Howard was helpless. After all, when you drive on a road that is at peak traffic all day long, it means you will spend the whole day in traffic jams.

Compared to Howard, Magic fans are feeling desperate at the moment.

Their star players have no room to perform, which means that they will not only continue to lose G2, but will most likely lose the entire series.

This is indeed the case.

A few days later, the Bulls conquered the Magic's home court away from home and swept the Magic 4-0 to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.

This result even exceeded Xu Yong's expectations.

His previous judgment was that although the Magic team was at a disadvantage in the interior, they would still face more difficulties than those brought by the digital man.

But after four games, Howard has no substitutes, no perimeter defensive spearheads, a single tactical system, etc. This Magic team does have too many problems and is indeed a level weaker than in the past few years.

However, even with such a Magic team, they were able to reach the Eastern Conference semifinals, which also shows that the level of Eastern Conference teams in recent years, or the benefits are indeed a bit too great.

With two consecutive sweeps, the Bulls have demonstrated the strength of a championship favorite.

Now they can just wait for their divisional finals opponents as they did before.

The series between the Heat and the Celtics was much more intense than theirs.

The presence of Kwame Brown has significantly improved the quality of the Celtics' inside line. When the Heat encounter such a team, they always rely heavily on Wade.

After the Celtics discovered that Ray Allen's defense was not effective, they switched to Rondo, and the effect was quite good.

Rondo's long arms, coupled with his top-notch defensive performance this season, are just the right balance for Wade.

Of course, these are not the focus of outside attention at this time.

Because just the day after the Bulls eliminated the Magic, the Lakers were eliminated, and were swept directly by the Mavericks!

Although Comey fans have always refused to believe it and have made statements on social media such as "Although the Lakers are 0-2, there have been many comebacks from 0-2 in history, and the Lakers will be the next one" and "Even if they are 0-3, the Lakers will be the first team in history to fall behind 0-3 but complete a comeback", in the end the Lakers did not win a single game.

The ESPN survey before the game seemed to be wrong, but it also seemed to be right, because the result of this series was a sweep, and it was indeed the one with the least suspense.

Some were happy while others were sad. This result directly aroused the anger of James fans.

Kobe was eliminated before James, and in such an embarrassing way. It would be inhuman not to mock him.

"You have to believe that even though the Lakers are down 0-4, they will still come back 5-4."

"It's all Gasol's fault. He couldn't lead Kobe to a championship like O'Neal did."

"The championship team was swept by the trash Mavericks. Can Kobe consider retiring?"

…

There is no way that Comey fans can refute this high-energy output from James fans.

After all, like stars have like fans. Kobe is the kind of person who would say "the number one loser", so they naturally won't look for excuses here or there.

If you lose, just find a way to win it back next year.

But after all, we are all human beings. If we don’t vent our emotions, we will hurt ourselves.

So many of them took off the Comey vest and put on the vest of Heat opponents.

A small number of people became new fans of the Celtics, while more people became loyal fans of the Bulls for twenty years.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Twenty years ago, the Bulls were in the Jordan era.

The series is still going on, and a few days later, the series between the Heat and the Celtics in the East ended first.

With James' explosive touch, especially his 5 of 9 three-pointers in the last game, the Heat won two games in a row, eliminated the Celtics 4-2, and advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals.

In this way, the matchup between the Heat and the Bulls, which fans had been looking forward to long before the start of the playoffs, finally arrived as scheduled.

It was at this time that the league announced the fourth and final batch of regular season awards, the winners of the best lineups.

The best teams include the All-Rookie Team, the All-NBA Team and the All-Defensive Team.

The best rookie generally does not receive much attention, and the two lineups at the back are what really attract attention.

And there is a difference between the two lineups, there are three best lineups and two defensive lineups.

