When pride still matters

Chapter 341 Chicago Ghost

If Yu Fei were asked to choose a team to advance between the Warriors and the Mavericks, from an emotional perspective, he would definitely choose the Warriors. This is not because Dallas people have repeatedly claimed for the past six months: "Our championship was stolen by Milwaukee. If the penalties were consistent, the Mavericks would have won the championship last season."

It's because the Warriors have Vince Carter. In addition to this factor, there is also Warriors head coach Don Nelson, who has said in public many times that Yu Fei is the "ultimate player" in his mind.

Yu Fei has never interacted with the famous coach, and considering his reputation in the past few years, there is no benefit to be gained by touting him like this.

Therefore, Nelson's praise is most likely sincere.

The reason why Yu Fei was recognized by Nelson is because he is like the complete embodiment of Nelson's more than thirty years of basketball experiments.

In the past few years, Yu Fei's Bucks have triggered a positional revolution in the NBA. One of the most prominent features is that versatile players like Yu Fei serve as the core ball handlers, and small forwards like Granger who can shoot can serve as four-pointers. Number position.

Many teams began to follow the Bucks' approach. Yu Fei's explosive performance even affected the 2007 draft. Greg Oden, who had been far ahead in the 2007 draft since his debut, suddenly suddenly entered college. Threatened by Kevin Durant.

Not only because Durant had his strongest freshman performance since Carmelo Anthony, but also because his combination of size, flexibility, ball-handling ability and silky shooting reminded people of Yu Fei.

When Durant was dubbed by scouts as Yu Fei's template, things changed a little.

In this win-or-go-home game, Nowitzki suffered from mysophobia, refused to attack in the paint, was dunked by Matt Barnes, and made more turnovers than field goals (all in the game). 2 goals, 3 turnovers), as the new MVP, the league's best player who led the team to 65 wins was brutally beaten by the eighth seed by 25 points in a life-or-death game.

In his previous life, Yu Fei's knowledge of Nowitzki was limited to the 2011 Conferred Gods Championship. That championship seemed to give Nowitzki the permanent right to avoid being sprayed. No matter how weak he had been, when he represented old-school basketball After severely defeating Miami's complacent Big Three, the basketball world made peace with him.

They broke out at the right time, and just realized the dimensionality reduction attack of small balls on big balls, just like the Warriors in the 2015-16 season abused each team in the regular season.

Now you know the original intention of Nowitzki fans affectionately calling Dirk "I'm soft"?

Explain: "I have already said that he is a softie, and it will be boring if you say it again."

In 1984, Nelson coached the Milwaukee Bucks, an Eastern Conference powerhouse that was overwhelmed by Larry Bird's Celtics and Dr. J.'s 76ers. In the Eastern Conference Finals that year, the Bucks lost to the Celtics. That led Nelson to hit the reset button on the team and send star forward Marques Johnson to the Clippers for undersized second guard Craig Hodges, who does nothing but offense. Ricky Pierce, a good scorer, and Terry Cummings, an athletic power forward.

Now, back to Nelson himself. Speaking of positional revolution, he is the pioneer in the NBA.

However, although this Warriors comes from the same team as the Warriors ten years later, the personnel structure is different. If Dirk Nowitzki can exert his MVP influence, maybe the ending of the series will be rewritten.

Their eight-man rotation includes an oversized point guard (Baron Davis), a point guard-sized shooting guard (Monta Ellis), and a classic post-Jordan 6-foot-6 point guard. Guard (Vince Carter), three small forwards with different skill sets (Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, and Michael Pietrus), one shooting power forward (Harrington), and one undersized center (Andris Biedrins).

As far as this series is concerned, Nowitzki is completely broken. This can be seen from his expression. In games 1, 3 and 4, all teams need him to step up and save the situation. He didn't show up at the critical moment. What followed was a disastrous Game 6.

It can be said that this is the earliest positionless basketball.

The trade was criticized at the time because Nelson weakened their strongest position at small forward and failed to bolster their weakest position at point guard. But magically, Nelson deftly solved both problems by using Paul Plessy as the point forward. Plessy's presence makes Hodges, the short second position, a viable option as the starter. Pierce comes to the sixth man as his favorite scorer, while Cummings makes up for Plessy's ability to organize. But it lacks offensive ability.

When he returned to the Golden State, he decided to continue his experiment here.

After watching Game 6 between the Mavericks and the Warriors, Yu Fei said in disbelief: "This person actually got more MVP votes than me?"

After hearing this, although close friends such as Lawson and Lin Kaiwen were aggrieved by Yu Fei, they did not have much opinion on this year's MVP selection.

Fate just happened to let me meet my last failed experiment in the first round of the playoffs. Now, the Mavericks have basically abandoned the concepts of Nelson's period. Avery Johnson, who was born in the Spurs, turned the Mavericks into a team. A fierce team that advocates defense and emphasizes half-court offense. In other words, they are very traditional.

