When pride still matters

Chapter 374 Da Fei, you are such a sweetheart

The Lakers' problem is obvious. Their focus is on the outside, mainly borne by Kobe.

Although there are Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum on the inside, they do not have the game characteristics of Pau Gasol who seem to be born for the triangle offense.

The excellent outside line gives the Lakers a stable foundation, but if they want to win the championship around Kobe, they also need a great inside line.

However, now that the timeline has been completely changed, the Lakers have almost no hope of strengthening the inside line.

The Grizzlies won't be sending any more warmth to them, as Pau Gasol has been traded to Milwaukee.

Gasol is one of the few contemporary star insiders who is suitable for the triangle offense, and he was also the one the Lakers had the best chance of acquiring.

However, the Lakers' interior problems will not be exposed in Key Arena.

Because the Sonics are not strong inside.

This may be Yu Fei's fate. Since entering the league, he has rarely had strong inside teammates. This problem was not improved until his last year in the Bucks - Aldridge came - but, until he left, The Bucks completely solved the inside problem by trading for Gasol.

The reason why the Lakers were only 10 points behind was because they were on a par with the SuperSonics at the beginning. It was not until the SuperSonics changed their strategy that the Lakers gradually fell behind without any targeted response.

Phil Jackson has always advocated allowing players to exert their subjective initiative - a term for slow response and high emotional intelligence - during the game, he is not willing to waste any brain cells to think about things that can be decided by the players themselves. This made the Jackson master during the Bulls era. Earning the praise that "the thing he is best at doing is doing nothing", the Zen Master during the Lakers era has deteriorated in this regard.

In terms of game status, the Lakers playing away games were no less than the SuperSonics at the beginning.

If he is so commanding on the court, if he is beaten, it will be his responsibility.

Now that the Zen master wants to do this, he can only act according to orders.

Kidd said nothing, he had considered this, but as a player, he knows best the level of defense of his team.

Collison, Childress, (Luke) Ridnour and Channing Frye, those are the other four guys that Seattle has on the floor.

Instead, the SuperSonics naturally replaced Yu Fei to rest, allowing Durant to lead a group of lottery picks with higher qualifications than himself but lower team status than himself to maintain the situation.

At the end of one quarter, 34 to 24.

During the break, Jackson replaced Kidd with Fisher, and then said to the point guard master who had just been targeted and his scalp was numb: "If this continues to happen, it is necessary for us to give up switching defenses."

To give up switching defenses, to put it simply, is to use the most earthy way to deal with pick-and-roll attacks. So what's the most earthy way? It just allows the defender to either squeeze through or go around when encountering a pick-and-roll. There is no guarantee, and it all depends on the player's own awareness and confrontation ability.

After Kidd was beaten, he wanted to see how other people would react.

He has developed to the level of Masahiro Tabuchi in the 2020s, a situation that aptly reflects the fact that Uncle Tabuchi was so stoic during that period that even the hottest actresses in the industry couldn't keep his water pipes charged. What Jackson did.

If the Lakers were a team with extremely high overall defensive quality, this would be okay, but the Lakers are not.

The strategy formulated by Karl was to "torture Kidd" because of his flying hands. After all, he had been tortured all the way during the Bucks, so his hands were familiar.

When Yu Fei started to name Kidd frequently, Jackson frowned at first, and then decided to see how Kidd would react.

This is like a contract he signed with the devil - since he is at odds with the greatest center in the new century, he must bear the consequences of "never getting a good center teammate."

However, Yu Fei has nothing to do with this top inside line-up of a left-handed player, a right-handed Ade, and Udonis Haslem sitting on the bench.

Since Jackson replaced Kobe Bryant eight minutes into the first quarter, this gave him a window to replace Kobe Bryant at the beginning of the second quarter to grab points.

During this period, there were many dead balls and several official timeouts. Even Zen Master himself took the initiative to time out due to the unfavorable situation. However, before the end of the first quarter, his attitude toward Kidd's unilateral beating by Yu Fei was to wait and see.

Anyway, if something went wrong, the media would just scold the coaching staff.

It is worth mentioning that these five people are all within the rookie contract period.

You need experience and talent, you need tactical talent, you need strength and talent, it seems like you are really talented every day.

It stands to reason that against a lineup like the SuperSonics, Kobe and Bynum paired with the Lakers' second team can definitely chase points.

However, Kobe's breakthrough was blocked by Childress first, and Ridnour scored on a fast break;
Bynum stayed in the paint for too long and was called for an offensive violation. Durant caught the ball and hit a three-pointer;
Even if the Lakers' strong lineup beat the SuperSonics' weak lineup and didn't chase points, they were even separated by 5 points.

