NBA Western Conference Finals: The match between Spear and Shield, seven major battles are inevitable

After a lot of hardships, the Oklahoma City Thunder finally defeated the Denver Nuggets. After many years, it finally entered the Western Conference Final again. It took nearly 10 years to go on this road. The last time the Thunder could reach the Western Conference championship was in 2016. Durant and Westbrook worked together to conquer the world for the team.

After that, Durant left the Thunder. Although there were many good players and even Hall of Fame players, such as Anthony, Paul, and George, who also played the best season of his career here, failed to bring the Thunder to this level. Now, SGA has done it. The whole team of the Thunder team has worked together. The Thunder has reached a new height in nearly 10 years. This road is really a bit long, but it was finally waited by Thunder fans.

As for the Thunder's opponent Timberwolves, it has quietly set a rare record in team history and in recent years. First of all, the team history. They have reached the Western Conference Finals for the first time since they founded in 1989. They have reached the Western Conference Finals for two consecutive years. Before that, they only reached the Western Conference Finals in 2004 last year, but now they have scored for two consecutive years. This Timberwolves led by Edwards is indeed worth looking forward to.

The Timberwolves also became the first Western Conference team to reach the Western Conference Finals for two consecutive years since the Golden State Warriors in 2019. Previously, the Golden State Warriors had reached the Western Conference Finals for five consecutive years from 2015 to 2019. It looks very simple, but no Western Conference team can do it since then. Even the Gold Nuggets, Warriors and Lakers who won the championship the year before cannot do it. Now, the Timberwolves have achieved such a result for two consecutive years, which is a great affirmation for them.

However, they lost to Doncic last year. This year they are ready to go. Unlike last year's second round of last year, they have dealt with the Golden State Warriors early and retain a lot of physical strength to see if they can avenge their previous shame this season.

Let's talk about defense first. In fact, like the Thunder, they are one of the best teams in the league in defense. Judging from the opponent's scoring, the Thunder ranks first in the West. Their defense against Jokic in the last game of the last game of the last series is impressive, and in fact, from the advanced defensive data, the Thunder is the best in the entire league.

The Timberwolves ranked third in the Western Conference in the regular season, and both teams ranked in the top five in the league. Although the scores of the two teams in the last two games of the regular season are quite high, considering that this is the playoffs, the defense will be stronger, so I personally prefer that this series of competitions will still be defense.

To limit the Timberwolves, the most important thing is how to defend Edwards. The biggest difference this year from last year is that he has greatly increased his shooting ratio outside the three-point line. In the regular season alone, his three-point line shots reached 10.3 times, and the average three-point shots per game were 4 times faster than last year. However, he did not make excessive investments and randomly increase his shooting outside. His shooting percentage not only did not decline due to the excessive shooting, but increased a lot, from 0.357 last year to almost 40%.

In fact, Edwards' three-point shooting has been quite good in recent years. Last year, his three-point shooting percentage in the entire playoffs was 40%. The difference between them in the playoffs when they lost to the Mavericks was within one three-pointer. As long as he scored a few more, the entire series will be different, so he will be more difficult to deal with this year than last year.

Of course, the Thunder is expected to send Dort and Caruso to greet Edwards in large quantities, and the regular season Thunder restricted him to a good limit. The four games made his average score less than 5 points from the whole season, and there was also a significant gap in shooting and three-point shooting percentage. The Thunder, both defensive players, are very excellent perimeter defenders, and it is worth observing how much their limit on Edwards can be achieved this time.

The important reason why the Timberwolves lived so easily in the last round was that Randall scored brilliantly, and he scored an average of 25 points in the series against the Warriors, which was really important to the team. However, partly because Randall can play so well against the Warriors is that the opponent's penalty area is not strong enough, and he can sometimes achieve good results when he can play at the basket, but the Thunder's penalty area has Homegren and Haltenstein. The former also has a huge frame protection function. In addition, Randall's shooting outside the three-point line is still not very effective, less than 30%. Therefore, whether Randall can play such a great influence in this series is worth paying attention to.

And in the Thunder's offense, SGA is expected to still play MVP-level offensive skills. He averaged 35 points against the Timberwolves in the season, and his shooting percentage exceeded 50%. However, there are still many wing players on the Timberwolves who can take turns to play against him, while second-in-command scorer Javi has a fluctuating performance in the playoffs, so other people must jump out besides these two.

Homgren may have to be a person who makes a difference, especially if he can pull the offensive range beyond the three-point line, he will be able to lead Gobert further away from the penalty area, and his teammates will have more room to enter the penalty area, and even press Gobert on the bench for a long time. Therefore, Homgren's offensive performance is a point worth paying attention to in this series. The most important thing for modern centers is to "defense" and "open space" for teammates when attacking. He happens to be his good at it. Therefore, I think Homgren is undoubtedly the biggest key to whether this series of Thunder can advance.

One of the big advantages of both teams is that the bench depth of both teams is quite good. Both teams have 7 players in the playoffs and more than 20 minutes. The Timberwolves even have 8 players for more than 18 minutes. This means that the Timberwolves' bench can create rest time for the Timberwolves' starters. Therefore, the Thunder's opponents will not use the starting lineup to support more than 90% of the entire game like the Nuggets in the last round. They will have more physical strength to face them. This is what the Thunder need to pay attention to..

And the same Thunder's bench is one of their major advantages. Both Caruso and Wallace play a huge role in the game, especially the former's defense, which will probably cause a lot of trouble to the Timberwolves' offense; and Jewish and Wiggins are all able to gain breathing space for the main players, and I believe the battle between the two teams will be quite fierce this time.

In short, this is a very impressive Western Conference Finals. Both teams have more than one star player who can score a lot of points offense, and they also have a defensive defensive player who can defend. The team's defense is also first-class, and the substitute level is also quite high. In the end, it may be that they are competing for who has fewer mistakes and the team's three-point shooting percentage. However, the Timberwolves have been taking a good break for a week. On the other hand, it will be a little more tiring to enter the Western Conference championship game the next day after the Thunder played the gold nuggets. Therefore, at the beginning of the series, whether the Timberwolves can play the Thunder in one fell swoop is not stable. It is worth paying attention to whether it is not stable.

If the Timberwolves enter the championship battle, it will be the first time in the team's history, but the Thunder has not entered the championship battle for a long time. I think the Thunder, who won 68 times in the season, has 19 more results than the Timberwolves, and their lineup is more complete and has fewer flaws. Therefore, I think the Thunder will qualify after a hard battle and play 7 games in the game.