When pride still matters

Chapter 515 Kevin Durant Won’t, But Kobe Durant Would

Chapter 515 Kevin Durant Won’t, But Kobe Durant Will
"50 points?"

Kobe raised his eyebrows, stared at Gasol seriously and asked, "Did he really say that?"

"It's absolutely true," Xiaojia said. "There are a lot of media people around. I think they are promoting this matter on TV now."

Xiaojia's judgment is correct.

The difference between television media and traditional news media is that they are more focused on entertainment and fun.

Especially in the sports world, turning quoting out of context into a journalistic art, as is done in the now-corrupted traditional news industry, is possible but not a long-term solution.

Television programs that can retain audiences are often those that are very "lively".

Therefore, they welcome any idea that can attract the audience.

Like tonight, the news that Yu Fei took the initiative to say that he wanted to get 50 points was a natural hot spot.

The experienced TNT quickly canceled the scheduled pre-game show and asked the guys from TNT's Inside the NBA (TNT team) studio to focus on talking about this matter before the game started.

"Just now, Frye used a juggling backcourt shot to smash the warm-up ball into the basket in the Lakers' half court, and he asked Marc Gasol to convey a message to Kobe." Ernie Johnson narrated the drama in his signature news broadcast tone, "He has to get 50 points tonight."

Ernie looked at the old guys in the studio, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, all of them are NBA legends.

"What do you think, guys?"

"Classic Frye moment!" exclaimed Kenny the Loudmouth. "It's going to be a good night!"

Miller asked, "Just let Mark pass the message to Kobe? What about LeBron? Is LeBron not important in Frye's eyes?"

Hearing this, Barkley seemed to have found some fun: "You know, in the 1995 Finals, Shaq and Penny would definitely not let Kenny talk trash to Clyde, because they all knew who the owner of Houston was."

Smith's big mouth couldn't close with laughter: "Why treat LeBron like this? Didn't LeBron play well? LeBron tried his best!"

This is the reason why the TNT group has been widely acclaimed since its inception, with its excellent chemistry and instant comments on NBA current affairs.

The thing is, their playful attitude toward James isn’t because they hate him, it’s because the public likes to hear them say it.

Outstanding media professionals often become substitutes for the public. They use their own mouths to say what the outside world wants to hear.

This is the situation LeBron James is in with the Lakers.

He originally thought that although coming to the Lakers would cause controversy, as long as he could win, as long as he could defeat Yu Fei, and as long as he ultimately won the championship, all the negative public opinion about him would disappear.

The professionals who strongly supported him in taking this step told him that history would only remember the winners.

But now, the great cause has not been accomplished, and the external situation has caused James to have doubts.

There are more and more signs that the Lakers' success is not his success, and the Lakers' victory over the Supersonics does not mean that he has defeated Yu Fei.

Kobe is the big winner of this cooperation. He did not receive as much criticism as James, and he is still far ahead in the MVP voting.

As for James, everything he has achieved with the Lakers has been examined under a biased magnifying glass.

This made him doubt that the situation would change even if he won the championship.

Yu Fei's action of asking Xiao Jia to convey a message to Kobe exacerbated the situation.

James felt a sense of indignation at not feeling respected.

"This is his trick!" Kobe has his own judgment on Fei's behavior of letting Xiaojia pass the message, "Don't be fooled by him, as long as we play our own game well, Seattle has no chance!"

These words calmed people's hearts, and James thought so too.

Although he had many other ideas, defeating Yu Fei was still his top priority before something worse happened.

In the face of this matter, everything else can be put aside.

Both sides started shooting warm-ups.

Before the game started, the celebrity audience at KeyArena was also a rare sight.

Compared to the Staples Center, which is backed by the big Hollywood market, the KeyArena lacks some star power, but there are still many big-name stars who come to watch the game.

Among these people are not only Yu Fei's ex-girlfriend Christina Hendricks, but also Jackie Cheng and Will Smith from China.

