basketball never sleeps

Chapter 252: Void Alley-Dunk
On December 12, the Cavaliers faced the Pistons at home. This was a game of great significance to the Cavaliers, not only because it was broadcast live nationwide, but also because the Cavaliers had won nine consecutive games before that. The last time the Cavaliers won ten consecutive games was in the last century.

Facing the Pistons without Ben Wallace, the Little Emperor finally got the right to roar under the basket.

McDyess's rim protection is not good enough, and Rasheed has to defend Big Z. It is a rare opportunity for James to show his "rough aesthetics" in front of the Pistons' iron barrel formation.

Although throughout the game, James's roughness was mostly reflected in dribbling and pushing against opponents, and he only had one fast break dunk, there were still many shots on the sidelines.

By cutting back and forth between several shots, adding slow motion and mixing in the expressions of the audience on the sidelines, a 2-minute slam dunk highlight compilation was actually put together.

What excited the commentators the most was that when facing the Pistons' open-ended tactics, James shot 6 of 4 from beyond the three-point line and actually scored 4 three-pointers!

Oh my god, the little emperor has finally mastered his three-point shot!
bang bang bang-

After the shot, James couldn't help but pounding his pectoral muscles, and the corners of his mouth were even more charming than when he stole the spotlight from Wade.

Hey, hey, hey, who isn’t a three-point shooter?

All kidding aside, for a moment, James was already imagining this year's three-point contest. But then this high-risk investment was immediately rejected by his killer instinct.

There are many tracks that can rival Jordan, there is no need to rely on three-pointers.

Family members know their own business. After Reed joined the team, he helped to digest the hard ball from the outside. He has not practiced three-pointers much in the past two seasons. Looking at his previous hit rate, it has even dropped compared to last season.

The Pistons were convinced by the final 12-point difference. They had thought of various ways to lose to the Cavaliers, but they never thought they could lose to a three-pointer from James.

A-LeBron James' three-point shooting percentage this season is only 30%, which is close to the situation where a naked Barbarian King can hit a critical hit with every strike.

Damn, I'll give this to you. It's boring if I click on it.

The Cavaliers, who achieved ten consecutive wins, were still unable to challenge the Supersonics' first place in the league. They lost four games in a row at the beginning of the season due to the injury of Big Z.

But after the lineup was complete, the Cavaliers only lost one game, and after getting into the form recently, they directly won 1 consecutive games.

For a time, James' MVP ranking rushed all the way to second place, tied with Mo Wen and Nowitzki, adding some drama to the originally undoubted MVP.

Of course, the Cavaliers are not the only ones trying to improve their performance.

The day before, the Lakers beat the Nuggets, whose golden duo was suspended, 119:77 with a narrow lead of 42 points, and won their seventh consecutive victory.

Nuggets fans denounced the Lakers' brutal behavior and shouted the American version of the slogan "Thirty years in the east, thirty years in the west."

But no one paid attention to the Nuggets' harsh words.

Originally, Iverson joined the Nuggets after Anthony was suspended, and barely allowed the Nuggets to have a 3% winning rate in the most difficult times. But now the Nuggets can only rely on the 1-meter-tall Boykins as a starter on the outside. The strength of this lineup is already at a level that even bad teams would tremble at the sight of it.

It is incredible that the Lakers' winning rate has reached 7% after 60 consecutive wins, but they are still only ranked seventh in the Western Conference.

Ahead of them are the SuperSonics, Mavericks, Jazz, Warriors, Suns and Spurs.

The Jazz unexpectedly rose after only four years of stagnation since Malone left. With the maturity of Deron, Jerry Sloan returned with his pick-and-roll.

At first everyone thought that the Jazz's second-place record in the league would not last long, but the Jazz managed to maintain their record with the classic mid-range pick-and-roll.

Once again, it proves that routines don’t have to be new, as long as they work.

After Yao Ming joined the Warriors, their offensive stability has improved by two levels. Although they have not had a long winning streak, they have not lost consecutive games so far.

The impression that the West was strong and the East was weak between 00 and 10 was not only due to the championship division, but also because of the regular season matchups, which was an important consideration.

When Eastern teams can make the playoffs with a 45% win rate, the Western Conference is like this: Do you deserve to make the playoffs without 50 wins (60% win rate)?

If others are competing internally and you are not, or not competitive enough, then you will be eliminated - the Warriors who won 48 games but did not make the playoffs.

