When pride still matters

Chapter 120 Victory is not everything, victory is the only thing
The only reason Yu Fei chose to push O'Neal away instead of treating him more roughly was because he needed to make sure he stayed on the court.

Because the Wizards need this win.

If he gets ejected, the Wizards have no hope of winning.

O'Neal couldn't believe that Yu Fei dared to do such a thing to him. By the time his anger reached its peak, players from both sides had already come around and pulled away those involved in the conflict.

In the end, the referee's decision was that O'Neal and Yu Fei each received a foul, and there was no T.

Because both of them have already received technical fouls before, if they are given another T, they will be ejected, which will seriously affect the value of this focus battle.

In a league that treats its stars as gods, this cannot happen.

Despite this, Yu Fei's act of pushing O'Neal down still drew boos from the audience, and celebrity fans of the Lakers took advantage of the situation and fired directly at Yu Fei.

Jack Nicholson was foul-mouthed.

Gwyneth Paltrow acted as angry as a Lakers fan: "You shameless bastard, Shaq will beat you hard!"

Yu Fei was very happy that Winlester did not join the ranks of those who condemned him. As for Gwyneth, the so-called national hot pepper, he had never found her attractive.

"Shut up, you're a parallel importer like Karl Malone!" Yu Fei responded loudly to Gwyneth.

This move aroused the anger of celebrities, who believed that Yu Fei disrespected Gwyneth too much.

The scene was chaotic, and countless Angelenos stood up and cursed Fei.

This made Collins consider replacing Yu Fei and waiting for the situation to ease before playing again.

Yu Fei refused Collins' proposal because it would be regarded as a sign of weakness.

Yu Fei stayed on the court and the game continued.

Leitner came to Yu Fei and seemed to want to thank him for what he had just done.

But Yu Fei didn't take that matter to heart. No matter who was humiliated by O'Neal just now, he would go up and help his teammates.

Leitner saw Yu Fei's completely unconcerned look and knew what the other party meant.

If you want to repay Yu Fei, the best way is to provide all the experience and strength of an experienced veteran on the court.

The Lakers gradually returned to the OK dual-core drive mode, and compared to the first quarter, the Wizards rarely caught the Lakers' positional battles and failed to defend in time.

Like the Lakers, the Wizards also need to find ways to sharpen their position.

Once the game reaches this stage, they don't have many solutions.

Tyronn Lue can use his speed to steal one or two, Bobby Simmons is only useful in fast breaks, Kwame Brown got three fouls before the half was finished, and Laettner is Yu Fei's only reliable player. helper.

Whenever the Wizards' positional battle fails, the ball will return to Yu Fei's hands.

The only thing Yu Fei has to do is to call Leitner to come and pick and roll.

In the past, when Laettner and Yu Fei cooperated, there would be many fake pick-and-rolls. He would make it worse and bring the defender to Yu Fei, while he easily cut inside.

But now, he doesn't do that anymore.

Yu Fei was finally able to use the team's best anti-aircraft battery to name O'Neal in every possible way.

It was the cooperation of Yu Fei and Leitner that allowed the Wizards to withstand OK's fierce offensive in the first half.

44 is better than 46
After halftime, the Wizards led by 2 points.

Doug Collins heard an interesting question during his midfield interview.

"Do you know why Fry refers to Gwyneth Paltrow as Karl Malone?"

Collins suppressed a smile and responded: "I don't know. You can ask him yourself after the game is over."

Although Collins didn't understand what was wrong with Yu Fei's metaphor, he was sure that it was not a good word.

Then, he took a deep breath and recalled the first half of the game. It was full of ups and downs, whether it was the early lead, Yu Fei's repeated collision with O'Neal in the second quarter, and finally the opponent's attack on Laettner. Accidentally stood up for it.

Before tonight, Collins never believed that Yu Fei would one day have a head-on conflict with his opponent for Laettner.

But it's true.

Does this mean that this devilish king, who even Jordan doesn't look down on, has gradually matured and realized that he needs more helpers?
Did he take action for Laettner to subdue the veteran?
Collins didn't know, but that's how it turned out.

Leitner began to have a chemical reaction with Yu Fei, which was unimaginable before.

But Leitner, who cooperated wholeheartedly with Yu Fei, made the roll call tactic more powerful.

In Collins's impression, in the second half of the second quarter, whenever the Wizards needed someone to forcefully complete a strategy that was no longer going ahead, Yu Fei would name O'Neal.

