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NBA》大家都看好湖人過關 灰狼Edwards:「我愛這種場面」

NBA》大家都看好湖人過關 灰狼Edwards:「我愛這種場面」

Yahoo17-04-2025

洛杉磯湖人隊和明尼蘇達灰狼隊即將在NBA 2025季後賽首輪正面對決,絕大部分外媒專家和網路輿論都看好湖人能過關,對此,灰狼隊球星愛德華茲(Anthony Edwards)似乎一點都不在意。
愛德華茲說道:「我很喜歡,這很屌。我很愛大家都想要湖人獲勝,本該就是如此,他們都不想灰狼贏,我知道了。」
Anthony Edwards on if he likes the national media picking the Lakers to winYea(smiling) I just love it, it's dope. I love the fact that everybody wants the lakers to win. That's how it's supposed to be, they don't want the Timberwolves to win. I get it' pic.twitter.com/PUOHWWrs5a
— Andrew Dukowitz (@adukeMN) April 16, 2025
灰狼隊去年殺進分區決賽,不過休季期間交易掉核心人物陶恩斯(Karl-Anthony Towns),讓他們在今年例行賽有點步履蹣跚,最終僅名列第6種子。年僅23歲的愛德華茲,則是在今年賽季迎來外線火力的爆發,例行賽投進聯盟最多的三分球,平均外線命中率也來到個人生涯新高的3成95,他的火力發揮狀況無疑是灰狼季後賽的一大指標。
湖人隊在交易大限前驚喜獲得唐契奇(Luka Doncic),即便他們還在不斷磨合階段,同時擁有唐契奇和詹姆士(LeBron James)這兩大核心下,讓湖人隊的爭冠呼聲迅速看漲,而灰狼隊去年在分區決賽就是敗給唐契奇領軍的達拉斯獨行俠隊。
這個系列賽剛好也是美國隊去年奧運金牌陣容的老少對決,對於即將和詹姆士同場競技,愛德華茲也表達高度期盼,他說道:「和詹姆士對決充滿很多意義,他很可能是籃球史上最偉大的球員,想要在季後賽淘汰他肯定是非常困難的,但這過程絕對會很有趣。」
根據相關外電消息指出,湖人隊近期在備戰首輪時確實將愛德華茲視為頭號封阻對象,在模擬訓練中,陸續讓體型相近的米爾頓(Shake Milton)和布朗尼(Bronny James)扮演愛德華茲的角色,希望能藉此找到致勝契機。
The Lakers used Bronny James and Shake Milton as Anthony Edwards for their scout team at practice today 👀(via @jovanbuha) pic.twitter.com/akJHLr0oeW
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) April 16, 2025

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LeBron: This year's NBA Finals feature a great matchup for true basketball fans
LeBron: This year's NBA Finals feature a great matchup for true basketball fans

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  • USA Today

LeBron: This year's NBA Finals feature a great matchup for true basketball fans

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Kobe Bryant's coming-out party in Indiana dashed the Pacers' title hopes 25 years ago
Kobe Bryant's coming-out party in Indiana dashed the Pacers' title hopes 25 years ago

New York Times

time3 hours ago

  • New York Times

Kobe Bryant's coming-out party in Indiana dashed the Pacers' title hopes 25 years ago

