From today on is the king

Chapter 523.

The Pistons, the Nets, the Hornets, and the 76ers collectively expressed their contempt for the useless Celtics.

Actually let the Eagles get back the feeling just like that?
It's so useless!
Especially the Pistons. They had a feeling that the Eagles were going to be cold. Even if they finally switched back to the previous style of play, it would definitely have some impact. For example, Jason Terry, who originally got the ball, and Liu Mang, who might not adapt to the loss of the ball for a while, and the overall cooperation of the Eagles may all be affected.

The Pistons were pleasantly surprised when they saw that the Hawks had to play the Celtics and Pacers in two of the last four games against the Celtics and Pacers.

Who would have thought that the Celtics with such a strong defense were beaten into a sieve by the Eagles, and the feelings of the four teams that are about to play the playoffs with the Eagles can be expressed in a single sentence?

The saddest thing is the Pacers, a team that is about to play against the Hawks and ranks third in the Eastern Conference but has been ignored by people. When the major media ranked the Hawks as a possible playoff matchup, they completely ignored the Pacers, who are already firmly in the third place in the Eastern Conference and won 48 wins.

On the contrary, the Milwaukee Bucks, ranked seventh in the Eastern Conference, were included in the ranks of the possible next game. On the night the Celtics lost to the Eagles, the Bucks won and climbed to sixth in the Eastern Conference. They all felt that Payton, who has rich experience in the playoffs, could make the next game.

In fact, the difference between sixth and third in the Eastern Conference is only 5 wins, which is not so different.

Looking at the public opinion in the media, it seems that he has already been eliminated, and Payton is going to the playoffs. It is really fierce. He just won the Eastern Conference Player of the Month in March. The Pacers, like the Celtics who consciously were targeted by the Eagles, felt the malice of this world...

After the game between the Eagles and the Celtics, the sloppy style of the major media was fully displayed.

When the Eagles were 1 win and 3 losses, the media were criticizing Coach Kruger for his wrong decision, telling him to stop quickly, finish this season first, and then deal with those moths next season. They are extremely unfavorable about the improvement of the Eagles.

But after winning a game against the Celtics and showing the ability to seamlessly switch between the two ball-handling cores, the direction of public opinion changed suddenly.

"New Generation Teacher"

The Cardinal of the Eagles

"Another Phil Jackson"

"..."

"..."

The major media scrambled to praise Coach Kruger. From the game, it can be seen that when Jason Terry held the ball to organize, Liu Mang played obviously more easily, and after the two played their own characteristics of holding the ball, they were hard to guard against.

This change made the media praise Coach Kruger so much that they were embarrassed to read newspapers and online news.

Fortunately, the next day was the league's first slot match between the Kings and the Spurs, which attracted the media's attention in the afternoon, otherwise Coach Kruger would be blown away.

Although Coach Kruger knows that he can't be proud or smug, and although the Eagles have been praised by the media, they are all blown up to the playoffs, but Coach Kruger knows that the road is very difficult, and there is no home court advantage. No matter who they play, they start away.

But this does not prevent Coach Kruger from being happy. He couldn't help being happy when he saw Liu Mang, and he laughed so hard that Liu Mang's hair stood on end...

……

……

The Eagles have three games left, while the Magic have only two games left. Moreover, the Magic has 38 wins and 42 losses, and the Eagles have 41 wins and 38 losses. The playoffs have been stabilized.

Boston is a good place, a famous academic city, the birthplace of the American War of Independence, a city with highly developed biomedical technology, and various orchestras and stage theaters. It ranks eighth in the ranking of major cities in the United States, one place higher than Atlanta.

Instead of leaving the next day after playing the Celtics, the Eagles had a day off in Boston.

The main reason is that the time is very awkward, the last three consecutive away, there are two days of rest between the first two games.

After playing the Celtics on the 12th, rest on the 13th and 14th, play the Pacers on the 15th, and finally on the 17th and 18th, there will be back-to-back away games and home games against the Heat. The regular season is about to end.

After beating the Celtics, the Eagles stayed in Boston, mainly because Indianapolis really couldn’t compete with Boston. The next three games the Eagles were going to take it easy, mainly running tactics, and let the players who had few opportunities to perform in the past few months play. It doesn’t matter whether they win or not. Even if they win all the remaining three games, they only have 44 wins. The team wants to avoid the devil's ranking. The Eagles don't expect the Celtics and Bucks to lose all the remaining games. If they accidentally climb to sixth, the tragedy will be the Eagles themselves.