It’s just that television media focuses more on gossip.

They are willing to give more shots to Christina, who has become very popular in recent years.

But when the "Twilight" crew arrived and spent a lot of money to put the trailer of "Twilight 3" on the big screen at Key Arena, the gossip fire in the crowd began to burn.

The gossip about Yu Fei and Twilight Girl was just as popular as the gossip about him and Scarlett Johansson today.

This was something that made Yu Fei very helpless.

The person he actually dated back then was Twilight supporting actress Rachelle Lefevre, with whom he dated briefly.

But Yu Fei was unable to give Rachel a sense of security, so this relationship came and went quickly.

Yu Fei visited the crew of Twilight and admitted that he was seduced by Twilight Girl. In his opinion, Twilight Girl and Scarlett Johansson are two extremes. One is self-righteous and knows that she is loved by everyone, so she has a high standard and ordinary men don't even look down on her. The other is extreme. She also knows that she is a goddess, but she is not picky. Even if she has a boyfriend like Twilight Boy, who is considered a top handsome guy in Hollywood, she still wants to maintain an open relationship. From the sleazy director to the top athlete like Yu Fei, she wants to "try" them all.

This offended Yu Fei's bottom line. He and Twilight Man were friends, but his girlfriend wanted to sleep with him? Putting all this aside, Twilight Woman was not very attractive to Yu Fei. She was like the Hollywood version of Mei Washio. She had nothing but her looks, and Mei Washio had nothing but her figure.

Yu Fei is not obsessed with looks, so there is no way he would be tempted by Twilight Girl.

He was helpless with all the commotion at the scene.

"Frye," Durant rarely joked with Yu Fei, "Would you choose Twilight Girl or Scarlett?"

Yu Fei asked back: "Are you going to be 01 Kobe or 03 Kobe tonight?"

"I want to be myself." Durant said stubbornly.

"Don't be yourself." Yu Fei sneered, "I've seen enough of the last game."

Durant suddenly found the correct way to use "Kobe": "It wasn't me in the last game, it was 03 Kobe!"

"The 47-for-17 version of Kobe?"

"That's right!"

Yu Fei said, "I hope you don't let me see the 2001 Finals version of Kobe tonight."

The warm-up is over.

The head coaches of both teams gave instructions to the starting players.

"This is our home court!" Coach Lu shouted, "Show your momentum! Do a good job of defense! We have to take the initiative!"

"No problem, this is our home court, this is how it should be." Before Yu Fei went on the court, he said like a teacher assigning homework, "I will score 50 points tonight. KD will score 25 points, and the rest of you can score 35 points, so we will have 110 points. If we limit the Lakers to less than 100 points, our second defeat in Los Angeles will be over."

Hughes asked, "Isn't 50 points too much? That's the Lakers."

"Did you know?" Yu Fei said, "I once scored 71 points in a single game in the playoffs."

Unfortunately, Hughes knew.

He nodded and said, "Yeah, you scored 71 points on LeBron, and I was there that night."

"So do you have any questions?"

"Gone."

Both sides made their debut.

The Supersonics caused discussion from all sides because they replaced two starting players.

ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy put it bluntly: "This is a symbol of the Sonics' decision to shift their focus to defense."

But Mark Jackson has a different opinion.

He believes that the Sonics' focus must still be on offense because they have always been an offense-driven team.

At the beginning of the game, Jordan Jr. won the jump ball, Yu Fei quickly advanced with the ball and passed the ball to Durant who was following up.

Durant reacted quickly and decisively decided to take a three-pointer.

This shot was taken when the Lakers were not stable, but it didn't go in.

Since Durant shot quickly before the two sides formed a matchup, his teammates retreated quickly. Although the shot did not go in, it did not give the Lakers a chance to speed up and counterattack.

James found that the Supersonics began to let Yu Fei play against him.

What does this mean?
The Supersonics knew very well that he was the core player of the Lakers.

Let Mark deliver a message to Kobe? Let the world think he is just Kobe's vassal?
These methods can only deceive ignorant people.

