Rebirth of My Rocket Dynasty

Chapter 42 The first opponent to fall

On November 1997, 11, the Rockets ushered in their first opponent in the regular season, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers' lineup this year is still very good.

This is Big Z's second year in the NBA.

Next to him this year is 'Rain Man' Kemp, Wesley Person.

And this year's rookies, Knight, Derek Anderson and Cedric Henderson, plus Bob Sura, Potapanko.

The Cavaliers' lineup is also quite complete.

This year they have ambitious hopes of breaking into the playoffs.

But their first game was away, and they encountered the Rockets who fought the Bulls in seven games last season.

And this year's Rockets are even stronger.

In the ranking of the most powerful contenders for the new championship, it is second only to the Chicago Bulls.

Such a strong team made the young knights feel cold secretly.

The game officially begins.

Now the Rockets' jump players are generally Garnett, and Garnett with long arms has an advantage when jumping the ball.

The ball was pointed towards Mark Jackson by Garnett.

Mark Jackson controlled the ball as soon as he hit the ball horizontally.

Looking at Brian Knight who is only 1.78 meters, Mark Jackson advanced very easily.

Using the width of his body, he pushed steadily beyond the actual restricted area.

Faced with a gap of 13cm, Mark Jackson played with ease.

The past two years in the Rockets can be said to be the best and most leisurely two years that Mark Jackson played.

In the team, he is the main starting player.

In terms of salary, my boss is a master who doesn't care about money at all.

In the team, although he is not a leader, he is also a heavyweight in the locker room.

On the court, he had the best results averaging 11.3 points and 9.4 assists per game.

That's quite an achievement for a point guard.

The perpetual pass-first point guard is entering a peak period of his career.

Looking at the rookie in front of him, Mark Jackson not only wanted to tease him.

"Hey, man, did you grow up poor?" Mark Jackson asked.

"No, my father is a basketball coach." Knight was a little strange.

"Hey, if you're not poor, why are you so short?" Mark Jackson said with a smirk.

Before the laughter fell, he pushed the ball high into the inside line with both hands, obviously bullying Knight's height is not enough.

Seeing the depressed Knight, Mark Jackson felt secretly refreshed.

Dameng, who caught the ball, began to single-handedly hit Big Z.

Although Big Z was also an excellent center when he was not injured, he was still not good enough to face Big Dream.

Dameng just shook the center of gravity of Big Z with two consecutive shakes, and then he easily filled the basket and scored the ball.

2:0
The Rockets scored first.

Looking at the quiet big man behind him, Dameng didn't say anything, just shook his head slightly and left.

Looking at Dameng who left shaking his head, Daz froze for a moment.

Seeing Big Z being singled out, Kemp stepped forward and patted the Lithuanian's butt and said, "Dude, be careful, there is no center in the league who hasn't been blown up by Big Dream."

"Hehe, I understand." Big Z nodded quietly and went to serve.

Serve directly to Knight.

Knight, who had been stimulated by Mark Jackson's words just now, was galloping across the court like an elf.

Mark Jackson couldn't keep up with the little man's speed.

No way, who made Mark Jackson's natural speed slow.

This kid with unusual speed quickly rushed towards the Rockets' half court.

A high-speed disguise, after getting rid of Mark Jackson's entanglement.

Knight took control of the ball and started a high-speed assault, heading straight for the Rockets basket.

Faced with the high-speed assault of small players, the Rockets' few big players obviously have nothing to do.

I can only watch this kid, like a loach, get into the paint area.

Then, after attracting Garnett's defense, a cross in his hand reached Kemp's hands.

Kemp, who was not completely depraved, took a step forward and made a dunk, ending the attack.

And this ball represents a microcosm of the first quarter of the game.

Offensively, Mark Jackson beat Knight.

But on the defensive end, Knight's speed caused headaches for everyone in the Rockets.

At the end of the first quarter, the Rockets actually only led by 3 points.

27:24
It surprised everyone.

But at the beginning of the second quarter, the Rockets changed their strategy in time.

Mark Jackson went out and Bodi Roga played point forward, Ray Allen and Jacque Vaughn.

Jacques Vaughan, who did not expect to be able to play in his first game, was very happy and understood that his task was to defend.

Garnett continued to stay on the court.

Ben Wallace also replaced Dameng.

Almost all such lineups are composed of rookies.

The Cavaliers side is also mostly composed of rookies, and the new forces on both sides began to collide.

However, it is clear that the Rockets' newcomers have the upper hand.

The head coach of the Cavaliers, Fratello, is also a sensible person.

Seeing the Rockets' style of play, I was stunned at the time.

This is not a triangle offense.

Coolie center and point guard.

Organizational forward, good at shooting suddenly, able to attack, defend and pass.

The Bulls are a super point guard and the Rockets' super power forward.

The Bulls are rebounding power forwards, and the Rockets are shooting guards.

Although the configuration is different, the effect is still amazing.

The three-pointer is accurate, and after the high screen rotation, the shooter can always find a suitable open shot.

In the forward position inside, Garnett's scoring is much better than Rodman's.

Although Bodi Roga is not as good as Pippen in terms of physical fitness, his super basketball wisdom makes up for it.

In the hands of Bodi Roga, the ball can always be passed to the most suitable player.

As long as the hand feels good, you can basically score.

Even Ben Wallace got a few dunks at the rim.

Knight, who was very active in the first quarter, also lost the first quarter of the game under the defense of Jacque Vaughan, who is also a rookie.

Jacques Vaughan is no slower than Knight and has an advantage in height and weight.

For a guard like Knight whose shortcomings and advantages are equally obvious, as long as his advantages are suppressed, his shortcomings will be magnified.

In the second quarter, the Rockets played smoothly and took the lead all the way.

At the end of the second quarter, the Rockets led by 50 points 39:11.

After the adjustment in the midfield, the Rockets became more ferocious in the second half.

Saulius, Malik Rose, Shandon Anderson and Ben came off the bench in the second half.

Under Bodi Roga's scheduling, the Rockets played equally with the Cavaliers' main players as substitute players.

Let the head coach of the Cavaliers look straight.

I thought to myself: What the hell is going on, the Rockets' substitutes beat us like this.

Do other teams want to play this year?

But there is no way.

In the last quarter of the game, when the Rockets' main players only played for 5 minutes, the Cavaliers completely surrendered their guns.

104:82
The Rockets easily beat the Cavaliers with 22 points and got off to a good start.

At the press conference after the game, Lao Tang praised all the Rockets players in a high-profile manner, calling them the best.

After the game, ESPN and TBS and many other media even supported the Rockets, saying that the Rockets are the most powerful contenders for the championship this year.

And the Bulls' first game started almost at the same time.

The Bulls lost 85:92 away to the Celtics, indicating that their road to defending this year's title will not be so smooth.

(End of this chapter)