NBA: Top 3D talents to start

The Knicks' winning streak finally stopped at 26 consecutive victories.

After defeating the Pistons, the Knicks won two consecutive home and away games with the Heat.

But on February 2, in the Knicks' home game against the Rockets, the team finally lost with a score of 19:117, and the winning streak was finally fixed at 122 consecutive victories.

Knicks fans are still a little disappointed that they failed to break the Lakers' 33-game winning streak, the first in history, but even so, the team has surprised them very much.

For other teams in the league, the end of the Knicks' winning streak also made them all breathe a sigh of relief.

No matter in which era, the birth of a super team means that other teams are reduced to background boards.

96-97赛季72胜的公牛如此，未来15-16赛季73胜勇士队亦是如此。

There are many reasons why the Knicks and the Rockets lost the game.

First of all, the Rockets have recently passed a transaction and successfully obtained the glider Drexler. The configuration of Olajuwon's single-core team has been upgraded to a dual-core drive, and the combat effectiveness has made a qualitative leap.

Secondly, the Knicks' winning streak has also made all the players in the team more and more tired. Everyone doesn't want to lose and wants to continue the winning streak, so they go all out in every game and don't want to give up. The physical and psychological pressure It has been continuously accumulating and superimposing.

In this game, Ewing was in poor condition due to the recurrence of an old ankle injury, and he was completely at a disadvantage in the matchup with Olajuwon.

The Rockets also felt very good in the game, especially on the bench. Sam Cassell scored 63 points and 23 assists with a 10% shooting rate, Tracy Murray scored 13 points, and Chucky Brown scored 11 points. , Even the bench rotation lineup easily scored in double figures, especially in the starting lineup.

Olajuwon had 27 points and 9 rebounds, and Drexler had 22 points and 10 rebounds.

On the other hand, for the Knicks, Wang Feng scored a team-high 33 points, and Ewing scored 26 points. It seemed pretty good, but Ewing's 25 points took almost twice as many shots as Wang Feng.

In this game, facing Olajuwon's defense, Ewing took 28 shots and hit 11 goals, with a shooting percentage of only 39.3%.

It was precisely Ewing's large number of singles with the ball on the court that caused the Knicks' overall offense to be extremely unsmooth and eventually lost the game. ,
Obviously affected by old injuries, but still facing a strong opponent like Olajuwon, why is Ewing so obsessed with taking shots?
Wang Feng just thought about it for a while, and then he understood the whole story.

The reason is actually very simple, Ewing wants to compete for the MVP of the regular season.

Originally, at the beginning of this season, the Knicks' poor record seemed to make Ewing miss the regular season MVP early.

However, with the end of the Christmas game, the Knicks won the airborne slugger Wang Feng, starting a magnificent 26-game winning streak.

The team's excellent record also made Ewing's mind come alive. The MVP of the regular season is too important for a professional player, and many people never get it in their entire lives.

In the past few years, this award has been monopolized by Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. With the retirement of black and white in recent years, and even Jordan chose to retire to play baseball, other stars finally got it opportunity for the award.

...

Last season, Olajuwon won the honor, and one season back, it was Barkley.

Although Ewing still faces the dilemma that he is the only one of the four major centers without a championship and regular season MVP, but under this rare opportunity, Ewing is still tempted.

This can be seen from the last few games, Ewing is consciously increasing his possession of the ball and the number of shots, because he wants to make his statistics more beautiful.

At present, Ewing's biggest opponent on the road to MVP is the leader of the Spurs, David Robinson, one of the four major centers. His Spurs not only rank first in the league record, but also have better personal data than Ewing. More gorgeous and outstanding.

So far, Ewing has averaged 24.4 points, 11 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, which was already quite outstanding data in the 90s.

But David Robinson averaged 27.5 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game, covering almost all of Ewing.

Whether it's personal performance or team record, the Admiral is the better one, so it's no wonder Ewing feels anxious.

You know, at this time, more than half of the regular season schedule has passed, and there are only more than 30 games left. If this continues, there is a high probability that Ewing will lose to Robinson and miss the regular season MVP.