He succeeds every time.

Laettner's shooting range opened up enough space for him, and O'Neal's inability to handle pick-and-rolls heightened Yu Fei's confidence.

Is this style of play sustainable?
Collins didn't know the answer, but he really didn't know how many insiders could limit Yu Fei's roll call.

Garnett?
Maybe add Duncan?
Is there more?
What does it mean if there are only two insiders in the entire league who can resist Yu Fei's call?Collins was confused, he didn't know, but he was excited.

As Collins' hope of winning, Yu Fei doesn't have so many ideas.

Even before he walked into the tunnel, he heard Lakers fans shouting that he was a "trash" and the Wizards were a "trash team."

Yu Fei returned to the locker room. It was quiet here. He saw satisfaction on the faces of some teammates.

why not?They led the defending champions by 2 points at halftime.

They are proud enough.

Is this enough for them?
For a team called "garbage", this is indeed enough.

It can even be said that being behind by 2 points at halftime is a shame for the Lakers and a glory for the Wizards.

Then, Collins came in and congratulated the players with a bright face: "It's wonderful! This is our most exciting first half of the season! But it's not over yet. This long run is only half done, and we have to keep running!" "

Everyone agreed, but Yu Fei couldn't help pouring cold water on them.

"It's weird, we were the leading team, but when I walked off the court, the Lakers fans called us trash."

As soon as Yu Fei finished speaking, the atmosphere in the locker room became solemn.

"Are you kidding, we are in the lead!" Jared White yelled, "They have to respect us!"

"Yes, they should respect us." Yu Fei said, "But they can also disrespect us, because they have OK and a team that is scheduled to win the championship this year, and what about us? We don't have MJ, we don't have Rip, We are a team fighting for the playoffs, I'm a cocky rookie, Tyron is a castaway from LA, Jasidi, you're the clown at MCI, Christian? Your pick-and-rolls stink worse than shit, Bob. B-Kwame.”

"Look at our group, why do they respect us?" Yu Fei said self-deprecatingly, "We only led by 2 points in the first half and felt that tonight's game was like this. We don't respect ourselves. "We only like our current lead and don't dare to expect the outcome of the second half, but Lakers fans believe they can win because we are garbage and they are champions."

The place was silent.

Collins didn't know why Yu Fei said these words when the momentum was good, until——

"The only way to get respect is to win, not to lead them by 2 points at the end of the first half." Yu Fei said to White, "Do you want to win?"

“Or do you want to continue to be treated like trash?”

"Do you want to continue to be called a burden by people around MJ?"

"Do you want Rip to regret that he quit our 'junk' team midway through?"

"Do you want to shut up those assholes who say we're useless without MJ and Rip?"

Finally, someone couldn't help it anymore, and it was Jaxidi White, who was the bold speaker: "I think! I think about it every day!"

"Then use all your fucking strength to deal with Shaq in the second half!" Yu Fei faced everyone, "Whoever backs down tonight will be trash forever! This is our chance to prove ourselves. Once we lose it, it will be Never come back! No one will save us but ourselves! Only ourselves!"

Suddenly, everyone was taking a stand.

The players cursed and wanted to fight the Lakers for their lives.

The locker room suddenly turned into a furnace, and even those who did not need to play were burned.

"Washington Post" team reporter Steve Wyche hopes Jordan knows what is happening here. He wants Jordan to know how popular Yu Fei is now.

However, he did not want to ruin this scene.

Looking back on what Yu Fei did when he came to DC, Wychie somehow believed that this 19-year-old young man might really be able to lead this "junk" team to achieve some results.

“We may be driven crazy by life, but some people will always be crazy.”

Wyche wrote in his notes from watching tonight’s game.

At the beginning of the second half, the Wizards showed a completely different attitude.

Yu Fei missed a jump shot, and then Jasidi White and Popeye Jones collided with the Lakers' inside like tigers.

They didn't grab an offensive rebound, but they showed their determination with an unshakable attitude.

The Lakers' style of play has also changed. O'Neal no longer pursues low-post dominance, but more often gets stuck in the paint, and then suddenly unloads his energy and runs to the basket.

This kind of accidental offense is difficult to be consistent. Therefore, the focus of the Lakers' offense mainly falls on Kobe.

Since Kobe's three-point shooting percentage is not high this season, the Wizards have a lot to do when defending Kobe's ball-handling offense.