In the morning, the Eagles trained for two hours in the rented gymnasium of Boston University, mainly to consolidate the style of play of yesterday's game. In the afternoon, they trained individually. Those who want to go out and visit Boston, a famous historical city in the United States, can also go for a stroll.

Liu Mang chose to visit various universities in Boston with Rahim, who had an inexplicable yearning for learning and expected his son to be admitted to a prestigious school and become a scholar.

Boston is a gathering place of famous universities. In addition to Harvard and MIT, two well-known universities familiar to Lanxiang, there are three other universities that are also top universities. Boston University, a private university that rents the arena for the Eagles, and Tufts University, one of the 25 joint universities of the New Ivy League, and Brandeis University, a top academic university known as the Jewish version of Harvard with less than 5000 students, is known as the top five universities in the United States.

In addition, there are seven first-class academic universities in Boston, such as Northeastern University, University of Massachusetts... three first-class financial management schools... If you want to count all kinds of second- and third-rate universities including Pheasant University, Boston, a city with only more than 200 square kilometers, has more than 100 universities...

This is also the key reason why Boston is the most densely populated city in the United States after San Francisco. There are too many universities. Universities are the best business gathering places, and a school can drive a lot of economic income.

Liu Mang first visited Boston University with Raheem, and then went to Northeastern University, which is the closest to Boston University, with Raheem. Not to mention, Liu Mang was very touched whether it was the memory of the previous life or the memory of this life.

Liu Mang was very touched by the experience of leaving university and entering the society with a dream, which was crushed by reality, and the feeling that he was about to graduate from another university.

On April 4th, the graduation ceremony of Liu Mang's college was moved forward to April 19th, which is the day when the Eagles' regular season ended.

The normal graduation ceremony should have been in early May, but because Carter missed the training and pre-game preparations for the tiebreaker against the 5ers two years ago because of his participation in the graduation ceremony, Carter's performance in that game was abnormal. He only made 76 of 18 shots. Getting a graduation certificate and a degree certificate are two different things, it is just a pre-graduation ceremony.

Of course, this ceremony is very important to many students, such as Carter who promised his mother to take his mother to the graduation ceremony.

Therefore, all schools with active NBA stars will decide the time of graduation ceremony according to the situation. After all, an NBA star can be said to be the glory of the college or even the whole school. There are more than 400 players in the NBA who are college students and insist on earning enough credits to graduate after entering the NBA.

For example, Rahim, because his family is only close to the middle-class income, but there are five younger brothers and sisters who are only 5 years old at most, he began to bear the pressure of life at home after his freshman year, and chose to enter the NBA early. It was a pity for him that he failed to become a master's student at the University of Detroit like his third brother, and he also failed to obtain a college diploma, so he put his expectations on his own children.

Special things are treated specially. Although Liu Mang did not get a degree certificate, he has graduation qualifications. When people from Georgia Institute of Technology contacted him, he knew that he was in this world and was going to graduate soon.

Looking at the youthful college students, Liu Mang and Rahim spent a sightseeing trip that was not very interesting, but both of them thought it was very good.

……

A day later, the Eagles came to the home of the Indiana Pacers to challenge the Pacers away.

The Pacers lost to the Celtics in the game the day before, and became 48 wins and 32 losses. They completely lost hope of surpassing the 50-30 Pistons, regardless of whether they played the Celtics or the Bucks.

Of course, the Pacers are still very confident in themselves, and they regard all comments that are not optimistic about them as motivation. They can't surpass the Pistons. Their goal is the Nets who are only one game ahead of them!

So before today's game, the Pacers made a lot of plans, such as how to deal with Ratliff's basket defense, how to deal with Raheem's low singles and baseline jumpers, how to cut off the duo of Liu Mang and Jason Terry...

But when the two teams' starting rosters were announced before the game, the Pacers discovered that this was not the case at all!
The starting lineup of Liu Mang, Jason Terry, Prince, Boozer, and Metola, Raheem, Ratliff, and Muhammad directly truce, completely broke the Pacers' expectations.

The Pacers completely overestimated the importance of this game to the Eagles, thinking that the Eagles would work hard to win a few more games and win the last few games. Who would have thought that the Eagles simply wanted Liu Mang and Jason Terry to play more and cooperate with different teammates, so the three frontcourt starters were collectively rested to give role players more opportunities to perform.

It’s also the end of the season, like Mertola, who may finish this season, it’s hard to stay in the Eagles next season, and there may be no chance of playing in the playoffs. Kevin Willis is much more useful. They have more performance opportunities.

After the game started, the Eagles considered more, not how to score and how to win, but trying to let Liu Mang and Jason Terry create opportunities for big center Mertola.