In the Eastern Conference, in addition to the Cavaliers, the Hawks also emerged as a dark horse this year and reached the top four in the Eastern Conference. Roy and Joe Johnson, two players known for their rationality, have developed a very good chemistry when they got together, and recently won five consecutive games.

The Eagle King and the Yellow Mamba can not only create a better environment for each other, but also activate the front line wolves that the Eagles have stockpiled over the years. Historically, the Eagles' record has not improved because they lacked an outstanding organizer, so they did not become a strong team until Bibby joined.

Although Roy's nickname is Yellow Mamba, he is much better than Black Mamba in organizing and distributing the ball. In addition, with the influence of Mo Wen, Roy is also intentionally developing his organizational skills.

With a similar height, three-point shooting, excellent breakthroughs, reliable mid-range shots, and above-average assists, the city of Atlanta has finally welcomed its own "lite youth mini plain leather version of Mo Wen".

As for Feiton, who was originally in charge of the organization...his template was just Mark Jackson, and he didn't look as promising as Mo Wen in any way.

Basketball experts fell into deep thought as they looked at the Hawks' all-2-meter lineup. Could it be that the Hawks really pulled off this fantasy lineup of 5 forwards?
……

Feeling the increasingly inward-looking environment, Mo Wen, who had been a workhorse at home, immediately became the team's workhorse.

On December 12, the Magic in the southeast corner flew across the diagonal of the United States to visit the SuperSonics in the northwest corner.

After two seasons of growth, Howard began to show the strength of a top center.

But what impressed everyone most was his unique concept of happy basketball. Looking through Howard's interviews, you can see his promotion of happy basketball in almost every one of them.

Mo Wen admired this kid very much. Basketball is all about having fun. There is no need to talk about leadership qualities, deep hatred and lofty ambitions all day long. In the end, it all comes down to strength.

A player known for his professionalism would still be sent away by the happy rough guy when the league gave him the opportunity to play 8 against 5.

The Magic are not that strong this season, Howard still needs to grow, and Turkoglu is still the "Magician of Turkoglu", and we have to wait until next season to remove Turkoglu from the title.

The good news is that Grant Hill has made a successful comeback again.

What makes the Magic even happier is that Hill has entered the last year of his $9800 million "fraudulent" contract, and the Magic have seen hope of getting out of the predicament.

It has to be said that even though Hill has been absent for years, his reputation is still much better than that of the future Kawhi Leonard and Simmons.

Because Hill really left his peak period on the operating table. He had 6 surgeries in 6 years. You can't really blame his professionalism except that he is too fragile and too glassy. Three years ago, Hill almost lost his life in the ICU due to a surgical infection. He returned to the game as soon as he recovered from the injury. Last year, Hill, whose ankle had finally stabilized, suffered from a hernia. At the beginning of the disease, he tried to use a band to tighten his lower abdomen to prevent his small intestine from falling in order to continue playing, but he was persuaded to quit by the team doctor after playing 20 games.

The 34-year-old Hill is no longer the player he once was, but he can still be a decent starter when he is healthy and able to play.

Although his fastest first step is gone, the breakthrough ability he developed in the handcheck era still allows him to find opportunities to get to the basket.

"It sounds crazy, but when I look back at my peak with the Pistons, losing my health put me in adversity, but it made me know myself, and I like myself more now that I'm back on my feet," Hill said in an interview before the game.

Mo Wen originally thought that this game would be easy. After all, Warcraft is Yao Ming's toy, and Tyson is Yao Ming's toy. They are both toys, so there shouldn't be much difference between them.

But in the game, Howard's performance was clearly a level higher than Tyson's.

Tyson entered the NBA two years earlier, but he still couldn't stop Howard in the fight for position. Although Howard is rough, a talented and offensive guy is not so easy to defend. If you are not careful, Howard may steal the ball and score.

Fortunately, Milicic helped Tyson share the rebounding pressure, and the rebounding of other Magic players except for Howard was just average.

On the defensive end, Howard has matured a lot. He is no longer as easily picked up as he was in the previous two years. His large assist range is no less than Garnett's.

In fact, Howard and Garnett were basically delayed by the management. They always wanted to bring out the defensive assistance capabilities of flexible big men, and they were more inclined to recruit offensive players. From a future perspective, building a torturous iron bucket team can actually better bring out their advantages.

The scores between the two teams were deadlocked for two quarters, but Mo Wen widened the gap with passes in the second half.

Mo Wen held the ball in the high position and looked for Milicic to pass the ball, then he ran to the bottom corners on both sides without the ball and looked for Tyson's screen. If the Beast didn't come out, Mo Wen would have the opportunity to receive the ball, and if he came out, Tyson would have an easy opportunity to use his height to chase Ariza and defend Mo Wen at the baseline.