The best team: Rose, Kobe, Durant, James, Howard;

Best Second Team: Wade, Xu Yong, Stoudemire, Nowitzki, Noah;

The best third team: Westbrook, Ginobili, Randolph, Pau Gasol, Yao Ming;

First team defense: Rondo, Kobe, Xu Yong, James, Howard;

Second defensive team: Paul, Iguodala, Garnett, Tyson Chandler, Yao Ming;

At this point in time, with this best lineup, there is bound to be another bloody storm on social media.

"One first team, one second team, one third team, plus one first defense and one second defense. It turns out that the Bulls are the best team!"

"This is the first time in Yao's career that he has been selected to the All-Defensive Team. If Bosh is replaced by Yao, the Heat can still be ranked first in the league, or even have a better record."

"The Bulls still have O'Neal, O'Neal Jr., and Artest. This is a six-star lineup. What's so great about playing like this?"

…

The two sides are about to face off, and James fans continue to express their support crazily on social media as before.

But this time, Harden and Durant don't need to take action. Quite a lot of new Bulls fans on social media have already started to go crazy.

"You guys are really good at confusing right and wrong. The Bulls played well this season, so so many players were selected to the All-NBA Team. Why didn't you mention that Xu and Rose didn't make any teams last season? Why didn't you mention that Gerald Wallace of the Bobcats was in the All-NBA Team last season?"

"Yao got his first defensive team in his career with the Bulls, while Wade went from the first team to the second team, and then he was no longer on the defensive second team."

"Oh, this boomerang is good. If Yao Ming went to the Heat, I'm afraid he would not be able to get any lineup like Bosh."

"There were five-star Magic and six-star Bulls. I think you guys are saying that's too few. Battier and Hinrich should also be counted. It should be at least eight stars."

…

Before the game even started, fans were already buzzing with excitement on social media.

After the grievances between the two sides during the season, the encounter between the two teams was like a collision between Mars and the Earth, a standard NBA Spring Festival Gala.

At this time, for the media, it is no longer about building momentum for this series, but about taking advantage of the traffic of this series.

For example, in the latest episode of TNT, Barkley and Kenny Smith made a season prediction program at the first opportunity.

They even started placing bets during the game after a long absence.

"Believe me brother, the Heat will definitely win this series. Although they had a harder time than the Bulls in the previous two rounds, the opponents they faced were much stronger than the Bulls, so I bet on the Heat without hesitation. If they fail to win the series in the end, I will drink a bowl of horse urine in the live studio."

Barkley's remarks on the show instantly became a hot topic.

Although what he said makes some sense, in fact, judging from the previous record of the two teams, the Bulls are definitely the dominant side.

But this is Barkley's style, he always goes against the mainstream voice.

When predicting the first round, he, as a famous digital player, said that the digital players would beat the Bulls.

It’s just that digital people don’t get much attention in the NBA nowadays, so his words naturally didn’t attract much attention.

But this wave of predictions is obviously different. Although Barkley has a big mouth, he is still a man who dares to speak and act.

With this wave of bets, fans are really looking forward to the scene of Barkley drinking horse urine live.

Some fans even commented on social media: "Charles Barkley is trying to find an excuse to taste horse urine!"

A little-known fact is that horse urine is a medicinal ingredient that can act as a diuretic, supplement calcium, dispel wind and dampness, disperse blood stasis and stop bleeding, and promote blood circulation and relieve pain.

As for what it tastes like, not many people can really tell. After all, there is only a tiny amount added to the medicinal materials, and only those who have actually tasted it know.

Barkley's wave of popularity was almost textbook-like, which of course made this series even more eye-catching. Some fans even gave the series a nickname: the Horse Urine Battle.

The horse urine battle was ready to begin, but the Bulls encountered unfavorable circumstances before the game.

Because of the recurring knee injury, the Bulls will not let O'Neal Jr. appear in the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals out of caution.

This was unexpected, but not so surprising.

The Bulls have many veterans, and injuries are inevitable. For example, O'Neal missed the Christmas game due to injury.

In fact, because of the Bulls' excellent record and the fact that there were no season-ending players, this aspect of the situation was masked.

Except for young and strong players like Rose and Xu Yong, the veterans of the Bulls have more or less missed some games.