Therefore, although the Lakers' offensive focus has shifted from the inside to the outside, the offensive continuity is insufficient and the problem of tactical constipation has not been solved.

Zone defense, three-second defense, and Kobe's three-point shooting percentage are currently unsolvable problems for the Lakers.

What really allowed the Wizards to stall the game was still all the players who tried their best.García Dee White was knocked to the ground by O'Neal several times.

He no longer fouls blindly.

But in the end, he paid his sixth foul on O'Neal 4 minutes before the end of the fourth quarter.

He didn't make it easy for O'Neal.

O'Neal has left a lot of paw prints and palm prints on his body. He has tried his best, just like Yu Fei said, fighting to win the Lakers, not fighting to lead the Lakers by 2 points in the first half.

Popeye Jones also showed all his energy as a help defender. He blocked 3 shots and brought scarce fire support to the Wizards with mid-range shots and secondary attacks.

Tyronn Lue attacks the Lakers' interior even more crazily. He can't wait to seize every opportunity to launch a fast break. No one has more reason than him to prove himself in front of the Lakers.

Christian Laettner, Kwame Brown, Bobby Simmons
The performance of Yu Fei's "trash teammates" in the second half was not rubbish. Although they were mediocre, they dedicated everything they had.

This is why the Wizards still lead the Lakers by 1 points 3 minute before the end of the game.

Then, the cold-blooded Kobe made an unreasonable three-pointer at the buzzer to tie the score.

Yu Fei raised his hand and called for Leitner to pick and roll.

At this time, Laettner had already done countless pick-and-rolls for him, and his energy had long been exhausted, but he still ran out regardless, blocking people and pulling away unconsciously.

Yu Fei threw away the defender and made a pull-up jumper on the right side of the free throw line.

104 is better than 102
The Wizards took the lead again with less than 30 seconds left in the game.

The Lakers requested a timeout.

The Wizards knew they were going to give the ball to Kobe, but what would Kobe do with the ball?

I'm afraid even the God of Basketball doesn't have the answer.

If Yu Fei's stereotype of Kobe is correct, then Kobe will do whatever it takes to make himself the hero of this game.

In other words, he will ignore all objective circumstances and force the last shot.

Based on this understanding, Yu Fei suddenly gave up his defender (Fox) after the Lakers sent the ball, and sent a bold and adventurous early double-team to Kobe.

This is the thinking of young people, this is the boldness of a hot-blooded person, this is a choice made by a person who is full of confidence and dares to take risks.

He is right!

Kobe dribbled the ball along the baseline. Even if his teammates were open, and even if the shot was a disaster, he still had to forcefully throw this difficult jumper with a slim chance of hitting.

"boom!"

It didn't go in!
But Kobe has never been the only guarantee for the Lakers.

Shaquille O'Neal takes off from the basket, his formidable body blacking out the sky for a split second, allowing him to grab the ball and then slam it into the basket with all his strength.

With a bang, the Lakers tied the score!
"Incredible Shaq!"

"Superman appears!"

104 is better than 104
8 seconds to the end of the game.

Doug Collins clenched his fists, knowing of course that if the game went into overtime, they would not be able to fight again.

Yu Fei is tired, he has played for 46 minutes.

The paint is either full of fouls or picking up a lot of fouls.

Others are tired too and this game must end within regular time.

He wanted to beat Phil Jackson, but he didn't know if the players could grasp the last eight seconds.

Doug Collins, who has always been good at on-the-spot countermeasures, was actually panicking at this time.

The Wizards requested a timeout.

Just when Collins' mind went blank, a man walked up to him and said in a soft but confident tone: "Coach, give me the ball, and we will walk out of Staples with victory."

At that moment, Collins froze.

He remembers a player saying something similar to him at the end of his first game coaching the Chicago Bulls 16 years ago.

That person seemed to come from God and returned to God in 1998. Mortals like them are destined to return to dust. The decaying world belongs to incompetent mortals. The greedy God will always destroy the best people. Stay around.

But last year, the man of God decided to return to basketball.

And Doug Collins quickly understood that he was no longer that person.

His loyalty and following are just a kind of inertia and dependence, and maybe a little grateful, but he really knows that he is no longer that person.

"Okay!" Collins shouted as if grasping at straws, "What are you going to do?"

Yu Fei said: "Let Tai Lun serve to me, let Christian prepare to give me the last pick-and-roll tonight, and leave the rest to me."

He said it in front of his teammates.

Collins calmed down and looked at the others: "Did you all hear it?"

