On the morning of May 3, Beijing time, Warriors will face the Lakers at home and start the semi-final tour in the West. Five years later, Stephen Curry’s playoff game against LeBlanc James came back, but this time he arrived in the semi-finals in advance.

In the regular season, the two sides played 4 times, and the Lakers won 3 and lost 1. However, due to the excessive impact of injuries and mid-term transactions on the starting line-up of both parties, the reference of these four exchanges is of little significance.

There are many key points in this round of series, such as the competition of core players, the counterpoint problem between the two sides, the large lineup or the small-sized lineup. Overall, or Anthony Davis’s offensive and defensive performance is more decisive. His play of this point is directly related to whether the Lakers can maximize their advantages and weaken the greatest advantages of warriors.

The Lakers’ counterpoint problem

The playoff game is aimed at, and everything has to start from the opposite position. In the competition of the starting line-up, the Lakers are more troublesome in the opposite position. The trouble mainly focuses on De Angelo Russell.

Referring to the counterpoint method of the last round of Lakers, Vanderbilt is likely to go to the counterpoint Library, try to use his athletic ability to chase and defend, and use his height and arm to interfere with the library. Austin Reeves is suitable for chasing Thompson. He did a good job in chasing Bain in the last round. Davies counterposition Lugny, James counterposition Raymond Green, release Green’s defense at any time. This means that Russell of 1 meter 93 can only go to Wikins of 2 meter 01. Wikins’ athletic ability is top, and there is also a good low-level attack. Wikins’ who clock out at an average of 18 points may overcomplete the task.

In general, if the team wants to hide defensive weaknesses, it only needs to let him go to the relatively bad point of attacking the opponent. In the last round, the Lakers hid Russell in Dillon Brooks, dillon did not pose enough threats to the Lakers. But it’s hard for the Lakers to hide Russell this round. Vanderbilt can defend Wikins, but Russell can’t catch Curry. There is a height gap between the defense Thompson and Wikins. The defense Green and Luni are afraid that they will be “named” by Warriors 1-4 and 1-5.

In fact, Schroeder on the bench is the most suitable candidate for the Lakers to catch up with curry, but Schroeder’s attack level in the first round of the playoffs was extremely poor, with only 36 percent of the field goal percentage. In addition, Russell’s position is there, and he has just experienced the outbreak of the 6th game of the grizzly bear. Ham will not adjust the starting line.

The Lakers will face the most horrible starting five-player group in the league. The Splash Brothers, Wikins, green and Luni are present at the same time. The regular season Warriors scored 145 points in 331 minutes, the playoff game played the king’s 67-minute net win of 44 points. The opening counterpoint problem may make the Lakers dig holes early.

How will James fight?

In the first round of the playoffs, James played the grizzly bear. His form was very different from that in the past, and the proportion of no ball soared. James’s 100-round singles, low-level attacks, and block splits are all the lowest in his career, especially block splits. In the 2021 playoffs, he had 8.9 block splits in the 100-round, and 6.9 times in the regular season this season, but the first round dropped to 3.2 times.

James’s change, green noticed: “This year James played no ball more than at any time in his career, I will applaud him. It is very difficult for a star like James to complete this transformation, but he did it, which can help the Lakers, which allows others to make more contributions.”

Green’s words explained another layer of help that James brought to the Lakers by playing more without the ball. The Lakers could play more with the ball. Russell and rives might bring more threats to the warrior’s defense line, schroder and eight villages on the bench can also do it.

The Warriors will definitely let Wikins defend James at the beginning. His resume of defending James in recent years is good. Green will fight against Vanderbilt, and empty Vanderbilt in large quantities like little Jaron Jackson, and do a good job of defending under the basket. At that time, how will James play is curious. Will he increase the proportion of the ball attack? Can he recover from the last round of iron to the sky? When hitting a grizzly bear, James seldom called “Roll Call”. When he meets a warrior, will he hit the reverse block to remove “roll call” curry and Poole?

How to limit the maximum advantage of the other party

The advantage point of the Lakers is Davis, and the advantage point of the Warriors is curry. The trend of the series depends to a large extent on whether the defense system supported by Davis can suppress Curry and how Curry can break the Lakers defense system.