For example, Yao Ming missed 18 games, and O'Neal missed 21 games. O'Neal missed the most, reaching 31 games.

Injuries are like most chronic diseases you know of: they cannot be cured or reversed.

Reasonable use of players can only avoid the worst-case scenario and delay its outbreak.

O'Neal's absence has given Thibodeau a choice, just as he originally chose to make O'Neal the starting power forward.

Although the Bulls are consciously covering up this matter, the truth cannot be hidden, just like the video of Green's punch was leaked, it is impossible for this kind of news that can be spread in just a few words not to be known by the outside world.

"James, what did I say, goddess luck is on our side." In the training hall of American Airlines Arena, James said to Jones with a smile.

The information Xu Yong had learned before was correct. The Heat team is now clearly divided into factions. Before one of the two faction leaders, James and Wade, bows to the other, the relationship between them is limited to teammates and communication on the court.

However, one thing that is easily overlooked is that not only Arroyo, but Jones is also a former Heat player, but they are now all on James' side.

These two people have one thing in common, that is, they are fringe players who are struggling to survive in the league and may fade out of the NBA at any time.

James has a special characteristic, that is, he is a rare player who can have a say in front of the management.

Jones, in particular, has very high EQ and IQ. He is the kind of player who can develop a deep friendship with Reggie Miller after only playing one season for the Pacers.

"I talked to David yesterday, and he said the coaching staff will let you attack with the ball more tomorrow." Jones nodded and said with a smile.

The David he was referring to is Heat assistant coach David Fizdale.

Not only the players, but now even the coaching staff has factions, and Fizdale is on James' side.

James immediately laughed out loud when he heard that. Jones was like a magpie on the treetop. Although he didn't talk much, as long as he opened his mouth, good news was coming.

Moreover, O'Neal's absence and this information from the coaching staff are double happiness.

Because of the adjustment of the Heat's defensive tactics and the evolution of the Bulls' own tactics, the Bulls will basically not use the iron net at the beginning of the season.

Therefore, even if the Bulls replace O'Neal with Gibson, his room to play will be much larger.

…

Two days later, the NBA Spring Festival Gala that fans have been looking forward to for a long time will finally kick off.

The scene at the United Center highlighted one person's popularity.

In fact, even when the season rankings came out, Chicago fans already knew that they had secured a place in the first two rounds, but theory is just theory after all. Now that we are in the Eastern Conference Finals, defeating the Heat will be the finals!

At this time, the whole city of Chicago is boiling.

On the commentary side, Barkley and Kenny Smith were already in place, commentating on this round of horse urine battle on the spot.

After the opening ceremony, the two teams announced their starting lineups.

Miami Heat: Chalmers, Wade, James, Bosh, Ilgauskas;

Bulls: Rose, Xu Yong, Artest, Battier, Yao Ming.

The two sides are meeting like old enemies, testing the entire province and targeting each other from the start.

The Heat took Bibby off the court obviously to guard Rose, and used Ilgauskas to protect the inside.

The Bulls were even more unexpected.

Thibodeau did not let Gibson replace O'Neal as the starter, but chose to continue using the lineup of one big and four small players as in the previous round.

This does not overturn the playing style of almost the entire season, but rather it is a matter of adapting to the circumstances.

Although such a lineup will give Bosh good room to play, will the Heat give Bosh a chance to perform?

Bosh has always been a very efficient scoring inside player. Before that, he basically only took 16 shots in the Raptors, which is very low among the core players, but he can steadily contribute more than 22 points per game.

Before coming to the Heat, he averaged 24 points per game.

However, even such an efficient inside player only averaged a pitiful 13 shots per game for the Heat this season.

This is mainly the one-on-one tactics of the Heat. There is only one ball, and Wade and James don't know which one it is, so it's not his turn.

Especially during this sensitive period, even if Spoelstra wanted to, he probably wouldn't be able to arrange the ball for Bosh.

So Thibodeau is not only targeting the opponent tactically, but he has also studied this old rival thoroughly.