That's why in this game, Ewing, who was obviously at a disadvantage but kept shooting, abruptly piled up his stats to 26+10.

In Wang Feng's opinion, if in this game, Ewing's hand feeling is not good, if he controls the ball and organizes the offense, it will not be difficult to win the game.

Olajuwon-Drexler's combination is really strong, but Wang Feng is not a vegetarian, and even if Ewing is suppressed by Olajuwon, he still has the strength that a top superstar should have.

But obviously, during the game, he didn't get such treatment.

It's not that the Knicks still don't know Wang Feng's strength until now.

In fact, from the head coach down to all the players in the team, they are very clear about how strong Wang Feng is. Even now, he still has a lot of things that he has not shown, such as the ability to organize and connect with the top point guards in the league. .

But the more this is the case, the more the Knicks don't want Wang Feng to perform too well.

For the team's management and coaching staff, Wang Feng has only signed a one-year short-term contract with the team. This matter has made the team's intestines green with regret. They are very troubled by the renewal of Wang Feng's contract this summer. .

It is entirely conceivable that as Wang Feng resumes his free agent status, there will definitely be a large number of teams in the league spending money to pursue Wang Feng.

The better Wang Feng performs, the less likely the Knicks will renew Wang Feng's contract.

Therefore, even if Wang Feng has the strength of 100 points, for the Knicks, he only needs to play 80 points or even 60 points, because the Knicks themselves are a team that is strong enough to compete for the championship. Obtaining an All-Star player for nothing is enough to make a huge gap between them and other teams in the league.

For Ewing, the boss of the team who is aiming to compete for the MVP of the regular season, the better Wang Feng performs, the more it shows that the Knicks' excellent record has nothing to do with him.

...

In fact, many people in the outside world think so.

After all, before Wang Feng joined the Knicks, the Knicks were only ranked No. 7 in the Eastern Conference, and lost to the Bulls without Jordan in the Christmas game. At that time, no one thought that the Knicks would be as invincible as they are now.

If Wang Feng takes all the credit for this, even if Ewing's personal data does not lose to Robinson, it is impossible to win the regular season MVP.

The Knicks is Ewing's team. Except for Wang Feng, all the players in the team are on Ewing's side, including the team's main guard Starks, who wants to concentrate the ball more on Ewing. It couldn't be easier.

The above are all Wang Feng's own guesses, and there is no evidence.

But as a player who has been in the league for many years, Wang Feng can be regarded as an old fritters. He is no stranger to the intrigues in these teams, and his guesses are all indistinguishable.

He wasn't angry or very angry about it.

Because at first he chose to join the Knicks only as a springboard.

The Knicks are Ewing's team. In the era of center supremacy, unless it is Jordan, no one can shake Ewing's position in New York.

This has nothing to do with strength. Besides, this is really not a game. Whether it is a multi-professional scout or the team's head coach and general manager, they cannot directly observe the ability and potential of all players, and the judgment will inevitably be biased. .

After all, Wang Feng has not gained any substantial honors in this era. Even if he has played a phenomenal performance in the past month, he still cannot make the Knicks management choose to give up Ewing and choose him.

So even if he didn't get enough ball rights and shots, Wang Feng didn't complain too much, and didn't ask the team's head coach or general manager for more.

Anyway, as long as this season is over, he will leave the Knicks, and then it will be clear who the clown is.

Besides, before he finds his favorite team, Wang Feng doesn't want to give the outside world the bad impression that he is that kind of problematic player.

……

The winning streak was ended, and it didn't affect the Knicks' rhythm too much.

There is no undefeated team in this world. Even if it is as strong as Jordan's 72-win Bulls, they also lost 10 games in the regular season, and the 73-win Warriors were overturned by the Cavaliers in the Finals.

After losing to the Rockets, the Knicks immediately started to win again. They defeated the Cavaliers and the Kings in the away game by a big score, and won two consecutive victories.

Immediately afterwards, the highlight of the league, the annual All-Star Weekend began.

