The Basketball Court Swordsman

The All-Star Weekend is naturally a double feast for fans and players, and the fierce regular season battle will be interrupted this weekend. Both fans and players will enjoy basketball happily and enjoy the basketball feast brought to the world by this highly commercialized league.

After the All-Star Game is over, the players have no time to breathe, and immediately they will continue to fight in the regular season.

As usual, after the All-Star Game, there are usually some small-scale transactions in the league, and each team will change the configuration of the team in order to strengthen the lineup and impact the playoffs.

Henson and his Pacers did not participate in the lineup transformation, because the current situation of the team still makes Henson very satisfied. If you can’t trade for a superstar, you’d rather stand still.

However, this season is still stunned by an Eastern Conference team that got an absolute superstar in the middle of the season. That is Carmelo Anthony, who has finally settled since the trouble last summer!

Immediately after the All-Star break, the Nuggets reached a deal with the New York Knicks, who had lost patience.

This means that the New York Knicks, which is only supported by Stoudemire alone, instantly formed a trio of Anthony, Stoudemire and Billups.

Although in Henson’s view, this lineup is called the “Big Three” by the media a bit far-fetched, after all, Billups is no longer a giant.

But one thing Henson must admit is that Anthony joining New York is likely to change the pattern of the East. From now on, there will be a terrifying and powerful opponent in the east.

It seems that the difficulty of the playoffs has taken a step further.

If the Pacers don’t want to be eliminated in the first round, they must climb up the leaderboard as much as possible.

Because if you fall to the sixth, seventh, and eighth place, then the first round of the playoffs will have a high probability of playing against one of the Bulls, Celtics and Heat.

For Henson, he certainly didn’t want to meet such a strong opponent in the first round.

But what if you want to rush up? There are also difficulties. From the regular season until now, the Bulls and Heat’s winning percentage has gradually become stable, and the Celtics have been in the first group since the beginning of the season.

Unless one of these three teams is injured or something major changes occur, otherwise in the next two months, their results will hardly be Waterloo.

It is not impossible to rush to second or third in the east, but it is very difficult. Henson didn’t want the players to be exhausted because of the regular season, but went home in the playoffs.

He hopes the team can practice more in the playoffs and play more games, even if it’s just one more round.

Henson knows very well that the playoffs are the perfect place to train players. Young people who have played in the playoffs and young people who have not played in the playoffs are often very different.

So Henson’s plan is to stabilize the fourth or fifth in the East as much as possible, so that the first round of the game does not have to face too strong opponents, and does not consume too much energy.

Then, Henson needs to find a way to get rid of the fifth or fourth place that is similar to the Pacers. From the current point of view, there are two teams most likely to become the opponents of the Pacers in the first round, that is, the Magic and the Knicks!

Magic has Howard and has experience in the finals. The Knicks have superstars and strong personal abilities. These two teams are strong enough, but in front of the Pacers, they are not overwhelming. Therefore, Henson thinks the Pacers can try to hit the second round.

That’s right, hit the second round. Although Bird’s task for himself this season is only the playoffs, after all, the Pacers have not touched the threshold of the playoffs for four years. But Henson would not ask himself like this, he always did better than others asked.

I believe that this kind of first-round match is better than letting players play more than a dozen regular season games.

Henson told the players his goal, and the players are also eager to try, hoping to play a blockbuster season.

Before the start of the season, everyone thought that Henson would not be able to make the Pacers into the playoffs, but now they are heading towards the Eastern Conference semifinals.

In the remaining four games in February, the Pacers were 2 wins and 2 losses, and their performance remained solid. Among them, he lost to the sun, but he was killed by Lao Lao Nash with one stone.

“Losing is also divided into many ways. Being slaughtered and fighting to a lore are two completely different ways of losing. Although the Pacers lost to the Suns, their performance is commendable. Get ready, this youth army Will disrupt the situation in the east like the Oklahoma City Thunder!”