James started suddenly with full fighting spirit, intending to pass Yu Fei in one step, but unexpectedly the opponent ignored the rule of prohibiting touching the opponent and blatantly used both hands to block his way.

Even a historical-level breakthrough player like James cannot break through at will if his opponent actively uses his upper limbs to interfere with his advancement speed.

Yu Fei's move caught James off guard.

James was forced to pass the ball, but it went straight out of bounds.

"What are you doing?!" James turned to referee Scott Foster, waving his hands and shouting, "He fouled! He blocked me with an illegal move, didn't you fucking see it?!"

Foster's most famous personality trait is that he never gives face to superstar players.

James's attack sounded like the buzzing of a fly to him. He said impatiently, "If you keep talking nonsense, even you will get a technical foul!"

Hearing this, James was so angry that he swore and spread his hands.

Afterwards, Yu Fei did not dribble the ball, but let Hughes bring the ball to the frontcourt.

James wanted to fight back, but Yu Fei didn't give him a chance. He came to the front court, went straight to the right waist, turned his back to James, and shouted, "Larry, no one is guarding me, pass the ball!"

How loud is Yu Fei's voice?
Even the audience watching on TV could hear the word "pass" as long as they turned up the volume.

As for the audience in the front row, they heard clearly what he said.

No one defending?
The strongest small forward in the league is now behind him, and he actually says that no one is defending him?
Hughes felt like he was in a different world. Many years ago, he was a knife-carrying guard beside James, and his duty was to protect Yu Fei. At that time, Yu Fei was still James's elder brother, and no one expected that the relationship between the two would deteriorate to the current level.

However, even though James has grown into one of the top three players in the league, Yu Fei still does not take him seriously.

Hughes passes the ball.

When Yu Fei received the ball, James' low-post defense looked very mediocre. It neither caused difficulties for his positioning nor put pressure on him after he received the ball.

James didn't even lower his waist, and he looked very confident in his body and strength.

However, Yu Fei did not make any unnecessary movements. He turned around and shot with a subtle fadeaway.

"Shh!"

Yu Fei looked at the Lakers coaching staff provocatively, his eyes were directed at the Zen Master, "Coach Jackson, why don't you send someone to guard me?"

"Don't be so arrogant!" Artest jumped up and shouted, "You can't make every shot!"

Jackson did not respond to Yu Fei's words.

In the eyes of others, he was pretending to be profound, but in fact, he just wanted to see how James would respond. Then, the Lakers felt the extremely tough defense.

It wasn't just Yu Fei who was tough on James.

Gasol tried to set a screen for James.

Yu Fei's choice was to force his way through the cover and chase after the enemy to the end.

And Jordan, who came out with Gasol, chose to double-team James.

The increasing defensive intensity made James suspect that if he controlled the ball for another second, it would be stolen, so he quickly passed the ball to Gasol.

However, the distance of such a pass was too close, and Yu Fei could not only react, but also reach out to interfere with Xiaojia's shot.

The Lakers' offensive mode has completely become small ball.

It is the consensus of every player to take a shot when there is an opportunity.

Xiaojia made a three-pointer under the interference of Yu Fei.

"boom!"

This is the new requirement that Tyronn Lue puts forward to his players on the defensive end.

After the starting lineup was changed, the second shortest player on the Sonics was Yu Fei, who was 206 cm barefoot.

Larry Hughes is a 196 cm swingman, and his physical condition is definitely excellent for the backcourt.

So, the Sonics now have five Spider-Men on the court, four of whom are at the peak of their age and athletic ability.

The advantage of long arms and legs is that as long as they defend with all their strength, they can use their long arms to achieve the effect of one defending two in a small area.

Phil Jackson presented the Sonics' shooters with a semi-open problem in the last game.

Jackson believes that those 40% so-called sharpshooters find it difficult to maintain output in half-open situations, and Morrow's performance proves the success of this defensive design.

