulls' offense came right back.
The pick-and-roll collaboration between Wang Chong and Curry had been highly effective during the regular season. Curry averaged over 20 points per game during his rookie season, which was inseparable from the pick-and-roll cooperation between the two.
The offensive coordination was the same this time. With the help of the pick-and-roll, Wang Chong successfully attracted the attention of Durant and Rondo, then passed the ball to Curry, who had stepped back beyond the three-point line.
Curry raised his hand and dropped the knife, hitting a firm three-pointer.
9:2!
In the first quarter of the game, both teams focused on offense, and Wang Chong, filled with firepower, completely suppressed Durant on the court while scoring on the offensive end and also locking down Durant defensively.
As a result, by the end of the first quarter, the Bulls led the Celtics by 7 points, 34-27. At the same time, Wang Chong had hit 5 of 8 shots in a single quarter, 1 of 3 from three, and 2 of 2 free throws, scoring 13 points in just one quarter. His personal performance also completely shut down Durant, who only scored 5 points and grabbed 2 rebounds.
In the second quarter of the game, the Celtics realized that it was a very wrong decision to let Durant go head-to-head with Wang Chong. They started changing their tactical thinking and began working on the interior offense.
Currently, the player responsible for guarding the Green Army's power forward, Millsap, was just a forward, Danny Green, and his flaws were quite evident.
When the Celtics started strengthening their interior offense in the second quarter, their offensive performance began to improve. Millsap, in particular, frequently used his physical advantage in the post to beat Green, scoring 11 points on 6 of 6 shooting in just one quarter.
But even so, the Celtics and Bulls ended up tied 30-30 in the second quarter, with no significant offensive advantage.
At halftime, the Celtics realized a very serious problem, namely that their defensive ability couldn't limit the Bulls' offensive scoring, and even more so with Wang Chong. The Bulls' Curry outside was better than expected, and it was difficult for Lupus and the others to handle.
Even the paint, which was originally thought to have an advantage, ended up being less advantageous than imagined after the game.
Gasol generally didn't play a strong role in the Bulls' offensive tactics, but against a center like Al Jefferson, who was short and didn't have an advantage in size, his offensive skills in the paint were also quite threatening.
Of course, the most critical issue was Durant's performance.
No one, including head coach Rivers, expected Wang Chong to dominate Durant in this manner.
In the league, one-on-one star matchups weren't rare, including O'Neal vs. Olajuwon, Kobe vs. Iverson, Duncan vs. Garnett—these were all one-on-one duels.
When both sides were at their peak, the best they could do was destroy each other. It was hard for one side to completely defeat the other.
The reason was simple. Compared to offense, defense itself has delay and passivity. Even the strongest defensive player can hardly stop the strongest offensive player completely.
Including Wang Chong and James, a pair of rivals that many league fans consider rivals. Even though Wang Chong had more absolute victories, if you look at their performances, James was not inferior to Wang Chong, and it could even be said to be a tie.
But Durant's encounter with Wang Chong was an exception.
It wasn't that Durant was too weak now and Wang Chong could defeat him at will.
In the third season of his career, Durant's current skill evaluation level definitely surpassed 90. Wang Chong's visual evaluation was at least above 92, and even 94 wouldn't be an exaggeration.
In fact, at this level, since Wang Chong still hadn't reached his maximum defensive value, it was hard to block Durant completely.
But the unfortunate thing for Durant was that when Wang Chong first entered the league, Durant was the model for his growth.
This made Wang Chong so familiar with Durant that when they met face-to-face, he even had a strong feeling of looking into a mirror.
Every time Durant made a move, Wang Chong would involuntarily and subconsciously think of the next move and method of attack the opponent would make. With the psychological expectation beforehand, his defensive reaction would naturally be better than usual.
Just this small gap was enough to make Durant doubt his life.
At the end of the game's first half, Durant was completely stunned.
He couldn't understand what was happening, but every time Wang Chong defended him, he would always end up in the most uncomfortable position at the most perfect moment.
It wasn't that he hadn't played against Wang Chong before. Both teams were from the Eastern Conference, and the Celtics played against the Bulls four times each season. The Celtics had also been eliminated by the Bulls in the playoffs.
