Vol 3 Chapter 702: Passed through 2019

"Super Heavy Artillery (
After the Christmas War is over, 2019 is basically over. The Thunder have two games left in this year. One game against the Hornets, one game against the Raptors, both games are away.
In the game against the Hornets, perhaps it was decided that Anluo and others had consumed too much physical strength in the Christmas War, and Donovan directly took half of the main lineup in rotation. For this reason, the Thunder also received a warning from the league official after the game.
Adam Xiao Hua really hates to let the main players not play for no reason. However, this trend has been repeatedly banned in the Alliance. Those coaches always have a variety of reasons to let the players rest.
Such things mainly focus on the two teams. One type is championship-oriented teams like the Thunder and the Clippers. For them, entering the playoffs is very easy. Rotations can not only reduce the burden on the core players, but also avoid injuries. The other is that teams like the Warriors are basically hopeless this season. Just let some of the main players take a good rest. By the way, they can also fight for a better draft pick and get high-quality rookies or bargaining chips.
But this kind of thing is not conducive to the operation of the entire league and will damage the impression of the league in the hearts of fans to a certain extent. Therefore, in the past two seasons, league officials have begun to severely punish such incidents.
However, the results are very mediocre.
Without the Thunder of An Luo and Westbrook, the combat effectiveness has indeed dropped a lot. Therefore, facing the third-lowest Hornets in the East, they played quite hard.
Alexander and Ferguson replaced Westbrook and Anlo into the starting lineup. This is the first time Donovan has tried to make Alexander play the number one position. Prior to this, he had always scored the number two position. The Thunder management and Donovan are very optimistic about this young man's future, and even An Luo will give him a "give" position.
Alexander is indeed worthy of the Thunder's energy to cultivate. So far, this second-year rookie has averaged 14 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists per game. Although it is still a bit worse than Doncic and Trey Young in the same session, Alexander was included in this season. Within the scope of the discussion of the best sixth person.
If this state is maintained, Alexander's average stats should improve at the end of the season. By that time, Alexander will become the third Oklahoma City Thunder after Harden and Anlow to win the "Best Sixth Man" player.
This should also be a tradition of Thunder! Both Harden and Anlow won the best sixth man awards during their rookie contract, and both grew up and became a shining star in the league.
Alexander's performance was good enough before, but this game is truly a fame.
The Thunder and the Hornets fought for 53 minutes at the Spectrum Center Arena. The two sides have been in a stalemate. At the end of the regular time, the Thunder had a chance to kill the game. But a mistake by Alexander gave the opponent a chance. Graham made a super long three-pointer to bring the game to overtime.
The last 5 minutes still maintained the situation of you and me. In the end, the Thunder secured the victory with Alexander's emergency stop jumper 1.8 seconds before the end.
Donovan remained unreliable after Alexander's critical moment error, and I have to say that it was indeed risky. But it turns out that Donovan's trust was not paid wrong.
In addition to the quasi lore, Alexander's performance throughout the game was very good. Playing 42 minutes, he made 15 of 28 shots, 4 of 9 three-pointers, 6 of 8 free throws, and scored a game-high 40 points. In addition, he also contributed 7 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals. The performance on both ends of the offense and defense can be called impeccable.
After the game, Donovan was full of praise for the teenager. As a head coach, Donovan is really lucky.
Donovan took over the Thunder as the coach of two consecutive NCAA titles. At that time, he had Durant and Westbrook in his hands. With Donovan in hand, the team was able to achieve good results without spending too much thought.
Later, the Thunder collapsed and Durant joined the Warriors. But they got Anlow, and a year later they traded for Paul George. The Thunder completed a gorgeous turn on the brink of reconstruction and won the championship twice.
During this period, Donovan's biggest contribution may be to adjust the relationship between the Thunder's Big Three on the court and off the court, combining the team into a whole. In the construction of the team's offensive and defensive system, Donovan grasped the key to the staffing of the Thunder and brought the unlimited defense changes to the extreme. On the offensive end, most of them are handled by Westbrook.
Now, everything is just like two years ago. With the departure of Paul George, the Thunder once again won a very outstanding young man~EbookFREE.me~Wait until Alexander has fully grown up, at that time Westbrook was not old, An Luo At the peak, coupled with Adams and Gallinari's outstanding role players, the future of the Thunder is immeasurable.
Of course, Alexander's outstanding performance has a lot to do with the sufficient opportunities Donovan gave, and it has a lot to do with their opponents. The Hornets really don't have the slightest intention to rise. Many operations are inexplicable, for example, they let go of the hard-trained Kemba Walker in the offseason, in exchange for an eye higher than Rozier.
The Thunder will rest in Charlotte for one night and move to Toronto the next day.
This is another tough enough game. Moreover, the Thunder went all out in this game.
In this game, Anlow, Westbrook, Gallinari and Alexander, these four guys arranged 80% of the Thunder's scoring. It's not because other players don't have many opportunities, but these guys are in relatively better condition.
For players, too busy and too tired is not good, but too long is not good. Anlow and Westbrook clearly did not enter the state at the beginning of the game. Fortunately, they did not spend much time adjusting.
The Raptors' Lowry and Siakam caused great trouble for the Thunder. The latter's performance has always been outstanding this season, but the former also broke out at the same time, which is very difficult to deal with.
In the end, relying on the tacit cooperation of Anlow and Westbrook, a wave of offensive climax was achieved, with a 4 point advantage with 2 minutes left in the game, and it remained until the end.
With the victories in these two games, the Thunder overtook the Los Angeles Lakers at the last moment of 2019 and once again climbed to the top of the Western Conference, drawing a perfect end to this year.