Everyone nodded and a few responded.

"That's what we do!" Collins shouted.

The pause is over.

Yu Fei led his teammates onto the field. Collins looked at them and felt his head was hot and his hands and feet were weak. He couldn't help but squat down.

When he saw the way other players looked at Yu Fei, he knew the team had changed.This group of people already know who the real person is worth following, and they will burn everything they have for that person, even if they destroy themselves.

That person will lead them to win!
Even if it's just as a witness, even if it's just watching from the side.

Because this group of people called "trash" are fighting for themselves only at this moment!

The whistle sounded and the ball was served. Yu Fei patted the basketball gently on the outside. When the time entered the last five seconds, he waved and Leitner ran over.

The Lakers obviously had a design for their final defense. Jackson asked his players to double-team Yu Fei decisively after breaking through.

However, Yu Fei saw through his opponent's intentions the moment he rushed into the pick-and-roll direction. In just an instant, he collected the ball, stepped back, and retreated to the three-point line. He found the absolute balance of body, breath and rhythm 0.7 seconds before the end. It was a moment of great harmony, a moment of unquestionable judgment!
"Last moments, Fry Yu!!!!!"

"Swish!!!!!!!!"

"He did it! He did it! OMG! Frye is Washington's savior!!!"

Collins roared and rushed onto the court, hugged Yu Fei, and shouted out of control: "We won! We won! We won!!"

Then came all the teammates. Yu Fei was overwhelmed, held up, worshiped, and looked up to.

When the Overlord falls, a new era is at hand.

Post-match interview
"Fry is the Chosen One, I have no doubt about it, he's proven himself, he's the best, he really is the best, give him time and he'll prove it!" - Doug Collins Comment on Yu Fei's performance tonight.

"If some people insist on saying that we are garbage, then we are also proud garbage. I am extremely proud of what we did tonight!" - Jasidi White excitedly told the media.

"I can count on Frye, and Frye can count on me, and that's our relationship. We may not be very good friends, but on the court, we are close." - Christian Laettner on Yu Fei for himself Pushed O'Neal.

"I don't remember a lot of things about my time in Los Angeles. The most important thing is that we won the game, right?" - Tyronn Lue was asked about old Lakers events.

"It's just one game, I'm going to congratulate DC and move on. You say No. 44? He's good, well, he's good, that's all I can say, he's good." - Phil Jackson on the game and Yu fly.

"It's nothing special. We've lost to a lot of bad teams, and this is not the case." - Shaquille O'Neal on losing.

"Next question." - Shaquille O'Neal refuses to answer a question about flying.

"This is my basketball. I will never regret my final choice no matter what. I just didn't make the shot. It doesn't mean it was wrong. I have known Frye for a while and I like his authenticity, bravery and confidence." , he's my favorite rookie in a while, as long as you play with him, you will be infected by his charm, I love playing with him, as far as hating Shaq is concerned, you can't count on everyone Everybody likes Shaq, just like I gave up a long time ago on letting everybody like me." - Kobe Bryant on the game, Yu Fei and O'Neal.

"Fry, a lot of people heard you say to Gwyneth Paltrow during the competition that she was a 'Karl Malone kind of guy.' Is that true? What does that mean?"

"I think the MVP of the 1998-1999 season should have been Tim Duncan, just like the 1999 Oscar for Best Actress should have been Cate Blanchett instead of Gwyneth Paltrow."

"Would you like to talk about the friction you and Shaq had on the court?"

"Oh, that's okay. Shaq thought some of the things I said before I got into the NBA were offensive to him, so I decided to do something that would really offend him."

"Like pushing him down on the field?"

"No, that's not that. It's just that I couldn't accept him bullying my teammates. He was the first to do it, and he looked like he was diving at the time. You only need to think about his physique to know that it is almost impossible for me to kill him in one go. Pushed to the ground.”

"You got your eighth triple-double of the season tonight and your third buzzer-beater of the season. What was the biggest revelation this game gave you?"

"I don't care about my data, and you shouldn't either. What should be valued is how my teammates and I fight with dignity on the court. We don't want to be treated as other people's appendages. We are not trash. We fight for ourselves. If We didn't win, so it's all out of the question. So, if you're wondering what I learned from this game, I learned some."

"what is it then?"

"Winning is not everything, winning is the only thing."

(Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing)
(There will be only one update tomorrow, and it will return to normal the day after tomorrow)

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(End of this chapter)