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In 1980, when the Lakers played the 76ers in the championship series, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar badly sprained his ankle in the third quarter of Game 5. He somehow managed to return to help the Lakers win and take a 3-2 series lead. But he left the Great Western Forum on crutches and was done for the series. Magic Johnson, then a bubbly rookie point guard, sensed the team's dread after the news about Kareem. So when Magic got on the team plane to Philadelphia, he lightened the spirits of his squad by sitting in Kareem's seat. As his teammates boarded the plane, they were greeted by the interim captain, smiling and declaring, 'Never fear, Magic is here.' He then played all five positions in Game 6 and went for 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists. The Lakers won the title, Magic won Finals MVP, and a star was born. In 2000, Bryant did the same to ignite a new generation of Lakers dominance. He wasn't smiling, though. He didn't use words. He laced jumpers like daggers into the hearts of the Pacers. Then Bryant gestured to his teammates, to the fans, to everyone who had yet to fully comprehend the level of No. 8. Everybody, calm down. Kobe is here. A superstar was born. 'You only get a few of those players,' Ron Harper, Bryant's Lakers teammate, said to The Athletic this week. 'You can count on a few of them: Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas. They get to those special moments when the game slows down in their eyes, when it speeds up for everybody else. 'He went and got the game. He allowed the game to come to him, but he went and got the game.' Twenty-five years ago Saturday, in the same building where the Indiana Pacers are, today, waging a pitched battle with the Oklahoma City Thunder in hopes of finally winning the franchise's first NBA title, the last Pacers team to make it this far was in an equally daunting fight. As with this season's team, those Pacers were heavy underdogs to Kobe, Shaq and the Lakers. 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Five days later, O'Neal (41 points, 12 rebounds) and Bryant (26 points, 10 rebounds) led the Lakers to a Game 6 victory over the Pacers, securing the franchise's first championship since 1988. 'Shaq fouled out,' Harper said. 'Phil (Jackson) was talking and (Bryant) was like, 'I got this, coach. You guys just play. I got this.'' That night, Kobe Bryant, all of 21 years old, showed the world who he already was, and who he would become. As the kid morphed into the Mamba, Pacers big man Dale Davis kept yelling at Miller, Indiana's greatest player. 'I'm like, 'Reg, yo, control this young kid,'' Davis told The Athletic on Wednesday, 'And he's like 'Man, I'm trying.'' Miller would have had more luck catching water with a tennis racket. He and his Indiana Pacers found out, in real time, that Bryant was every bit as good as he'd told the world he'd be. That he was worth every drop of sweat and angst from Los Angeles Lakers' ultra-tightly wound GM, Jerry West, who'd bet that a high school kid from outside of Philadelphia would be the franchise's next great superstar. That he could carry a team to an NBA championship, by himself, if he had to. Advertisement With the passage of time, the Lakers' three-peat from 2000-02 now seems preordained. West, already a Hall of Famer for his majestic playing career for the franchise, was one of the best talent evaluators ever. Jackson, hired specifically to bring L.A. multiple titles, just as he did with the Bulls, would become the winningest playoff coach in league history, with 11 championships, two more than Red Auerbach. O'Neal and Bryant, while often chafing at each other as teammates, were both destined for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. But the path was anything but smooth. 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'And so his cuboid, which is one of his tarsal bones, is really, really tender. And I'm working on it, and I'm mobilizing it, and I'm mobilizing it. And I do a mobilization technique. And I can feel a pop, and he can feel a pop. 'And we both look at each other. And I'm like, 'Holy s–, man, I think that's it.' And he looked at me, and he goes, 'That's it.' And he got off the table and he walked around, and said 'That's it.' And he put his shoe on, and he ran.' Bryant started Game 4. He also started slowly, missing three of his first four shots as he tried, in real time, to assess how much he could do on the ankle. The Pacers led by 10 in the second quarter, but couldn't put L.A. away, and led just 54-51 at the half. Bryant picked up his fourth foul a minute into the third quarter, but was able to stay on the floor and get himself going, despite Rose and Pacers guard Mark Jackson both trying to draw a fifth foul on him via post-ups. He scored 10 points in the third as the Lakers took an 80-77 lead after three. Advertisement 'He had that supreme confidence,' Harper said. 'I was like, 'All right, young boy.' I'm like, yeah, he's feeling it.' The fourth quarter belonged to Miller, who hadn't made a fourth-quarter basket in the first three games of the series. He made five of six shots, including three 3-pointers, the last of which put Indiana up 101-99 with 3:18 left. But the Pacers didn't score again until Sam Perkins' 3 with 35 seconds left in regulation tied the game at 104. Inexplicably, the Pacers' backup guard Travis Best took the last shot of regulation for Indiana rather than Miller and missed, sending the game to overtime. The Lakers led by four early in OT. But O'Neal picked up his sixth foul with 2:33 left in overtime, heading to the bench with 36 points and 21 rebounds. He'd even had what was, for him, a great night at the line, making 10 of 17 free throws. After O'Neal fouled out, 'I was like, (on to) Game 5,' Lakers forward Rick Fox told The Athletic Wednesday. 'You're thinking about the odds in that moment.' Tyronn Lue coached the Cleveland Cavaliers to an improbable comeback from a 3-1 finals deficit against the mighty Warriors in the 2016 finals. In 2000, he was a Lakers reserve guard. 'Shaq fouled out, and so everybody kind of panicked,' Lue, now the Clippers' head coach, said on the 'All The Smoke' podcast. The Lakers led 112-109. Many doubted that lead would last, especially after Smits immediately tossed in a hook over Shaq's backup, veteran center John Salley, to bring Indiana within one. Yet Bryant, the youngest player on the court for both teams by several years, was completely in his element. On the Lakers' next possession, Bryant got a screen from Robert Horry on Miller, but Miller was able to stay in front of Bryant. Didn't matter. Bryant went between his legs with the dribble to create separation, and pulled up for a 22-footer that hit nothing but net, to put L.A. back up by three. As he went down the court, Bryant raised and pushed both his hands down, with a smirk on his face, as if to say, 'Everybody calm down.' Advertisement Smits tossed in another hook to make it 114-113. 'I remember him scoring two or three straight on Reggie Miller,' Jackson recalled on his podcast, The Mark Jackson Show. 'I say to Reg, 'I got him. Let me get him one play.' Stupid New York City mentality.' So Jackson picked up Bryant. He didn't plan to actually stop him, just hammer the youngster and send a message. This was Indiana's time. And some kid wasn't stealing the Pacers' moment. Jackson never got the chance to deliver. One crossover and a sudden pull-up just inside the arc and Kobe was mid-jumper before Jackson could even react. He drilled the 23-footer from the top with 1:20 left to keep the Lakers up three. Jackson promptly passed the assignment back to Miller. 'I'm like, 'Reg, you got him,'' Jackson said. ''I got nothing for you, man. You got him.' That was it.' Miller made two free throws at 1:05 to make it 116-115. Smits got a piece of Bryant's jumper at the other end, but the Lakers crashed the glass for two offensive rebounds, the second from veteran guard Brian Shaw, whose putback again gave the Lakers a three-point edge with 46 seconds left. Smits made two free throws with 28.1 seconds remaining to pull Indiana within a point, 118-117. Indiana didn't foul, opting to play it out. Miller face guarded Bryant to keep him from getting the ball, leaving Shaw to create a shot. He wound up with a runner across the lane. It missed. But Bryant didn't, hitting the offensive glass and tipping the ball in with his left hand to make it 120-117 with 5.9 seconds left. Indiana got a last chance to win the game, after Fox was called for a dead-ball foul before the ensuing inbounds pass, giving the Pacers a free throw plus possession. Miller made the free throw and had a great look at a potential game-winning 3 at the buzzer off a double-stagger screen. But it rimmed out. The Lakers, now with a 3-1 series lead, closed Indiana out in Los Angeles five days later. Advertisement It's hard to understate how significant this game, this performance, was for the Lakers. Title windows are finicky. Nobody knows that better than the Pacers; missed windows close faster. Do they become a dynasty if they don't pull through in Game 4? Would losing in their first trip to the finals exacerbate the drama perennially hovering over those Lakers? This was year four of the Kobe and Shaq experiment. Does West get impatient and switch up if they don't win? Basketball history may have hung in the balance Everybody, calm down. Kobe is here. Now familiar with triumph, the Lakers went on to smoke the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2001 finals, and the New Jersey Nets in 2002, to secure their three-peat. And Bryant led L.A. to two more titles in 2009 and 2010. But the moment of alchemy was here, in this city, where Oscar Robertson unfurled his burgeoning greatness at Crispus Attucks High School in the mid-1950s, and the Pacers ruled the ABA in the 1970s. Kobe is here. Basketball graffiti, written in two-and-a-half special minutes, on the fieldhouse floor. 'Kobe left his shoes in the locker room after that game,' Fox said. 'And as he was walking out, I was like, 'Yo, Kob – your shoes.' And he was like, 'Nah, I don't want them.' He just left them there. 'He was so focused and locked in. When I tell you, he was a different animal after that game. He became Kobe.' (Top photo of Kobe Bryant: Bob Rosato / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

