Westbrook returns to Oklahoma with a full base salary! Can it stop the old boss from moving forward?

When the Denver Nuggets massacred the Clippers 120-101 in the tiebreak, the Oklahoma City Thunder's video analysis room was playing the video of Jokic chewing gum and sending his eighth assist - the three-time MVP led the team to victory with a 16-point, 10 rebounds and 8 assists. In fact, I had already had a break in the third quarter of the game because of five fouls, but at that time the Nuggets were already more than 20 points ahead of the Clippers. Even without having a teacher, the Nuggets did not give the Clippers a chance to breathe. The Clippers, who were sitting on Leonard and Harden, had to watch the time pass and watch the balls come out one by one, and the Clippers finally fell down from the Nuggets' subordinates.

And there is still an older "teenager" running tirelessly on the court, that is Westbrook, who is playing as a substitute with a basic salary of 3.3 million yuan. This former regular season MVP player has now found another spring in the Nuggets. Perhaps the outside world will criticize his immaturity, his shooting, and even his mistakes, but no one will question his persistence and love for basketball. He is very serious every minute of the field. Whether it is his personal 21 points on Tianwang Mountain or his 5 steals in the tiebreak final, it is Westbrook's best reward for the Nuggets.

And their opponent next is the first in the regular season league, sweeping the Grizzlies in the first round. It has been a while since the tragedy of 51 points in a single game, but it is just a microcosm of the Thunder's strength. Alexander, the most valuable player in the regular season this season, cooperates with the no-fly zone built by insider Homgren (restricting the opponent's shooting percentage to 47.3%), to the extreme dominance of the Thunder's offense and defense. What is even more terrifying is Jaylen Williams - this sophomore turned into a cold-blooded killer with a mid-range hit rate of 53.8%, and the terrifying efficiency of plus-minus value +18.3 in the first round shows the evolution of the Thunder's "second engine".

The two-part game, and the Nuggets is naturally Jokic, and his existence itself is the concreteization of basketball philosophy. The first round of 30.5% assist rate conversion rate was the first in the league, creating 12.3 points of derivative value every 36 minutes through cover, weaving the Nuggets' offensive system into a precision neural network. But this art will face the ultimate test before the Thunder's dynamic defensive network - Holmgren's 2.29-meter wingspan can interfere with his high-level vision, and coupled with Hartenstein's prediction ability to average 4 steals per game in the first round, he may be able to accurately intercept Gordon's ghost's empty cut. Alexander on the thunder side represents another kind of aesthetic violence. His ability to average 6.8 breakthroughs per game in the first round is exactly the weakness of the Nuggets' outside defense. Whether it is Murray, Westbrook, Porter, or Braun, it is difficult for him to pose a threat to the SGA. What's even more fatal is his "double-star misalignment" with Jaylen Williams - when the Nuggets double-team Alexander, the latter's mid-range shooting percentage of 53.8% in the first round will become the second sharp knife to pierce the defense line. This closed loop of offense and defense ecosystem is exactly the essence of the Thunder's team building logic: they can not only set up a double tower lineup to strangle the inside, but also switch to five small lineups to sweep the battlefield with 19.8-point fast break scores.

In addition, the Thunder, who has been resting for 9 days, is waiting for work, while the Nuggets have only one day to fly to Oklahoma City. The home advantage brought by the 68-win league first record and the firepower reserve averaged 35 points per game on the bench may make the Nuggets give up their first game directly.

The Nuggets' victory or defeat is dependent on Murray's "playoff gene". If Jokic protects the Nuggets' lower limit, if you want to break through the series, you must rely on Murray's extraordinary performance in more games. He averaged 21 points, 7 rebounds and 8 assists in the first round, and scored 43 points in G5 to save the team, but his 38.2% shooting percentage exposed his fluctuations in form. If he cannot maintain his efficiency in the death entanglement of Thunder Dorte and Caruso, no matter how exquisite Jokic passes are, he will lose his fulcrum. The fate of the plateau legion at this moment is just like Westbrook's bloody elbow guard - carrying the old general's loneliness and reflecting the dynasty's dusk.