Coach Lu is half a disciple of the Zen Master. He has no other skills except stealing and robbing. The tactics that you used well in the last game, I can use in the next game.

Coach Lu believes that this kind of defensive arrangement that leaves opponents in half-space is very suitable for them because they have many talented players with height and long arms.

As the starting player with the most unstable outside shooting ability among the Lakers, Gasol missed his first shot.

This boosted the Sonics' confidence.

Xiaojia missed the three-pointer, Durant grabbed the rebound and passed it to Yu Fei.

Yu Fei ran like a cheetah and stopped outside the three-point line in the front court.

James was startled and raised his hand to defend, but it was too late.

Yu Fei's three-pointer hit the target!
Within one minute of the start, Yu Fei scored 5 points in a row.

"It looks like Frye wasn't bluffing when he said he was going to score 50 points," said Kevin Harlan, the voice of NBA 2K on TNT. "He can exceed his goal if he keeps playing like this."

Meanwhile, ESPN studio analyst Hubie Brown said: "The most special thing tonight was the Sonics' defense. They made the Lakers feel helpless."

Just as Brown finished his words, the Supersonics used suffocating defense to make James' pass invalid.

James passed the ball to Richard Hamilton in the corner, but Hamilton was in vain under Hughes' melee defense, and the ball returned to James.

James made up his mind and chose to force a breakthrough.

Yu Fei's blocking was still tough. What James was not used to was that even though he had been subjected to so many foul-level physical contacts, the referee did not blow the whistle at all.

James's forced breakthrough did not achieve any results, and his layup was interfered. Fortunately, Gasol grabbed the offensive rebound and passed the ball to Kobe.

Kobe also made bad shooting choices when facing Durant, who was bigger than him in every aspect.

Kobe dribbled one step to the right, then drifted and forced a shot as if he was looking for a buzzer-beater.

At that time, the Lakers had just grabbed an offensive rebound and they had a full 24 seconds of offensive time. Perhaps Kobe was annoyed by James' various ineffective breakthroughs and ineffective passes, and he wanted to play more happily, but at that time, such an offensive choice was definitely unwise.

"boom!"

Of course this kind of ball will not go in.

Yu Fei jumped up and grabbed the rebound. He was about to counterattack, but found that the Lakers had already retreated to their defense. He then took advantage of the situation and gestured with his left hand to let his teammates hold on.

"Take it easy!" Yu Fei said, "Keep steady and score this goal!"

The pace of the game is often uncertain.

Either fast or slow, in a normal game, the rhythm often switches back and forth between fast and slow, and this is where the influence of the coaching staff lies.

This is also what makes the SuperSonics special.

It was not the coaching staff but Yu Fei who controlled the pace of the game.

So, in the supersonic situation, Yu Fei can go fast or slow as he pleases.

The Lakers were still wondering why the Supersonics, who had just made great achievements in the fast break, did not continue to play fast. Yu Fei had already dribbled to the frontcourt and gave enough trust to Durant, letting his teammates move away and then lob the ball to him.

Yu Fei's targeted attack on James at the beginning of the game prevented the Lakers from implementing the "James vs. Durant" matchup that worked well in the previous game.

The responsibility for this matter lies with James.

He wanted to compete with Yu Fei, so he asked Kobe to defend Durant.

They are both defense, what's the difference?

Kobe is not like James who can crush Durant with his size, strength and talent.

Kobe is now at the end of his prime, and his defense is not comparable to that of his youth. He mainly relies on his tenacity, experience and cunning judgment to deal with young people.

Durant took a deep breath, then suddenly pulled up, trying to win by height.

Kobe anticipated it, but Durant was too tall, so he could only interfere.

Lady luck was on Durant's side, and the ball bounced on the rim a few times before falling into the net.

The Supersonics used a 7-0 start to force the Lakers' first timeout.

With the Zen Master's patience, he usually doesn't call a timeout so quickly.

But now it's different. He sees that the Supersonics are fighting on defense, so the Lakers' offensive focus must change.