But before this game, Durant had never felt so embarrassed and lost when facing Wang Chong.
"Is it because I'm not in good condition today and my hand feels off? Is that why it's like this?"
Durant couldn't understand and could only explain it by this reason.
Of course, he didn't know that his previous level wasn't good enough to deserve Wang Chong's serious defense.
But now it was different. On one hand, Durant, who averaged more than 30 points per game during the regular season, was the Celtics' strongest in terms of personal ability and was more threatening than Pierce.
On the other hand, without Garnett, the Bulls' journey to the playoffs wasn't as stable. Wang Chong, of course, relied on his ability to lead the team to defeat the Celtics, but whether they faced the Magic or the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals, the winner of that game or the final against the Lakers would be a tough battle.
To face the Eastern Conference Finals and the Finals in the best competitive state, it would be better for the first two rounds to be played as quickly as the autumn wind sweeping the fallen leaves, giving the Bulls more rest and preparation time.
Therefore, Wang Chong had no intention of sparing Durant's feelings and the Celtics' image. He would do everything he could from the beginning to defeat the opponent in the shortest time, preferably a 4:0 sweep, so that the team could wait and work, awaiting the winner of the deadly battle between the Magic and the Cavaliers.
In the second half of the game, Durant tried various methods to score under Wang Chong's defense, but without exception, all of them were resolved by Wang Chong.
Wang Chong was very familiar with Durant and knew all the moves that he was good at.
The final result was that Durant hit only 5 of 14 shots in the entire game, with a shooting percentage of only 35.7%. He scored 12 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 turnovers, and was completely defeated by Wang Chong.
Wang Chong, on the other hand, was full of firepower. He scored 41 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, and dished out 6 assists, shooting 58% from the field, leading the Bulls to defeat the Celtics 106-92 and secure the first win of the series.
The outcome of this game was unexpected for many before the game.
It was thought that the highlight of the matchup between the Bulls and Celtics would be the offensive battle between the two top scorers, Wang Chong and Durant.
Unexpectedly, in the first game, Wang Chong defeated Durant with his absolute strength and used his real performance to tell the whole league that Durant was still far behind if he wanted to be compared to him.
After the game, Durant had a somber face and remained silent in the post-game press conference.
It was obvious that he wasn't convinced. Although he didn't understand why Wang Chong had been so defensive until the end of the game, his arrogance as a superior player wouldn't allow Durant to admit defeat easily.
On May 4, in the second game of the series, Durant, who was unwilling to admit defeat, once again challenged Wang Chong on the court, but this time there was no obvious difference compared to the previous game.
Durant hit 5 of 17 shots in the game and his shooting percentage fell below 30%. However, in this game, he increased his ball handling and hit 7 of 8 free throws, scoring 17 points, which was a little better than the previous game. But in front of Wang Chong, who scored 36 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists, he was still destined to be ruthlessly defeated.
Durant stretched his hips in two consecutive games and was suppressed by Wang Chong throughout, leading to the Celtics losing two straight games, with the score reaching 2:0.
"Obviously, although the series isn't over, the duel between Wang Chong and Durant has already been decided."
"Durant is really talented. He is the best scorer in the league after Wang Chong, and his future growth is unlimited. But now he is still a little behind Wang Chong, especially in one-on-one duels. Weaknesses such as lack of The experience, unstable offense and slight lack of physical strength are points that need to be improved one by one in the future."
"We are looking forward to Durant being able to compete with Wang Chong on the scoring list in a few years, but for now, this league obviously still belongs to Wang Chong."
In the next game back in Boston, the Celtics' home court, the Celtics, who had home court advantage, were unable to regain their momentum. Instead, they were defeated by the Bulls in two consecutive games and were swept 4: 0.
The Bulls defeated the Celtics 4:0, becoming the first team to decide the winner in the second round of the playoffs, and the only team that has been determined to sweep their opponents, because the remaining three sets of matchups, both already won. and lost, and there is no chance of a second team appearing 4:0.
End of this chapter
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