am i proud?

Chapter 15: Shoot When You Should

The NBA giants have several teams. In 2000, everyone remembered the green Celtics, the purple-gold Lakers, the red Bulls... and a group of teams with bad records over the years. Only New Yorkers would think of themselves as the rich Knicks.

If you want to become a giant, you must have a good record, such as the Bulls' two three-peat championships, the Lakers' 10 championships... The most amazing thing is the Boston Celtics. This team has won 16 championships in total!
Jordan once pretended to be aggressive in front of the camera. At that time, he wore a championship ring on each finger of his left hand, and the remaining one on his right hand... Although he was only pointing to the ring in turn and telling the meaning of each championship to him, this scene is really enviable to most NBA players.

But there is someone more enviable and jealous than Jordan, and that is the legendary superstar Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics. This old man has won 11 championship rings in his career, and he can't wear them on both hands!
This is the Boston Celtics, a team with the longest history in the NBA and the most glorious history in the NBA!
However, the Celtics at this time in 2000 were not considered a strong team. Since 1986, they have never won a championship, and since the 1995-96 season, the Celtics have never been able to break into the playoffs.

In 1997, NCAA coach Rick Pitino took over the Celtics. He not only served as the team's head coach, but also the team's general manager, executive president and chairman.

At that time, he promised the team and fans that he would work harder than "Cardinal" Auerbach to bring the Celtics back to championship level.

But after three seasons, the Celtics, let alone the champions, have not even made the playoffs once. The fans have long been unable to bear his inaction and demanded that he be replaced.

In the 1999-2000 season, they ranked tenth in the Eastern Conference with 35 wins and 47 losses in the regular season.

Although Coach Pitino once led the University of Kentucky to win the NCAA championship, and also led the Knicks, a big team, to successfully get out of the quagmire and enter the playoffs, but the fans only care about your current results.

So for coach Pitino, even in the preseason, he needs to lead the team to play well, otherwise the angry Boston fans might make some big noise for him.

Last season, there were often a large number of fanatical fans around his house. They were not noisy, but they would hold a sign with large characters in their hands-"Coach Pitino, please go! We don't trust you!"

This is already the result of being visited by the police many times. At the beginning, they held up the slogan - "Pitino, get out of Boston!"

On October 10th, when Pitino brought his players to the "American Airlines Center" arena, he couldn't help feeling extremely melancholy.

"Hey, it's useless to think so much, this game must be won!" Pitino patted his cheeks with both hands, and muttered, "Alonzo can't play today, Tim is old, and the strength of the Heat is not strong!"

Although the Heat traded Eddie Jones, Anthony Mason, and Brian Grant this year, the outside world generally believes that except for Jones, who is considered to be a top player, Mason and Grant can only be regarded as relatively good role players.

毕竟梅森上赛季场均只有11.6分8.5篮板4.6助攻，格兰特也只有7.3分5.5篮板1助攻，表现并不算很好。

How could Pitino think that the upcoming 2000-2001 season will be the peak of the entire career of these two veterans?
这个赛季梅森场均可以砍下16.1分9.6篮板3.1助攻，格兰特场均也有15.2分8.8篮板1.2助攻，是热火队以东部第三身份打进季后赛的大功臣。

He even couldn't have imagined that in addition to these excellent veterans, the Heat team also added a person who had never appeared in NBA history... the original NBA history!

The new NBA history will begin to write Wang Dalin's legendary basketball career from this day...

Wang Dalin's jersey number is No. 8. He originally wanted to choose No. 7, because Durant was No. 7 in the Nets. Unexpectedly, this number has been chosen by Don Macron.

He couldn't choose No. 7, so he wanted to choose No. 35. Anyway, Durant wore this number throughout his peak period, but he didn't expect that No. 35 was also chosen by Todd Fowler.

He had no choice but to comfort himself in his heart: "Number 8 is not bad, but this is the early jersey number of 'Black Mamba'! And 3 plus 5 equals 8? At least it has something to do with Durant... right?"

At the start of the game, the Celtics' starting lineup was point guard Kenny Anderson, shooting guard Bryant Stich, small forward Paul Pierce, power forward Antoine Walker and center Mark Blunt.

The starting lineup for the Heat is point guard Tim Hardaway, shooting guard Eddie Jones, small forward Anthony Mason, power forward Brian Grant and center AC Green.

Mourning's absence does have a great impact on the Heat's inside line. They no longer have the top three super centers in the league. Compared with Coswell and Fowler, Riley is obviously more willing to trust Green, a veteran who just passed his 37th birthday.

The Celtics took the lead at the beginning of the game. Pierce and Walker showed their strength at the same time. The two succeeded in attacking consecutively. The Heat were caught off guard and the score quickly came to 17:9.

Then the "magic operator" made adjustments, replacing the old Green, and replaced Bruce Bowen, the best perimeter defender, to mark Pierce, and arranged for Mason to follow Walker closely at all times, and Grant moved to the center position.

This series of adjustments has achieved certain results, but Bowen's defensive effect on Pierce is not good.He is 201cm tall, but weighs only 91KG. Compared with the strong Pierce, his strength is far behind.

Although Bowen's defense is very hard, how can he defend against the "truth" that has reached the peak of his career?

During the Heat period, Bowen has not yet evolved into the perimeter defender who was selected to the best defensive team for 8 consecutive years during the Spurs period. At this time, he can only be regarded as a relatively good perimeter defensive player.

One more thing, even Bowen in the Spurs period had nothing to do with Pierce, after all, his physical condition was too poor.

Riley couldn't help frowning. He was a little helpless for Pierce's sudden explosion in this game.

The team rotated for the first time. Hardaway, Grant and Mason rested and replaced Carter, Coswell and Marley. Jones must have finished the first quarter.

第一节比赛很快结束，热火队以22:30落后8分，对方皮尔斯单节就砍下了13分3篮板2助攻，沃克也有8分3篮板2助攻进账。

After the start of the second quarter, Jones took a break and Davis replaced him. The team's offense was still not open, and the defense was not very strong, and the opponent's second team attacked again and again.Seeing that the point difference has reached 13 points, Riley had no choice but to replace the main lineup in advance.

In the second half of the second quarter, the two sides played very fiercely. With the strong offense of Jones and Mason, the Heat gradually approached the score. At the end of the half, they trailed by 49 points at 56:7.

After the start of the second half, Walker and Pierce continued to show off, but the Heat suddenly misfired.

At the beginning, Jones missed a three-pointer, and then Mason's attack at the basket was slapped by the opponent's Ukrainian substitute center Vitaly Potapenko with a big cap, and then Davis' mid-range shot was also hit...

凯尔特人在这3分钟里抓住机会打出一波12:0的小高潮，比分已经是74：55，热火队落后了19分之多。

Spoelstra whispered a few words beside Riley, and the "magic fortune teller" pondered for a moment, then slammed the tactical board in his hand and shouted: "King, you go!"

Then the Heat took a timeout, Bo Wen went off, and Wang Dalin went on.

There are about 4 and a half minutes left in the third quarter, and the Heat are 19 points behind. It is really unfortunate that Wang Dalin faced such a difficult situation when he set foot on the NBA court for the first time.

However, Wang Dalin felt that this was his chance. After all, the team fell behind by a large margin, so if they lost, they would not blame him. If they won, the benefits would be great.

As the saying goes, "Shoot when it's time to make a shot", Wang Dalin felt very excited when he came to the court, he was already eager to try...

(End of this chapter)