"Tonight's penalty scale favors defense, let's go to the basket!" Jackson said to James, "LeBron, be more resolute when attacking, you should know that no one can stop your face-to-basket attack!"

On the other side, Yu Fei and Durant exchanged their offensive experience: "Your shot just now was a bit forced."

Durant said guiltily: "It's OK as long as it goes in."

"Luck won't always be on your side," Yu Fei said. "You need to use your brain when playing basketball."

Durant humbly asked for advice: "Was there a better choice just now?"

"I didn't see you take the initiative to make any physical contact with Kobe just now. He is not LeBron. What are you afraid of?" Yu Fei said, "Next time he defends you like this, you should move closer boldly. Don't forget, this is our home court!"

After the timeout, James' attack was much more determined than before.

He is ready to deal with the difficulties. After all, he has played basketball in the early stages, so he just needs to get used to it.

However, Jordan and Bosh's attention seemed to be on him.

They were watching their own men while being ready to double-team them at any time. That clear defensive intention disrupted James' judgment.

He wanted to create opportunities, but was afraid of being double-teamed in a position where he couldn't pass the ball. The burden of thinking ahead and behind made him pass the ball to Kobe halfway through the breakthrough.

This kind of pass is not threatening at all.

He knew it himself, so he hurried to the outside to try to get the ball again.

But Kobe has decided to go it alone.

Sometimes, James envied Kobe and dreamed of becoming Jordan, but Jordan would never be as offensive as he was. Kobe often gave people a "very reluctant" feeling, but Jordan never gave people this feeling.

Only better decision-making and stronger positional dominance can give people this feeling.

James envies Kobe because although Kobe is already 32 years old, he often acts like a passionate young man who is indifferent to life and death and will just do it if he refuses to obey. People like him who carry the heavy burden of the Lakers' offense and defense have too many things to consider.

For more than ten seconds, Kobe did not pass the ball to anyone else.

He carried Durant and pressed until the last second before turning around and making a jump shot.

Hit the board!

This goal broke the Lakers' scoring drought since the opening three minutes.

"You don't want to fight back?" Yu Fei asked.

Durant said seriously: "Kevin Durant wouldn't do that, but Kobe Durant would."

"Humph," whenever Durant showed the stubbornness of a future superstar, Yu Fei would always joke with satisfaction, "Go and get a spot."

James is still defending Yu Fei.

This arrangement only shows that the Lakers also want to see the matchup between Kobe and Durant.

Yu Fei waited for Durant to get into position, then dribbled the ball and sarcastically asked James: "How does it feel to be protected by Kobe?"

"My affairs have nothing to do with you." James said coldly.

"It seems you have accepted your fate." Yu Fei said, and then threw the ball to Durant. "That's why KD would rather challenge Kobe than deal with you."

When Durant got the ball, he clearly felt Kobe's hand on his body. The opponent was too aggressive, and this kind of defense was easy to be exploited.

Suddenly, Durant had an idea. He took the ball and turned around. He held the ball with both hands and made a circle in front of his chest. He dragged Kobe's hand around with him. Then, he took the opportunity to shoot and the referee's whistle sounded.

"Beep!!!"

Kobe yelled: "WTF?!!!"

The historic big loop was unveiled tonight, and Kobe was the first person to experience it.

Just like everyone else, Kobe had no time to react before Durant hit him on the head for a 2+1.

Kobe complained loudly to the referee, but the decision could not be changed.

Durant clenched his fist excitedly, thinking back to Yu Fei's teachings just now, and was deeply touched. Frye is Frye, and every word he said has its own reason.

Just as Durant was excited about his further understanding of the offensive method, Yu Fei next to James continued to sneer: "See, your level is too low."

"Even Kevin doesn't want to waste his time on you."

James suppressed his anger: "Shut up!"

"If you can't even accept this," Yu Fei said sneerfully, "then you're in for a treat tonight."

(End of this chapter)