super small forward

Chapter 102 102. The important thing is to preserve physical strength
I have to say that the league's schedule for the Lakers is not friendly at all. After Christmas, they will have back-to-back away games on the 27th and 28th. First they will go to Salt Lake City, and then the next opponent will be the Nets. The Lakers are serving food to strong teams, obviously to make the Nets' schedule easier.

At nine o'clock in the morning on the 26th, Liu Ren, who had been tossing Chen Hanni until dawn, got up, had breakfast after taking a bath, and saw Monica who had just sent little loli to school and returned home.

"Irene, take me to buy a car, it's too troublesome for you to send it every time I want to go out." Liu Ren said casually.

"Uh, okay." Monica seemed to be in a hurry, and hurried towards the room in response to Liu Ren's cry.

Liu Ren is a little strange, the financial sister who is usually very enthusiastic is so weird today?

Without thinking too much, Liu Ren went back to his room and changed his clothes. Monica was ready and waiting for Liu Ren to go together. It was in the business district not far from Beverly Hills.

Liu Ren and Chen Hanni have been here many times together, but Chen Hanni always goes shopping, the kind of pure shopping, and she doesn’t buy when she sees that the one she likes is too expensive, but goes home and buys the same style online, except for business. Famous brands, usually a bunch of the same style.

Arriving at a Ferrari flagship store, Liu Ren and Monica parked the car and went in. When Monica came out today, she drove Chen Hanni's sports car, so the staff of the flagship store were already waiting at the door to open.

"Welcome, what do you need... You are Liu! Wow, it's really Liu, hello, are you going to buy a new car today?" Emotions, do your job.

As for the woman next to Liu Ren doesn't seem to be his rumored Chinese girlfriend, the clerk doesn't care at all. How many players come out to buy a car with their wives or girlfriends?
The clerk was very enthusiastic about introducing the model to Liu Ren, much more enthusiastic than the other people who usually came to ask. There is no way, whoever makes an NBA player give people the impression that he is a fool with money and a lot of pride.There are quite a few celebrities who come to this store, and they just pay for things when they really come. Except for some young heirs of big companies, they are NBA players.

The cheapest car in such a store is more than 20 US dollars, and the clerks are on a rotation system. Some clerks are unlucky and cannot sell two cars in a month, and some are lucky. guest.

As the clerk expected, Liu Ren quickly chose the car he wanted, the Ferrari Lusso.

Apart from the great power and appearance of this car, what Liu Ren likes is that he has four seats...

For such a simple and rude reason, Liu Ren directly asked the clerk to fill up the gas, transfer the money and sign and leave, leaving the clerk with a stomach full of sales jargon messed up in the wind...

……

After the team gathered for training in the afternoon, the Lakers team bus took the players to the airport and flew to Salt Lake City in the next state.

Salt Lake City is not far from Los Angeles, and it takes just over 20 minutes by plane. Generally speaking, it is the same as playing teams such as the Warriors and Kings, and the flight will not be too tiring.

But the scariest thing about Salt Lake City is that it cannot be compared with long-distance flying. Not many teams are willing to play the playoffs with the Jazz. There is only one reason. The altitude here is close to 1500 meters!
It’s not specific enough to say this. Anyone who has been to the NMG plateau or climbed Huangshan will know that the altitude is not yet high enough to cause altitude sickness, but it is a bit embarrassing to cause altitude sickness.

All in all, Liu Ren felt a little uncomfortable when he came here, like he had a cold and palpitations.

And here is a typical plateau mountain climate, at this time at the end of December, it is already icy and snowy.

And it's that clammy!Liu Ren is now wrapped into a rice dumpling, but he still feels the cold air seeping into his clothes.He finally knew why Kupchak would give the players a suitcase full of winter gear before boarding the plane.

You know, Los Angeles rarely falls below 5 degrees in winter!Moreover, the weather in Los Angeles is very good in all seasons. The sky without rain is the kind where you can’t see a cloud, and the warm sunshine is always shining.

Who would have thought that Salt Lake City in the next state would be so cold?

After getting off the plane, Liu Ren huddled in the cold, rushed into the team bus, felt the warmth of the air conditioner, and then he recovered. He couldn't help but said, "I'm so envious that Steve didn't come, and went directly to New York."

"If you are 40 years old, the management will keep you from playing back-to-back." Kobe joked.

"I said, why did you come to Salt Lake City? It's really strange, you're not on the roster for tomorrow's game." Liu Ren gave Kobe a white look.

Kobe looked at the white snow scene outside the window, and his eyes revealed nostalgia: "This is a very important place in my career. I don't know how many times I can come here as a player. I can't help but come and see it."

Liu Ren originally wanted to continue to confront Kobe, but seeing Kobe like this, he chose to forget it and not talk.

"Maybe this old man is the last person who doesn't want to admit that he is old? Otherwise, he wouldn't be 38 years old and use the most shots in every game to prove that he is okay, but finally admit that he is not good."

If the Lakers are playing games with other nearby teams, such as the Kings, Warriors or even the Suns, they will go there on the same day, and sometimes even return to Los Angeles on the same day. The Jazz come a day earlier because of the climate here.

Instead of renting an arena for training like going to other places to play away games, they rested directly in the hotel until the next afternoon, three hours before the start of the game, before going to the Energy Solution Arena to warm up.

The Energy Solutions arena can only be described as empty. Except for the media from Los Angeles, only a few local media came to cover the game.

Not to mention that the Jazz have always been unloved by fans, but their record this year, even if a team that has attracted much attention like the Lakers is playing away games, it will not attract much attention.

Even those crazy fans who used to be known as the Devil's home court mostly don't come to watch the game now. Since Sloan retired, the Jazz has been worse than the next year. They barely made the playoffs in the 11-12 season. The Lakers and Rockets overtook and withdrew from the playoffs. So far this year, they are ranked third from the bottom in the league with 7 wins and 25 losses, and the bottom in the Western Conference. Only the 76ers and the Bucks have worse records than them.

After entering the arena, Liu Ren saw the sparse fans on the long side. The attendance rate was only about 80.00%, right?Even the 76ers had higher attendance than that...

Just like the record, the Jazz are very bad, very bad. Originally, the league asked the Lakers to deliver food to the Jazz. Who said that the Jazz almost made the playoffs last year. The league thinks that their young players will go further this year and may become A dark horse like the Grizzlies came, but it was the Jazz who delivered food to the Lakers.

With Pau Gasol, the Lakers are completely different from the Lakers before Christmas. The Jazz used to have an average offense and excellent defense, but now their offense is still average, and it can even be described as bad. Defense is worse than offense.

In the first half, D'Antoni directly ranked the strongest combination of Antetokounmpo, Nick Young, Liu Ren, Gasol, and Whiteside. They beat the Jazz 20-3 at the beginning, and did not give the Jazz a chance to struggle. .

In the end, the Lakers easily slaughtered the Jazz 133 to 100. It was only after the Lakers eliminated the disaster-level combination of Marshall, McCollum, Nick Young, Kaman, and Thackeray in the second half that they made the opponent's score less embarrassing.

Following D'Antoni's wish, the Lakers did not consume too much energy in the game today, and tried their best to reserve energy for tomorrow's game with the Nets.

(End of this chapter)