Basketball: The Chosen Victim

Chapter 157 An Undeniable Bet!

"The Knicks beat the Cavaliers, Wu Di's superstar quality is questioned again! ", "Anthony announced that he would limit Wu Di to 20 points! ", "Black Seven Script?D'Antoni said that the Knicks have an 80% chance of winning the next game! "...

The next day, a group of New York media seemed to have a collective climax, covering the game between the Knicks and the Cavaliers overwhelmingly.

It is no wonder that they spared no effort to report with embellishments.

The Knicks made it to the playoffs again after 7 years. They already scratched their [-]-year itch, but now they are off to a good start, and they are talking harshly. They can’t wait for the entire sports sector to report on the Knicks’ hard-earned victory Big win.

The media in Kecheng were filled with righteous indignation.

They accused New York of such embellished reports that the real purpose was to deliberately disturb the morale of the Cavaliers. In short, the Cavaliers must not be fooled!

The appeal of the playoffs has emerged, and it is related to whether a city is eliminated or promoted. No one in the local media dares to ridicule. Even the "Cleveland Candide", which has always been unfavorable to the Cavaliers, stood up and expressed their expectation. Restore morale and combat the arrogance of the Knicks.

But Lao Zhan tweeted that if he was in Kecheng, he would never allow this to happen.

His original intention was to diss Wu Di, and let the Ohio people remember him by the way, but it had the opposite effect.

Many Zhanmis in Ohio said they were off the ground, and retweeted that they recognized Lao Zhan's face, no one forced him to leave, and now they are sneering at their hometown, etc...

Seeing that the situation was not good, Lao Zhan quickly deleted the tweet to stop the matter from fermenting.

Holding the newspaper of the day, David Stern laughed like a flower on the large boss chair in the NBA commissioner's office.

This year's playoffs were extraordinarily lively. On the first day, the seventh Knicks in the East beat the Cavaliers, and the Grizzlies won the eighth in the West in San Antonio. Both East and West staged a counterattack script!

Even without the league's planning department intentionally making a topic, online discussions about the NBA have exploded!

"David, the ratings statistics for the first day are in. The ratings of the four games are very good, especially the opening game of the playoffs between the Cavaliers and the Knicks in G1. The national ratings reached 3.1! Cleveland's local ratings are 11.3 , the latter even surpassed the ratings of last year's Finals G1 Los Angeles!"

Xiao Hua handed a stack of materials to Stern and said.

"Well, very good, very good! Today there are games between the Heat and the 76ers, and the Lakers and the Hornets. The ratings will definitely go up to a higher level."

Stern nodded in satisfaction and continued:
"A good start means half the battle. Our playoff ratings this year can finally turn around! With this ratings, you will be sure to take over next year!"

Xiao Hua nodded expressionlessly. When he entered the league, he was Stern's special assistant, and now he is the vice president of the league.

In his opinion, the matter of succession is a certainty, only Stern has been emphasizing the difficulties.

He didn't want to spend too much time on this matter, and continued:
"Do you want to slow down Wu Di's whistle? In yesterday's game, Wu Di only had 2 free throw opportunities. In contrast, Anthony had 14 free throw opportunities. We have received more than 1 complaint letters..."

Stern stared at Xiao Hua, waved his hand and said:

"Adam, I find that you always lack confidence in this young man from China! Don't think that referees are omnipotent. All we can do is slow down his rise, not manipulate the game!"

Xiao Hua was at a loss for words for a while, the total score difference between the two teams was 14 points, and the difference in the number of free throws between the two alone was 12 times. Isn't this manipulating the game?

Seeing that he still had doubts, Stern continued:

"To give him a chance to show personal heroism, the Cavaliers lost a game, but this can inspire them to quickly adapt to the rhythm of the playoffs. Just watch, the next game will definitely be a good one!"

Xiao Hua was noncommittal, he never believed in individual heroism, in the face of the power of rules, personal power is insignificant, and Stern is too idealistic.

Just like refusing to legalize gambling, this thing is not as good as it is. I didn't see that the referees were already in prison in 06?
If he becomes the president in the future, let's be more realistic, and put Spinach from behind the scenes to the front of the stage.

Well, everything will be under his control!

……

Knight training hall.

A group of players huddled in the video room to study last night's game.

Although the referee's penalty was obviously unfair, they did not complain.

