From sparring to superstar

Chapter 149 147. Accidentally Became a Mid-Season Popularity

There is another place that Li Ao feels weird.

Every time he completes a counterattack, Carter always wants to counterattack without hesitation, but their Clippers made accurate shots tonight. The team made 81 of 45 shots, and the shooting percentage was as high as 55.6%. The Raptors had a chance to counterattack. Not good, Carter counterattacked and hit more irons instead. It is not possible to hit so many irons just with the conventional style of play.

The four major shooting guards have met three, Li Ao is looking forward to playing against Iverson, that is youth...

After 4 days and 3 games, the Clippers got two days off. They took a day off on the 6th and left Los Angeles on the 7th. They will start another back-to-back away game.

On the 8th, the Clippers challenged the Suns away.

The Clippers defended well in the first quarter. Seeing that the Suns missed a three-pointer from the outside, the Clippers decisively contracted. The Suns made 4 of 0 three-pointers in the first quarter. Li Ao took the opportunity to shrink wildly, giving Kidd and Marion each A big block, and also shot off a chance for Chakaridis to catch the ball and eat a cake for a layup. In a single quarter, he had 1 steal and 2 blocks. He led the team to defend against the Suns and only scored 17 points. 21 leads the Suns by 17 points.

But this is also the only section where the Clippers have an advantage.

第二节比分23比23，第三节比分21比25，末节比分20比25。

The Clippers were able to rely on defense in the first half, but they couldn't handle it in the second half. 85 to 90, the Clippers lost the away game, and their winning percentage fell back to [-]%.

After killing Spider-Man, Kidd, who scored 2 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists and 6 steals tonight, showed a smug smile.

What's wrong with 7 of 1 shots, what's wrong with the counterattack trying to dunk and being chased by Spider-Man, he won!The emperor of the sun is infinitely rampant!

李敖今晚19投8中，其中三分球8中3，外加7中5的罚球，拿到24分7板3助攻2抢断5盖帽。

Seeing that he was shooting 42% from the field again, he turned on the system and saw the improvement to 74 three-pointers and 88 mid-range shots, feeling a little more lonely.

But Gentry is very satisfied. By the middle of the season, this kind of defensive battle can still maintain the shooting rate comparable to that of the early season. This is definitely an improvement.

Now it's not the offensive era of the 80s, but the era when all teams play defense indecision, just like the Suns tonight.

当年的艾弗森在新秀赛季的1月和2月，连续两月命中率低于40%，还创下过一个尴尬纪录——连续5场出手超过15次、命中率低于30%的尴尬纪录。

After playing the Suns, the Clippers returned to Los Angeles early the next morning and faced the Pacers back-to-back in the evening.

Li Ao felt that they were incompatible with back-to-back. Last time they were back-to-back, Odom was injured. This time, Maggette's ankle was injured back-to-back, and there was one less person.

Fortunately, Maggette is not an indispensable player for them. They still have to practice for two years. Maggette can't play. They still have Tyron Nesby in 98. They don't lack 70+ Evaluation level players.

In fact, at present, Tyron Ness is stronger than Maggette, mainly because of his more comprehensive abilities.

Nesby, who was in the second grade last season, averaged 13 points per game. He has excellent physical fitness, has a certain ability to hold the ball, and has a three-pointer.

But Maggette has a top-notch ability-crushing breakthrough attack frame.

Maggette can open up the situation at a certain moment, but Nesby cannot.

Of course, the most important thing is the talent gap between the two. Nesby entered the NBA, and he is already at the current level. He has not made much progress in two years, and his talent is at the end.

And Maggette's talent can be seen by everyone.

今晚李敖22投10中，其中三分球4中0，加上4中4的罚球，拿到24分3板5助攻1抢断1盖帽。

Except for three-pointers, Li Ao's offensive performance was quite good tonight, and he restricted Reggie Miller's performance. Reggie Miller only scored 9 points on 3 of 8 shots tonight.

但雷吉-米勒今年已经不是步行者队头号得分手，李敖对他的限制，让队友们不用担心步行者队的外围投篮，可步行者队还有这赛季场均20+5+5的杰伦-罗斯、场均15分7板3.3助攻的艾尔-哈灵顿。

Failed to introduce O'Neal, Larry Bird chose to tap the potential of the team, and Al Harrington, a talented high school student selected at the end of the first round in 98, was reused.