Mike Brin said after the game with the Suns.

Now, more and more people are starting to compare the Thunder and the Pacers. Because both teams are very young, and both have disrupted the existing rankings in their respective divisions.

Coincidentally, the Oklahoma City Thunder is now fourth in the Western Conference. The Pacers and Oklahoma City have been considered the two most promising teams in the league.

“Who knows? Maybe in four or five years, we will see the Pacers and the Thunder meet in the finals.”

This is the famous NBA commentator Marf Albert’s evaluation of the Pacers and the Thunder.

Henson is not even thinking about whether the Pacers are the Eastern Thunder or the Thunder are the Western Pacers.

After the time entered March, the war became more tense. Every team is crazy, hoping to change the ranking at the last minute.

In the first game in March, the Pacers extinguished the arrogant fireworks of the Warriors, Monta Ellis was no longer magical, and the Pacers won easily.

But then facing three Western teams, the Thunder, Mavericks and Rockets, the Pacers suffered a three-game losing streak!

If the loss to the Thunder and the Mavericks is somewhat acceptable to Henson, the team’s inexplicable loss to the Rockets makes Henson intolerable.

One theory is that after the game, Coach Henson Joe was furious in the locker room, so he smashed a locker in the changing room of the Toyota Center.

The evidence is that people discovered that Coach Henson was wearing a bandage on his right hand when he came out of the Toyota Center, and several workers entered the locker room to repair something at that time.

After this incident was exposed, the Pacers were pushed to the forefront.

The generals are at odds, this is news that all fans love to hear.

“If getting angry is useful, George Carr’s Nuggets are the league champions!” After hearing about this, Barkley couldn’t help taking George Carr as an example and sarcastically sarcastically made Henson.

However, it turns out that sometimes getting angry is really useful.

After losing to the Rockets, the Pacers immediately dismembered the 76ers at home by 10 points. Al Horford was unstoppable in the low post today. He made 11 of 14 shots and scored a game-high 26 points over the 76ers white center Hawes!

In this game, Henson deliberately let Horford hit Hawes in the low post.

“Today, I need you to play like before! Play like a traditional center!” Henson’s words were remembered by Horford from beginning to end. It turns out that if you listen to Coach Henson, you have good statistics.

Just one day later, the Pacers were in the icy Minnesota, with a brutal score of 101 to 75, slaughtering the Timberwolves, who had lost 50 games this season.

“This is really a brutal massacre! The blood of the Timberwolves almost melted the ice of Minnesota! We can see that Coach Henson is very angry, and the Pacers are very angry! At this time, it is better not to provoke them!” Mike Brin sighed, and the Pacers scored in double figures with 7 players, playing almost every way.

It seems that coach Henson’s punch in the locker room was not in vain.

On March 11, the Pacers won again, this time it was the Toronto Raptors.

Granger and Horford each scored 25 points, demonstrating their role as all-star players in the Eastern Conference. The Raptors could hardly resist the entire game. The reason they lost only 12 points was because Henson had replaced all the main players early.

Henson’s punch gave the Pacers a three-game winning streak. This allowed the Pacers to score 39 wins and 23 losses at a time of crisis, ranking fifth in the East. And from the fourth place Orlando Magic, only two wins away!

However, after a wave of three-game winning streak, the Pacers still did not get rid of the situation of being cheered by Barkley.

“Do you know why the Pacers have won three consecutive victories recently? Because the three opponents they face are too weak! Believe me, the next game against the New York Knicks, coach Henson’s Pacers will be revealed. !”

It’s not just Barkley, many people think so. This includes Carmelo Anthony, the super scorer who just transferred to the Knicks.

“We will win, don’t forget that the Knicks are now climbing to a higher ranking. The Indiana Pacers can’t stop me, they can’t stop the Knicks!”

This superstar, who has just transferred to New York, smiles extremely confidently in front of the camera.