Facing ordinary outside players, Howard is not afraid of this kind of baseline cut-in. He is fast enough, and although it is a bit tiring, he can still cover it. However, Mo Wen is too fast whether he shoots or passes the ball.

Even if Howard has the speed of a small forward, it is difficult for him to keep up with Mo Wen's speed.

After being played like a monkey for four or five rounds, Howard no longer talked about being happy. He just lay there in the basket and let his teammates chase him.

At the end of the third quarter, Mo Wen also played a very classic shot.

He pointed out Howard, thinking of passing an alley-oop to Tyson, so he casually threw the ball onto the backboard in the paint.

But after Tyson jumped up, he realized that the trajectory of the ball in front of him was a bit straight, so he just raised his hands and escorted the ball into the net.

It appeared—void alley-oop!
The monster's eyes widened after witnessing this scene.

Wang Defa, is this the strength of the league's top outside line?

He didn't even need to dunk for the alley-oop, it went right in!
If he were given a Mo Wen, how happy would he be?

——Even if he can’t dunk, Mo Wen can still make a shot.

"Sometimes I really doubt whether Mo really needs teammates to play in the game. Just look at this ball and you will understand how simple and easy it is to be his teammate." The commentator on the sidelines sighed inexplicably.

"Just by slightly touching the ball you can turn Mo Wen's three points into your two points, right?" the commentator next to him said jokingly.

Hill felt very complicated when he looked at Mo Wen, who also came from the Pistons. He used to shine in the center of the court like Mo Wen, but in 6 years, he did not gain any fame. Only a barely repaired body was left, and he didn't know where his next stop would be.

After three quarters, the Supersonics led by 17 points, but Mo Wen did not leave the fourth quarter for the players to gain experience as usual, but chose to continue playing to score points.

Of course, Mo Wen greeted the Magic players and coaches during the warm-up.

Today is little Catherine's birthday. Mo Wen felt that it was not excessive for him to get a 50-point triple-double as it was also his girlfriend's birthday.

Magic head coach: I&%￥...you'd better only have one girlfriend!
At the end of the game, Mo Wen scored 51 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds.

He raised his scoring average by 1 point, and now his scoring average is as high as a terrifying 37 points.

The reporters and experts who had originally praised Mo Wen for assisting his teammates were now numb after seeing Mo Wen's unstoppable high-scoring performance.

They now want to know how long Ray Allen will rest and give us back our assist king.

After the game, Mo Wen pushed the cake he had ordered earlier and hastily distributed it to his teammates and staff.

Because of the locker room rules that relatives were not allowed to enter, several teammates thought it was Mo Wen's birthday... After all, they had only been together for a short time and were not that familiar with each other. In the midst of the hasty congratulations, some people even found gifts for Mo Wen.

Mo Wen didn't think much of it, just accepted the gift with a smile, then spent another two minutes going through the press conference, and then hurriedly took little Catherine home to celebrate her birthday.

"It's great to be young. I still remember to celebrate my girlfriend's birthday. Now I'm even annoyed by celebrating my son's birthday." Payton sighed as he was packing his things.

"Wait, Gary, are you saying that it's not Mo who has a birthday, but his girlfriend?" Millsap's eyes widened.

"Yeah, didn't you see that guy and the governor's daughter were flirting with each other? I remember there were quite a few shots of them. Didn't you notice?"

"Ah? It's broken! That gift I gave... I have to make a phone call quickly!" Milsap seemed to have thought of something terrible.

"Why are you in such a hurry? What did you give? If it's TT, it's no big deal. He just happens to need it tonight, hehe." Payton waved his hand.

"It's not that one, it's that one..." Millsap dialed the number with tears in his eyes, but got a busy tone.

"Which one, which one?" Payton hates the Riddler the most.

"It's that DVD...the DVD of Christie and his wife." Millsap scratched his head embarrassedly.

"Christie... Oh, you mean the one with Doug and Jackie?" A restricted picture suddenly appeared in Payton's mind. Doug Christie was half-naked with a collar, and his wife was dressed like a queen, swinging a small whip...

He paid to watch it online some time ago, and it cost him 20 US dollars. The content is not really pornographic, and is even more of a spoof. But it is indeed not suitable as a birthday gift for a girl. Isn't it obvious that it is intended to corrupt the little girl?

"He's probably pulled out his phone card now...you're on your own." Payton looked at Millsap sympathetically.

(End of this chapter)