How to defend Curry is the biggest headache for the Lakers. Curry’s ball-free attack has made the Lakers headache enough. He can also hold the ball and split it, scoring up to 1.2 points per round in the playoffs. In the current configuration of the Lakers, unless it is in the final stage, the Lakers are unlikely to directly relieve a garrison when the library is removed. Davis will still give consideration to inner and outer line as much as possible.

The challenge Davis faced was that he could not shrink too much as he did when hitting the grizzly bear. Ham was more likely to arrange Davis’s big delay and even force Curry to pass the ball bag clip in advance, then, the defense is replaced by subsequent rotation. At this time, the Lakers need to pay special attention to Thompson’s no-ball cover match tactics with his teammates. When Curry plays without a ball, the Lakers need to do a good job in relieve a garrison, which James’s team has done well and learned a lot in recent years. The Lakers also need to pay special attention to anti-Counterattack. The Lakers have suffered losses before playing the grizzly bear.

What Warriors have to worry about is not only how to break Davis’s defense line, but also how to limit Davis. In March, Davis once scored 39 points in the face of warriors. He had the ability to beat Looney and green, and Davis, who had the ability to defend the center, was completely different from Sabonis.

Davis played against the Warriors 4 times in the regular season. Although he broke out once, he made 9 shots against Green 19 in 4 games, with a hit rate of 47.4%. Davis made 14 of 32 shots in the face of Looney, with a hit rate of only 43.8 percent. From the video of four matches, when Davis floated in the middle distance against the defense, its efficiency was not high. But when Davis rushed up and attacked the basket, or hit the basket through the combination of blocking and dismantling, Lu NI and Green did not have much to do with him.

In addition, in this round of series, if Davis successfully achieved single point blasting, he would definitely be attacked by Lugny and green. Vanderbilt’s air cut and three-point response, the performance of the Lakers’s outside shooters is crucial. The Warriors themselves are a team that prefers to shrink and test the three-point feel of their opponents. If the Lakers continue to cast 31% of the three-point stars, it may be difficult to attack the basket efficiently.

The game between large lineup and small-sized lineup

Although the first five tigers of the Warriors are strong, the time for them to be present at the same time is only 11.2 minutes. Considering the factors of space and physical strength, both Luni and Greenfield are present at the same time for only 15.1 minutes, which means that Warriors play five small games in more than 30 minutes each game (Green plays Center) or one senior or four junior (Luni plays Center).

The king was dragged into the rhythm of the Warriors in Game 6 and Game 7, using a large number of small-sized lineups. As a result, the Warriors were “blasted” in Game 7, and Luoni took 10 offensive rebounds alone.

The Lakers should avoid repeating the King’s mistakes and not be dragged into the rhythm of warriors. Moreover, the sixth game with the grizzly bear has provided the Lakers with a model. After the Lakers gave up the rotation time to let James and eight villages take three defenders, they changed to James, eight villages, and Gabriel with two defenders. During the rotation time, the Lakers need to continue to maintain the advantage of body shape. Gabriel must use it. Little Troy-Brown can use it properly. Malik-Beasley uses it less or not. When the Warriors play a small squad, the Lakers’ second attack will be a sharp weapon. In the series with the King, the Warriors lost 17.3 points in the second attack, ranking third, which was the same as the grizzly bear.

The X Factor of the Warriors small-sized lineup will be cumingar and Poole. Cumingar played very little in the last round of series, but this round of cumingar will have a place to play, he had a successful experience of playing against James in the regular season. His athletic ability and height can help Warriors Protect rebounds during rotation time. However, it still needs to be observed how kuminga will affect the space of warriors.

Poole played only 22.9 minutes in the first round of the playoffs. It was not reused purely because it could not be prevented. The attack was too inefficient. The average score was 12 points, and the field goal percentage was only 33.8%, the three-point hit rate is only 25.7%. Poole didn’t fire at this point. The Warrior’s three-guard + Wikins + one inner line’s small-sized lineup lost its lethality sharply, and the warrior urgently needed his rebound.

Judging from The public opinion reaction before The game, most of them are optimistic about warriors. The scouts, coaches, executives and ESPN expert groups invited by The Athletic are generally optimistic about warriors. Although the Lakers were not optimistic, they did not have to play. Prediction itself is a reasonable speculation on the future based on the past situation, but after all, the game is played by players, and the situation is constantly changing. Who will win the prize, still unknown.