The first round has always been a formality for the Trail Blazers, much like playing the Rockets in regular season games.
Prior to the series, the Trail Blazers coaching staff meticulously prepared and devised three plans along with four different rotation strategies to deal with unexpected situations.
Unexpectedly, the Rockets offered no real resistance, losing spirit early on.
The Trail Blazers finished every game in the third quarter, leading in the first half and then launching a powerful offensive in the third quarter to widen the score and seal the win.
Against the absolute disparity in strength, all of the Rockets’ preparations were futile. The Trail Blazers now just need to wait in Portland for their semifinal opponent.
The Los Angeles Lakers, fourth in the Western Conference, and the Phoenix Suns, ranked fifth, engaged in the most evenly matched encounter of the Western Conference first round.
Even though the Lakers achieved 60 wins, a record and lineup that could be championship-worthy in some years, this year’s Western Conference seems to be their ceiling in the semifinals.
The Western Conference teams are extremely polarized in terms of roster and strength, with the top four teams having 60 wins each, including an inconceivable 77 wins.
The last four include teams with fewer than 20 wins, such as the Grizzlies, Warriors, Clippers, and Nuggets, with the Grizzlies being the best at 19 wins and 63 losses.
The discrepancy between the strong and weak was taken to the extreme, yet the NBA has always been unpredictable, varying every decade. In 10 or 20 years, team rankings might completely reshuffle.
The Lakers wield a strong lineup, but the Phoenix Suns haven’t performed weakly this year.
In the summer, the Suns traded Steve Nash to get Antoine Walker from the Boston Celtics.
They have built their roster around Kevin Johnson, Antoine Walker, Rex Chapman, Danny Manning, and McDyess.
With Danny Ainge as head coach, he followed the Celtics’ team-building strategy from earlier years, turning the Suns into an excellent team-centric offensive squad.
Therefore, the Suns have done fairly well in the regular season, achieving 55 wins, which is typically a championship contender in NBA history for any team surpassing 50 wins.
However, the Suns’ roster has a glaring weakness in the center position, with only veterans Hot-Rod Williams and former Trail Blazer Mark Bryant holding the line.
In the regular season, they relied on speed and a strong frontcourt line to smash opponents, but in the playoffs, facing the Lakers with their interior behemoth, the Suns are at a definitive disadvantage.
In the first two games, the Lakers secured easy wins at home, one with a 15-point victory and the other 97-93, advancing to a 2-0 lead.
Just one step away from qualifying.
However, upon returning to Phoenix, the Phoenix Suns rebounded.
First in the third game with a 110-92 win, they overpowered the Lakers with sharp offense to reclaim a game.
Then in the fourth game, trailing by 12 points at halftime, they completed a huge comeback in the second half.
In the final moments, Kevin Johnson drove into the paint with the ball and made a floater to score a buzzer-beater, Suns 101: Lakers 100, defeated the Lakers!
This left both sides tied at 2-2 and pushed the series into a tiebreaker.
The Suns’ home became a boiling ocean, despite everyone knowing advancing to the semifinals would only provide fodder for the Trail Blazers. Yet the NBA is never only about championships being successes.
Delivering a spectacular performance, winning a fierce game, offering a night of joy to fans, and a few days of future anticipation is a success for a player and team.
Many NBA players have been lifelong strangers to championships, even Finals appearance, and many teams never touch a championship.
But this doesn’t stop numerous fans from loving, supporting them, and seeing them as heroes of the city.
Since 1987, the Phoenix Suns have been in a continual state of turmoil, but they always manage to stand up quickly, like a phoenix reborn, continuing to shine and bring hope to the Phoenix fans in the desert.
Of course, for Lakers players and fans, being dragged into a tiebreaker, and returning to Los Angeles is tough.
Among them, Shaquille O’Neal faced the most blame and critique, though the series hasn’t ended, his poor performance in the third and fourth games drew focus for criticism.
Offensively, O’Neal remained reliable, averaging over 25 points per game in all four games, exhibiting top-notch destruction in the paint.
However, defensively, O’Neal frequently appeared vulnerable; the Suns heavily relied on pick-and-roll plays where Antoine Walker and McDyess tore apart the Lakers’ defense multiple times.
Additionally, the Suns were ferocious in grabbing Offensive Rebounds, resulting in numerous second-chance opportunities, leading to O’Neal’s backboard protection being criticized.
Actually, O’Neal’s defensive rebounding was not the primary issue; it was the Suns’ frontcourt outshining them, while McGrady was still too immature to handle the playoff intensity.
Without strong support from the frontcourt, O’Neal struggled greatly in the third and fourth games, as he’s not the type who can handle both offense and defense as a superstar center.
The team must establish a comfortable platform for him, ensuring he doesn’t have to put too much energy into defense, allowing his offensive prowess to unleash fully.
On this front, Del Harris’s system wasn’t refined enough. Although he made O’Neal the absolute centerpiece, he did not fully integrate O’Neal’s strengths, still expecting him to perform as the top superstar center.