This is simulating Ratliff's playing style. Although Ratliff basically has no offensive skills at all, he is so tall, so big, and the Eastern Conference, which is weak inside, is still very threatening. Standing there is a threat. If he can make a few shots, the opponent will not dare to let him go easily.

In addition to Murtola, the Hawks, one of the short lineup rushers whose playing time has been reduced a lot since Boozer, and Chris Crawford, whose playing time has dropped sharply since Prince has been added, all got a lot of playing time.

In addition to reflecting the human touch of the team, it is also one of the reasons for them to adapt to the team's changed style of play. They have played the old style of play for two seasons, and they are very familiar with it.

Be more adaptable, and if there is a foul crisis in the playoffs or when a surprise rescue is needed, you will not fail to integrate into the team.

……

However, the process of this game was always unexpected. The Pacers saw the Hawks' strongest players and defensive pillars all truce, and the players who were frustrated could sit and wait for the playoffs so nourished. They inevitably underestimated the Eagles a lot. Artest couldn't find anyone to fight hand-to-hand.

But after the game started, Boozer’s threat to Jermaine O’Neal exceeded Jermaine O’Neal’s imagination. A rookie’s cutting, pick-and-roll awareness, and mid-range shooting all surprised Jermaine O’Neal.

The defensive combination of Ratliff and Muhammad is difficult enough to deal with. Fortunately, the offense is not bad. As one of the best defensive power forwards in the Eastern Conference, although Jermaine O'Neal is not as violent as Ratliff, but in the past three years since he started, his average blocks per game are 2.8, 2.3, and 2.4, which is quite good.

But I didn't expect that the Hawks, a rookie on the bench, had the main tactical status, and the Hawks' inside offense had a new threat.

The Pacers couldn't defend the inside at the beginning. After Boozer attracted the defense, Murtola got a lot of opportunities to play high and high, and scored 6 points in a row.

Prince and the rotating Chris Crawford aggressively cut to the rim. Liu Mang and Jason Terry shot and passed the pick and roll very well. Artest followed Prince and Chris Crawford until his head was dizzy. He wanted to defend Raheem!He wants intense body boom boom boom boom boom...

At the beginning, the Eagles tried various offensive methods, and they felt pretty good. They caught the Pacers by surprise and started with a 22-9 start, which shocked the Pacers and Indianapolis fans.

The Eagles are too strong!With three starters missing, he is still so strong!

However, after the Pacers got used to it and adjusted their defense, they realized that it was just like that, just with a little more tricks. Without Raheem as a defensive containment point, Artest ignored Chris Crawford, but after active defense, the Eagles' offense began to misfire.

In the second half, Jason Terry made trouble again. When he went up to play with a substitute, he had a good time alone, scored 14 points in a row, beat the Pacers 14 to 8, and almost overtook the score.

The Pacers also want to come off the bench to practice, but the Eagles are playing so aggressively. They want to win. Pacers head coach Isaiah Thomas, who is still fighting for the playoffs and wants to have home court advantage in the second round, had to start again.

Well, after Artest came to defend Jason Terry, Jason Terry decisively admitted the rough confrontation, passed the ball, and played tactics. After three quarters, he was 76 points behind 84 to 8.

At the end of the quarter, coach Kruger put Liu Mang up again to run tactics. Liu Mang didn't have Jason Terry's leisurely mind to score a wave. He came up and planned to run tactics for a few minutes and give the rest of the time to Dean Grove, but the Pacers didn't believe that the Eagles would give up so easily.

Then...Liu Mang really ran a few rounds of tactics, and was replaced...

Isaiah Thomas is going crazy, he doesn't know what the Eagles are thinking!
The Pacers players were about to be tortured crazy by Isaiah Thomas. When they got close to the point difference, the head coach was scared like that...

In the end, the Eagles lost to the Pacers 99 to 108, and the Eagles players did not lose much. Mertola, who got 17+5, set a new season high and was very happy.

Murtola doesn’t know if this is the last time he scored in double figures in his career. He was a second-round pick selected by the Eagles in 2000. Because he is a big center, his value is much higher than that of a guard like Liu Mang. He signed a 2+1 basic salary contract, but he averaged 4 points and 3 rebounds per game in his rookie year. He averaged 4 points and 2 rebounds per game in his sophomore year. He scored 4 rebounds and set a new personal scoring high before he might leave the NBA. It is also a good memory for Murtola.

Chris Crawford is not quite the same as Newbell, they are quite strong, especially Newbell, if they change teams and return to the familiar small forward position, they may be able to start, and they still have a contract with the Eagles, but the Eagles are now strong and strong, and they have fewer chances to perform. The Eagles need more experienced veterans, because Prince and Boozer joined.