From then on, Nelson continued to experiment like an obsession, but he never found the ultimate player who could perfectly suit his style. It wasn't until Yu Fei's appearance and the Bucks' success that Nelson saw the light.

Unfortunately, the Warriors are a completely unconventional team.

This is what Yu Fei doesn't understand very much.

Therefore, when Nowitzki, who gained a "soft name" due to his weak performance, appeared in Yu Fei's world, he just felt weird.

In the past two years, Yu Fei has completed two consecutive MVP awards with horrific statistics, which has infinitely raised people's expectations for him. When he ended the season averaging 27+8+9 per game, even if his team played The second record in history, for voters, this is still not good enough for him to complete three consecutive MVP awards.

In fact, there is even some "a pity but not necessarily a bad thing" mentality within Yu Fei's camp, because after three consecutive MVP awards, the media's expectations and the mentality of "giving others some opportunities" will be maximized. If you want to win the award in the future, Difficult.

I just didn't expect that Nowitzki had just been selected as the regular season MVP, and then he showed everyone his ruthless skills in the playoffs. Yu Fei has never wanted to see the MVP acceptance speech more than now.

It can be expected that this will be the most embarrassing moment in the NBA since the merger era.

Then, another team that nearly topped the Eastern Conference last season sank in the first round.

The newly promoted Chicago Bulls extinguished Miami's fire with the power of their youth army and successfully advanced to the semifinals to challenge the Bucks.

The Heat's failure basically declared their entire plan to trade for O'Neal in 2004 a failure.

Against the Bulls, O'Neal averaged only 18 points per game, looking like an ordinary star center. His reputation as the number one center in the Eastern Conference was no longer worthy of his name.

Wade may have a soul that absorbs the power of whistles hidden in some jewelry on his body. In the first round, he averaged only 8 free throws per game, which was far below the average. However, he made an astonishing three attempts in last year's playoffs. Accuracy has also completely disappeared. In the series against the Bulls, he didn't score a single three-pointer.

The Heat are a team that wins in the moment, and their "now" refers to last season. Now, the window has closed, and the only thing they can do is to tear everything down and start all over again.

Coming to the Bucks with a passionate Bulls won't win the game with youth and vigour, as they did against the Heat.

When it comes to youth, the Bucks are not inferior to the Bulls.

After entering the playoffs, their starting lineup has become: Yu Fei, Martin, Granger, Aldridge and Kwame Brown.

In this lineup, the oldest Yu Fei and Brown are not yet 25 years old, and the youngest Aldridge is only 21 years old. On the other hand, the Bulls' starting center is a veteran who was abandoned by his former club-Ben Wallace. .

In order to sign big money, the Bulls let go of the younger Tyson Chandler.

It doesn't take long to prove the error of this decision, because Ben's decline is becoming more and more obvious. Soon, his contract will be overpriced and then reduced to garbage, and then the Bulls will have to reflect on their team building ideas. is it right or not.

Yu Fei doesn't care about the Bulls' future, he just wants to deal with his opponents as soon as possible.

Every time he comes to play at the United Center, Yu Fei feels depressed.

Because this is the place where No. 23 fought, and the jersey of No. 23 and the championship banner he won are floating in the air.

Even today, No. 23 still affects his life like a ghost from time to time.

Although he has completed his revenge on No. 23, the world has now given him a more important mission than revenge on No. 23 - to surpass No. 23.

Yu Fei doesn't like this arrangement.

It's not that he doesn't want to surpass Jordan.

In fact, all players who have reached this point face this dilemma. On the surface, they want to be themselves, but deep down, the desire to surpass No. 23 is extremely strong.

However, Yu Fei is different from those who are haunted by the ghosts of Chicago. He has direct conflicts and grudges with the ghosts themselves, which strengthens his belief.

This strange emotion caused Yu Fei, who has performed stably so far in the playoffs, to have terrifying fluctuations on the offensive end.

What scares Chicagoans is that Yu Fei's performance fluctuates upward - Yu Fei, who averaged 28 points per game in the previous playoffs, scored 46 points before garbage time tonight.

Yu Fei's roll call made Ben, who was re-elected as DPOY, like a loophole on the court. The talented Ben Gordon was completely blown away. Kirk Hinrich, known as the iron guard, left the game with six fouls. The United Center was booed. The sound became softer and softer, until the moment Yu Fei walked off the field, no fan dared to trash talk him.

“It looks like there’s only one cliffhanger left in the East.”

At the end of the game, TNT's Charles Barkley said: "Can LeBron take the Cavaliers to the Eastern Conference Finals and prove to Frye that he and his team are better than last year?"

(End of this chapter)