Possible Lakers target Clint Capela expected to leave Hawks
Possible Lakers target Clint Capela expected to leave Hawks

USA Today

time8 hours ago

  • USA Today

Possible Lakers target Clint Capela expected to leave Hawks

Possible Lakers target Clint Capela expected to leave Hawks The Los Angeles Lakers will likely leave no stone unturned in their quest to upgrade at the center position this summer. In addition to turning to the trade market for help, they could also possibly find a serviceable center in free agency. Unless LeBron James unexpectedly opts out of his contract and signs a new one while taking a reasonable pay cut, the Lakers will only have the taxpayer mid-level exception of roughly $5.7 million to use, other than the veteran's minimum salary, to offer prospective free agents. One insider said that Clint Capela of the Atlanta Hawks is "expected to sit pretty high" on L.A.'s list of players to go after. According to Jake Fischer, another insider, Capela is expected to leave Atlanta this summer. "Rival teams have projected the Hawks as targeting big men with whatever draft slots they ultimately operate from," wrote Fischer. "After years of dangling Clint Capela on the trade block, Capela is finally expected to depart Atlanta via free agency this season, sources say. So the Hawks appear poised to have an opening for a center." The Hawks have been trying to overcome mediocrity for some time now. In seven seasons with four-time All-Star guard Trae Young, they have made the playoffs just three times and made it past the first round only once. This season, they finished with a 40-42 record, putting them in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, and they lost both of their play-in tournament games to the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat. Capela, who recently turned 31 years of age, may not be as athletic as he was several years ago. But he is still a solid lob threat and shot-blocker, and he averaged 8.9 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.0 blocks in 21.4 minutes a game while shooting 55.9% from the field.

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