All three are likely to leave the Hawks next season. For this, the closer to the end of the season, the players understand more clearly, because they have become more and more marginalized.

But leaving is not necessarily a bad thing. The Hawks’ lineup does not give them a chance to perform. If they continue to stay, if they do not have a good performance next season, the impressive impression they gave to other teams in the 01-02 season may be slowly erased. After the one-year contract is over, it may be even more difficult to find a job.

Due to the consideration of the team's salary and summer signings, Chris Crawford and Newbell will almost certainly be traded away, because Boozer will definitely need more playing time in the second grade, and the two forward players who also play small lineups will definitely leave.

However, the management of the Eagles is still humane. The main reason is that Liu Mang has deep feelings for his old teammates. If he sells them at will, it may affect Liu Mang’s contract renewal, so he notified their agent in advance and asked them to tell the players to play the rest of the game well and perform well.

Because I didn’t expect to get any good returns at first, the main thing is to free up salary space and position, and show the human touch of the team as much as possible, so that Liu Mang, a Chinese player who values ​​human touch, will be more satisfied with the team. At least they will not be disappointed with the team because of this matter.

In addition, there are Dean Grove and Emmanuel, whose contracts are about to expire and who are basically losing their NBA capabilities. They are not far from leaving the team. They really have no ability to gain a foothold in the NBA.

The team's long-term plan cannot be a temporary idea. The playoffs have not yet started, and the Eagles are already planning for the trade period before the draft. The Eagles are basically sure to have a first-round pick with the 14th pick. In the big year of the draft in 2003, this pick is valuable.

Choose talent?The Eagles are not very happy, their talents are already exploding, and they will have to trade and trade in a few years, otherwise the salaries of the six core players Liu Mang, Jason Terry, Raheem, Boozer, Prince, and Ratliff will explode!What the Eagles want is to strengthen their combat strength immediately, and strive to win a championship before their salary explodes. Otherwise, Liu Mang has no reason to trade anyone.

After playing the Pacers, the Eagles players came to the restaurant booked in advance to gather together. There were players who had a good relationship with the Pacers, and some players from the Pacers were also called.

Raheem called O'Neal, and Muhammad and Al Harrington were friends in the same class. When Liu Mang saw Muhammad and Al Harrington coming together, he felt that it was Muhammad who had a good temper and could become friends with someone as arrogant as Al Harrington.

After the regular season, in order to prepare for the playoffs, the coaching staff will definitely not give them time to get together, maybe there will be a curfew for the playoffs, so let's get together at this time. It's hard to say about the playoffs.

Liu Mang also went. Liu Mang and Jason Terry made an appointment with Artest and Tinsley. Liu Mang didn’t drink. The Eagles are the visiting team after all.

Liu Mang also knew the fate of these teammates. He was a little sad, but he also knew the team’s arrangements for them. For example, Emmanuel and Moron Wiley had a good relationship, and they might stay on the team to become trainers. After all, they are professional athletes. He spends as much as he wants, and when he is poor, he goes to pick up girls with Raheem or Jason Terry, but aside from money matters, he is indeed a good friend.

Seeing Dean Grove drunk and talking about his dream of becoming a painter in the future, listening to Emmanuel's nonsense, saying that one day he will take away the position of vice president that Moron Wiley just took over from Uncle Callaghan, and then being threatened by Moron Wiley to let him be responsible for picking up the ball every day, watching Mertola decide to go back to college.

"Ace, are you sad?"

A strong man who can be compared with Boozer in terms of appearance and style at this stage came to Liu Mang and asked.

"No, Ron, I'm happy for them. It's a good thing to have plans for the future, isn't it?" Liu Mang smiled.

"That's right, compared to many players, they are lucky to have a boss like you." Artest felt that he was worried for nothing. Seeing Liu Mang's melancholy expression, he thought Liu Mang was sad because his teammates were leaving.

Artest seems careless, but his heart is very soft. Otherwise, he would not become a famous charity participant in the future. He is careless only because he grew up in that chaotic place in Queens, where he can only be tough, otherwise he will become food for others.

"No, no, I'm not the boss, Sharif is the boss." Liu Mang quickly rejected the title.

Some of his teammates call him Little-boss in private, and he can accept it, but in front of outsiders, he doesn't want to discredit Raheem. Raheem is the boss of the team, the symbol of the team. Although Raheem may not mind it, Liu Mang has to be sensible.

Artest smiled and said nothing, replaced milk with wine, drank a glass with Liu Mang, and then returned to the ranks that have advanced from drinking and bragging to gambling...

(End of this chapter)