In the past two seasons of the All-Star Weekend, the ratings were actually not high. The reason is very simple. Jordan's retirement is a heavy blow to the NBA.

Although Jordan will come back this season, he will have to wait until after mid-March, so this time the All-Star Weekend is still bleak and not many received.

For Wang Feng, this year's All-Star has nothing to do with him, because when he signed the contract with the Knicks, the first round of the All-Star voting had already ended.

Now is not the world with extremely advanced information technology in the future. The All-Star voting has not even opened the voting channel to overseas. Wang Feng has neither a local fan base nor the support of Chinese fans far away across the ocean. In the round of voting, they were only ranked outside the top ten in the Eastern Conference, so they were naturally not eligible to participate in the All-Stars.

...

NBA President Stern seems to be quite dissatisfied with this. He is quite looking forward to a Chinese player appearing on the All-Star stage.

Therefore, after the All-Star votes were counted, someone contacted Wang Feng through the team channel during the All-Star event, hoping that Wang Feng could participate in the three-point contest and dunk contest. If Wang Feng wanted to, he could also participate in the Rookie Challenge as a first-year rookie.

Faced with such an invitation, Wang Feng refused immediately without thinking.

For the attributes of the system rewards, he no longer wants to experience the experience of participating in single-player events for years.

For Wang Feng right now, his three-point shot ability has been strengthened to 99 full points, and he will not be rewarded if he continues to participate in the three-point contest to win the championship.

As for the slam dunk contest, if you win the championship, you can indeed get rewards for dunking or jumping ability.

But there is one thing to say, no matter which of these two abilities is 1 point, it seems a bit irrelevant to Wang Feng now, and there is absolutely no need to go to Phoenix, the host of the All-Stars, just for this.

Finally, there is the Rookie Challenge.

Although according to the rules of the league, Wang Feng, who just joined the league this season, is indeed a first-year rookie, but letting the 30-year-old him go to play with a group of kids... Stern didn't feel awkward, he, Wang Feng, felt ashamed .

Wang Feng understands Stern's eagerness to promote the NBA in China as soon as possible, but he is not prepared to lower his value just because of this.

To sum up the above reasons, this year's All-Star Weekend did not have Wang Feng's figure, and many Huaguo fans who were looking forward to Wang Feng's appearance in the early stage of the TV were quite disappointed.

"Didn't you say that Wang Feng is very good? Why can't he participate in the All-Stars?"

"Is it because those Americans discriminated against our Chinese players?"

"Wang Feng, come on! Try to achieve better results in the NBA, and slap those guys in the face!"

It's just that in the 90s when there was no network platform as a carrier, and even TV sets were not available in every household, these voices could only be heard at home.

……

Stern: Second All-Star Weekend without Jordan, miss him.

The situation where the West is strong and the East is weak, made the All-Star Game lose suspense not long after the opening. The Western All-Stars quickly established a lead and maintained the lead until the end of the game.

During the whole game, there was neither a magnificent comeback nor a fierce confrontation. It just made people drowsy. Although the ratings were higher than the first All-Star Weekend when Jordan retired, that is, in 94. , but still far worse than in 93.

This result also strengthened Stern's determination to bring Jordan back to the NBA.

The All-Star weekend is over, and it also represents the final sprint for the league to enter the playoffs.

Teams with higher records need victories to stabilize their current ranking positions, while teams with lower records need to fight desperately for valuable playoff spots.

Only those salted fish teams at the bottom of the league still lie flat and wait for a fateful draft and then change their fate against the sky.

The Knicks played against the 2ers and the Magic in the last two games in February. The team won the game against the 76ers, but lost to the Magic on the road with a score of 76:118.

O'Neal avenged his previous revenge by scoring 44 points and 17 rebounds. Ewing was not to be outdone, and returned the favor with 32 points and 13 rebounds.

The fans who watched the contest between the two super centers were excited, and the fans of the Magic were satisfied to see that O'Neal successfully suppressed Ewing and won the game.

It is worth mentioning that in this game, O'Neal and Ewing took exactly the same number of shots, both 29 times, but one scored 44 points and the other 32 points...

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