Are the Lakers about to collapse?
No, Kobe, who was expected to "rescue" the MVP from Frye Yu's reign, was angrily chewing gum and looking around like a Rakshasa from hell.

As a fifteen-day old Kobe Bryant, Yu Fei thinks he knows enough about Kobe Bryant on the court.

In Kobe's shocking 81-point performance, Raptors' Jalen Rose, one of the main victims, said after the game that he saw no signs of Kobe's explosion. He even made a joke: "You can't tell from the way he chewed gum that he expected to score like this."

But Yu Fei knew Kobe's habits. When he looked around with an angry look, shaking his head, some flames were brewing on the field.

Yu Fei stood up and said to Karl: "George, it's my turn."

"It's less than two minutes." Karl felt that he could wait a little longer.

Yu Fei said calmly: "If you give No. 24 a few more minutes, our advantage will be in vain."

"No way, Kobe is not good tonight." Karl said, "Josh can cover him."

However, the most important tacit understanding between the young master and the butler is that if the young master gets angry, what the butler should do is not to stop the young master from acting out of his temper, but to prepare for the finishing work.

Yu Fei insisted on playing, so Karl had to go to the technical desk to apply for a substitution. On the way back, he grumbled: "If you want to play against Kobe, just say so."

Kobe faced Durant with the ball again.

The ball shuttled back and forth under No. 24's crotch, and he looked like a giant bobblehead doll that was alive.

For the next 60 seconds, everything seemed destined.

A one-step pull-up inside the three-point line, a difficult fadeaway jump shot while holding the ball in the high post, and a low-post push away from Durant before using up-and-down steps to wipe the basket.

Kobe looked contemptuous: "Let Frye guard me!"

So Durant fouled on the next possession.

Yu Fei was replaced.

Karl wanted to know how Yu Fei predicted Kobe's outbreak.

Yu Fei said before taking the court: "Kobe's high school coach Greg Downer and his first coach in the NBA, Del Harris, once said of No. 24, 'When Kobe decides to 'fuck', he will." Keep dribbling with your crotch.”

Whatever you want to call this behavior, killer instinct, competitive fire, paranoia or hatred of losing, this is what the public believes, Kobe has the same instinct as Bulls No. 23. It is this instinct that has driven Kobe all these years, and the Lakers must rely on this instinct if they want to win their first championship since the OK era.

Karl still couldn't understand this kind of thing. He just suddenly thought of another thing and couldn't help shouting: "No, Da Fei, are you really Ke Mi?!!!"

Yu Fei just waved his hand without comment. No matter who he was off the court, as long as he was on the court, the player on the opponent's jersey had only two identities for him.

Rival or enemy.

The SuperSonics replaced Yu Fei at the right moment.

Kobe was about to explode, and the Sonics needed Yu Fei to curb Kobe's momentum.

Yu Fei replaced Durant and shouted to Kobe at the top of his lungs: "The good times of bullying kids are over!"

The curtain of a battle between dragons and tigers was opened.

Yu Fei responded with a jump shot facing Kobe.

Kobe went to the basket again and completed a pull-up layup.

After that, Yu Fei simply faced Kobe directly on both offense and defense. Kobe also did not shy away from taking the initiative to change positions, achieving a direct head-on confrontation between the two in the front and backcourt.

"There are not more than three players in the world who can face Frye with this intensity," Doug Collins said, "but Kobe is the only one who makes us feel like he has a chance to beat Frye."

At this time, Yu hit a three-pointer with a flying step.

Collins' partner asked, "Where's LeBron?"

"I don't know," Collins added sinisterly, "I just know LeBron never beat Frye, not once."

For James, this is a bad thing, because his image in the eyes of the world is so humble, and Yu Fei's undefeated record against him is always a thorn in his heart.

But Kobe is very satisfied with his status. Three years after O'Neal left the team, he once again entered the championship track. He didn't know what was waiting for him in front. He only knew that there was only one championship difference between him and Yu Fei. If he wins again, not only will his number of championships surpass O'Neal, but he will also be on the same starting line as Yu Fei.

This is the reason why his fighting spirit is high tonight. The real battle has already begun in the regular season.

⑴I often hear some lake fans say that Lake 08 is already very strong, and adding a big addition is just the icing on the cake. This may be true, but the Lakers were 31 wins and 17 losses before the arrival of Garland and 26 wins and 8 losses after the arrival of Garland.

(End of this chapter)