After all, if they can't even adapt to this, then it is impossible to rush to this position in the regular season.

They held their breath. What the Knicks said yesterday was very ugly. They will return it intact in the next game!

Watching a video, Scott explained to Jent and other assistant coaches that the game was less than 60 minutes after the timeout was removed, but he just watched it for more than 3 hours.

"First of all, I have to admit that what I asked you to increase the tempo before the game hurt you!"

Scott said with red eyes that after losing the game yesterday, he and the assistant coaching team almost didn't close their eyes overnight for editing and analysis.

Many problems were analyzed, but the biggest problem is still the Cavaliers' offensive rhythm.

The defensive intensity in the playoffs is a step up from the regular season. There is nothing wrong with improving the offensive rhythm, avoiding perfectionism, and increasing the number of shots, but Scott underestimated the mentality of this Cavaliers.

The second place in the Eastern Conference blinded his eyes, making him think that this team is already a master of all battles, and their mentality is too stable:
"You guys are getting more and more anxious. In fact, in the first 4 minutes of the first quarter, when you missed 5 consecutive strikes, I should call a timeout!"

Everyone was silent, they really played hips in this game.

I didn't feel it when I was playing on the court, but I couldn't bear to look directly at it when watching the video off the court.

The movements were either deformed or not in place. On the court they felt that everything was against them, but off the court they realized that it was themselves who were the demons.

"Tomorrow is a new game. I think there are no problems with our previous tactics and style of play. The key is to regain the feeling of the game!"

Scott paused and continued:
"So we're not practicing today, we're going back to Quicken Loans Arena for one game, and then I'm going to treat everyone to dinner!"

……

The game in the team played smoothly, the Cavaliers started against the bench, and the starters played their due level.

In the restaurant, Scott found Wu Di with a glass of wine:
"Hey Dee, do you think we've got our confidence back?"

Wu Di thought for a while and said:

"I think this thing has to come back from the field, you have to win every game to say you figured out the playoffs, or it's a castle on the beach that looks golden in the daytime, wait until The tide rises at night, and the waves collapse as soon as they come..."

Scott nodded with a wry smile. What Wu Di said is actually very reasonable. This is why the outside world says that experience in the playoffs is very important. If you don’t win a few victories in person, even if your tactics are correct, you don’t have to worry about it. end.

After taking a sip of his wine, he said:

"Actually, although I have the experience of winning the playoffs, that was when I was a player. After I became the head coach, the results of the playoffs have been getting worse every year..."

Wu Di was a little surprised. There are very few people like Scott who dare to expose their shortcomings in the United States, and even fewer in the coaching circle.

NBA players are all stars worth at least several million. In order to maintain their majesty, many coaches usually put money on their faces like crazy.

If you can win a championship, regardless of whether it is a player, a coach, or even an assistant, you will want to blow yourself up to the sky and take all the credit...

It can only be said that Scott is indeed an honest man.

He doesn't know much about PUA, and he has a thin skin. Whether it was when he was coaching the Nets or the Hornets, when the team encountered problems, he would scramble to stand up and take the blame.

But whether it's Kidd of the Nets or Paul of the Hornets, they don't have much affection for Scott. As a result, he is always the first one to be cut as a coach...

"Coach, don't say anything. Although we are young and inexperienced, being young also means that we can adjust faster! Let's watch tomorrow's game, tomorrow we will definitely have a good turnaround!"

Wu Di patted him on the shoulder, Scott supported him a lot, he had to support Scott with action!
……

After dinner, Wu Di bid farewell to the team and took Ariana to the equipment area of ​​the training hall.

"System, add 4 points of talent to strength!"

With the 2000 million US dollars in cash and the 2000 million US dollars worth of Under Armor stock wealth decreased, Wu Di's strength talent increased from 90 to 94 in one fell swoop.

This is all the savings he has saved after he was promoted to the super giant, plus the 0.125% stock reward he received for the best rookie award, it gave him strength.

Although no one accused him of not playing well in the last game, he was very clear that Anthony's defense in the last game did limit his performance.

The problem lies in the confrontation of forces.

Anthony's power is at least 95, and his power is only 90.

Although his strength has increased from 85 at the beginning of the season, but because of the secondary growth of his wingspan, the maximum weight of the bench press is still 180 kg.

Anthony's height and wingspan are about the same as him, and the strength of 95 can push at least 190 kilograms.