This jack-of-all-trades takes off when given the chance.

杰伦-罗斯今晚拿到24分9板4助攻，艾尔-哈灵顿14分7板3助攻，替补席上的特拉维斯-贝斯特在和麦金尼斯的对飙中拿到20分、奥斯汀-克罗希尔拿到16分。

虽然李敖拿到24分、麦金尼斯拿到17分5助攻、小奥尼尔拿到13分15板、大Q拿到14分，快船队还是以87比92不敌步行者队，吃下了本赛季第18次失利。

On the 11th, the Clippers played against the Nuggets at home.

Li Ao was soaring tonight. Facing James Posey's defense, he scored 28 points in the first three quarters.

James Posey was bombed, which affected the overall defense of the Nuggets. The Nuggets were still struggling in the first three quarters, just not flanking Li Ao, trying to maintain the team's defensive effect.

Indeed, the Nuggets did a good job defensively. In the first three quarters, Li Ao scored 28 points alone, while the Clippers only scored 63 points.

但掘金队今晚自个儿进攻也不行，快船队前三节分别拿到23分、17分、23分，掘金队前三节更是只有20分、18分、20分。

At the end of the quarter, the Nuggets began to focus on blocking Li Ao and did not give shots. Li Ao took the opportunity to send 3 assists and multiple indirect assists in a single quarter. The Clippers scored 29 points in a single quarter.

What made the Nuggets regret is that they felt better in the final quarter and scored 28 points in a single quarter.

And these 28 points did not score in a single counterattack. Van Exel scored 11 points in a single quarter and Antonio McDyess scored 10 points in a single quarter.

The coach's judgment is also part of the team's strength.

李敖23投12中、其中三分球4中2、外加7中7的罚球，拿到33分4板8助攻2抢断2盖帽。

加上麦金尼斯的12分5助攻、小奥尼尔的14分10板、大Q的14分2板、格雷格-安东尼的12分……力压拿到29分的范埃克塞尔和27分14板的麦克戴斯。

The Clippers beat the Nuggets 92-86!
...

The next morning after playing the Nuggets, Li Ao woke up at 6 o'clock.

Looking at the familiar ceiling and the calendar on the bedside table to help his aunt fill out the schedule, he felt very pained.

He stayed there for a long time, but was driven back to the small apartment.

But should I say it, I didn't see a familiar figure when I woke up in the morning, but I was looking forward to it, looking forward to the next meeting, even though it was on the same floor.

Next, another wave of 4 consecutive aways will start. He muttered, "It really deserves to be a miserable month for weak teams."

But although there is an away game tomorrow, there is no need to leave Los Angeles today.

After getting up and going to the next door to pump the iron for half an hour, Li Ao went back to the small apartment and took a shower. At 7 o'clock, the property manager delivered the newspaper to Li Ao's door.

Li Ao took the newspaper and took it back into the house. Looking at the pile of newspapers at the door, he remembered that he hadn't read the news for a long time after Christmas.

Every day, the property manager puts newspapers at the door of his house, and when he comes back, he just throws them in the house. The auntie likes to get information from TV news and the Internet, and doesn’t read newspapers...Knock!

Newspaper subscription money wasted!
But now the daily schedule is very full, compared to last year when I was playing NCAA, it is full of classes, training, games, and cooking for the auntie in the hospital, and I really can't care about watching the news.

Open a newspaper casually, find the sports page, the NFL dominates the list...

But there are still basketball columns.

headline News……

"Spider-Man continues to be crazy, the Clippers return to [-]% winning percentage"

What the hell?

He quickly finished reading the short news headlines, and his expression became strange.

After entering the middle of the season, 3 wins and 6 losses, the record is poor.

Although he has a good mentality, everyone on the court is positive, no matter how big the disadvantage is, as long as he is on the court, he will do his best to win.

But after the final whistle, seeing the cruel score, he still felt uncomfortable and had negative emotions.

This is the real reason why he still wants to practice more on the day of the game. He doesn't want to worry about the game at night, and worrying is useless. He also transfers the negative emotions of losing to training.

And he remembered that a while ago when he was watching the auntie of the hospital assistant surfing the news, he saw the auntie's expression of displeasure.

What's the situation now?
He also looked through several other different newspapers, and the contents were similar, all of which were touting that he led the team back to a 9% winning percentage, with 20 consecutive games of [-]+.