The difference of 10 kilograms has little effect in the regular season, and Anthony is not even willing to fight against him.

But in the playoffs, every ball is a bayonet, and the referee's judgment scale is relatively large, Anthony's unscrupulous small actions still caused serious interference to him.

Although an increase of 4 points is not enough to completely make up the gap in strength between him and Anthony, as long as it can weaken this effect, it is enough.

Originally, he had accumulated a lot of insights into strength. Now that he had completed his talent points, and with Ariana's assistance, he quickly fulfilled his talent and raised his actual index to 94.

……

On April 4, the Quicken Loans Arena was packed.

After these two days of fermenting public opinion, countless Ohioans have listed New Yorkers as their lifelong enemies.

They came to the arena early, wearing T-shirts of "go get a real championship" support, cheering for Wu Di and cheering for the Cavaliers.

There were still many people who were swinging fans of Lao Zhan before, but now they have recognized the reality. Only Wu Di can save Cleveland from being humiliated!

This is the cohesiveness of the playoffs. It's like a city-to-city war. When the opposing city is overwhelmed, you can't pray for the stars of other teams to save your hometown.

During the warm-up period before the game, Anthony found Wu Di, put his hand on his mouth and said:

"Shanzi, I heard you like to gamble!"

Wu Di replied blankly:
"not in the mood."

Anthony's eyes were fixed, Wu Di's answer was beyond his expectation, he originally wanted to arouse Wu Di's greed, and then threatened, now he can only resort to a big move:

"I don't care if you're in the mood or not!"

He looked at the four golden flowers sitting on the sidelines. They were his most loyal fans, but now they were wearing a Cavaliers support T-shirt!
Although he has no personal relationship with these four golden flowers because he likes Heimei, and he doesn't even know each other's names.

But because of this incident, he was frequently ridiculed by his friends, which has become his shame!

Therefore, he must make Wu Di pay the price:
"If you lose this game, you have to let those four bitches go! Otherwise, you'll be rewarded in New York!"

After speaking, he walked back to the Knicks half without waiting for Wu Di to reply.

Wu Di's face was ashen. Although Anthony didn't say it clearly, it's hard not to remind people of his underworld background!
A bet you can't refuse!

Unless he wins the game, he will have to let the four golden flowers leave!

Otherwise, he might get attacked by local gangsters in New York!
What a poison!
If it is an ordinary young player, the mentality will also be greatly affected.

After all, his personal safety is threatened, so how can he even think about playing games?

And the responses that can be made are also very limited. Anthony is a real local snake, the king of New York. If this incident becomes a big deal, some young Karami will take the knife for him, but Wu Di can only suffer a dull loss.

Just like many years later, Anthony led people to block the Celtics bus, but the league did not make any punishment.

In the end, it was Garnett who took the initiative to call and apologize.

Wu Di clenched his fists, he was not frightened!
He must win this game!

And after the fact, let Anthony make an equal bet!
He walked back to the Cavaliers' half, and all his teammates saw that Wu Di's expression was wrong, and asked what happened.

"In this game, we have no way out!"

Wu Di gritted his teeth and said, as for Anthony's threat, he didn't explain much.

The competition was about to start, and it was difficult for everyone to ask too many questions, so they had to suppress it for the time being.

Aruina on the sidelines frowned, relying on her understanding of Wu Di, if there hadn't been a big accident, Wu Di wouldn't have reacted so badly...

At the end of the starting ceremony, the starting lineups of both sides were displayed on the big screen:

For the Knicks, Billups at No. 1, Landry Fields at No. 2, Anthony at No. 3, Ronnie Turiaf at No. 4, and Stoudemire at No. 5.

For the Cavaliers, Davis at No. 1, Wu Di at No. 2, Jamison at No. 3, Love at No. 4, and Jordan Jr. at No. 5.

beep!
With the sound of the whistle, Jordan jumped up and patted the ball to the Cavaliers before Stoudemire.

However, Billups had expected it a long time ago, and got stuck in front of Davis without hesitation!
At the moment when the ball was about to fall into his hands, Wu Di jumped up high and grabbed the flying ball in the air.

"Oh my God!"

In the Cavaliers commentary seat, the legendary commentator Joe Tate, who has served for more than 40 years, exclaimed:
"I have never seen Wu Di show such a strong competitive state. I have a good show today!"

(End of this chapter)