He also compared Carter, Francis, and Brand with him, and all said that his performance in his rookie season was far better than these people.

He felt that if Duncan's rookie season in the 97 class was not so strong, he would have to step on it.

He looked at other news and suddenly understood something.

Then I flipped through the newspapers from the previous few days.

really……

Recently, during the NFL playoffs, the enthusiasm of sports fans in North America for basketball has declined, and the sports pages of major newspapers and periodicals have been dominated by the NFL.

But the basketball media also have to eat, and they have to find hot topics to report.

Unfortunately, there is no hot news recently.

Iverson was injured, Kobe was injured, and O'Neal was also injured a few days ago.

The Kings have recently fallen into a low ebb. White Chocolate has reached the middle of the season when it is time to fight tough battles. The performance of the Kings is as poor as last season's playoffs. The overall performance of the Kings is lackluster; There are not many dunks in actual combat. So far this season, I have dunked a total of 20 times. I haven't had any hot spots recently...

The Magic team sang all the way, surpassing the Lakers and ranking first in the league.

But Duncan has no personal news, it is all related to the team, and the team's news is difficult to compete with the NFL playoffs.

Li Ao turned to a few days ago. Since he played the Hornets, the direction of the media's reports began to change.

On the second day after they played the last few games, they were all touting his personal performance. If they won, they would brag about his ability to lead the team.

He looked online, not only the newspapers, but he has also been praised recently on the Internet.

Newspaper news is fixed, and what is printed is what it is, but online topics can be extended.

He saw that the most popular topic about the NBA at present is to predict whether he can get 20+ in tomorrow's game with the Lakers, and increase the consecutive 20+ games to 10 games.

In that case, he will become the fourth active rookie player to achieve 4 consecutive 20+ points.

The other 3 people are Iverson with 11 consecutive games, Duncan with 13 consecutive games... and Glenn Robinson with 13 consecutive games.

None of the Admirals, Malone, or O'Neal had such performances in their rookie seasons.

And those three players, without exception, played more than a dozen consecutive games of 3+ performances in the final games of the regular season, so the media dared not take out Iverson and Duncan in the newspapers.

But according to the news on the Internet, Li Ao had 9+ games in 20 consecutive games in the middle of the season, and the two of them who were expected to soar at the end of the season had already stepped on.

Of course he was happy to be praised, but after scrolling through the news for a while, he closed the page.

Being touted, he won't be overwhelmed by it. No matter how hard he blows it, can he blow it as hard as the crazy three and final four stages 9 months ago?

At that time, the NFL season was over, and the NBA had to make way for the NCAA basketball championship finals. Sports fans all over North America were paying attention to him. Now it is far from then.

The main reason is that he feels like being used as a tool.

If there are other topics to hype, just hack him, and now there are no other hot news, just use him to attract traffic.

After turning off the computer, he came to the home of the hospital assistant to make breakfast, and when it was almost ready, the hospital assistant's head stuck out from the kitchen door again...|ω)

It was noon, and in the morning he was still slandering the NCAA behavior that the media did not pay for his traffic.

At this time, Li Ao said - rub!Go ahead!I am strong enough!It's not that easy to fall down!

On January 2001, 1, the NBA officially announced the data of the first phase of the All-Star starting voting.

Last year's slam dunk contest, Carter, the god of the gods, temporarily ranked first with 72 votes. Naturally, he was also the first forward in the Eastern Conference.

The Eastern Conference forward Duncan got the second place with 46 votes, ahead of Superman Balloon Hill who had not played a single game this season but still got 42 votes.

In the backcourt of the Eastern Conference, Iverson ranked first with 58 votes, McGrady ranked second with 41 votes, followed by Tim Hardaway, Marbury, Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, Stanley Tuckerhouse, Eddie Jones...

The Eastern Conference center is another player who has not played a game. Mourning beat Ratliff with 55 votes and 39 votes.

In the West, the center, O'Neal ranked first with 60 votes, No. 2...Jermaine O'Neal of the Clippers, 47 votes.

For guards, Kobe ranked first with 53 votes, followed by Kidd with 44 votes and White Chocolate Jason Williams with 37 votes.

Forward, Webb is second, with 49 votes, first...

Li Ao temporarily ranks as the top voter in the Western Conference with 70 votes, second only to Vince Carter!

(End of this chapter)