unfinished glory

Chapter 294

Winning the opening game gave the Lakers a good start to the new season.Immediately afterwards, they won a wave of seven consecutive victories, and competed with the Warriors, Spurs and Mavericks, who also had no losses, for the top spot in the Western Conference.

The opponents in the first few games are not particularly strong. The ninth game is the second challenge the Lakers have encountered since the start of the game. They will go to an away game to challenge the Spurs.

Every season, the media will always hype the grievances between Li Chongxiao and the Spurs again and again, and this time is no exception.

Don't underestimate the media's ability to challenge things. They brought up the matter of the Spurs not retiring Li Chongxiao's jersey, and ridiculed that the Spurs surpassed the Lakers and were the most strict team in the NBA to retire jerseys.

A player who has been in the team for four years, helped the team win two championships, and has an FMVP for personal honors, one for the first team and one for the second team, two first defenses and two second defenses, and he is not eligible to retire his jersey.

This year their direction has changed, and it is publicized that after Li Chongxiao changes teams again, what else can he do.This is exactly what the fans like, and they also want to see if Li Chongxiao will still maintain his undefeated record against the Spurs after switching to the Lakers.

Both teams played relatively restrained at the beginning of the game. The two teams tied in the first quarter. By the end of the second quarter, the Lakers only led by 5 points.

The Lakers are a kneaded team after rebuilding, so they will naturally be cautious.The Spurs are afraid of Li Chongxiao, who averaged more than 50 points per game against the Spurs.

The head coach of the Spurs is former team assistant James Borrego. , and then retained it.

After Borrego's two seasons of training, the team has returned to the ranks of the Western Conference.After recruiting Conley this season, the team's point guard's shortcomings have been filled, and this game is the time to test their results.

After Leonard came on the court, he was facing Li Chongxiao.Players who are heading towards superstars have to go through the hurdle of not falling behind in the league's top players.Li Chongxiao and James grew up from Kobe, and Durant never faced Li Chongxiao and James.

This is also the reason why Curry has won the MVP, but many people have not recognized his excellence. He can't beat the ordinary All-Stars in the matchup, and he doesn't have enough experience in directly facing the super giants.If a few players in the same position suddenly popped up in the league and were suppressed by him, it would let people know his greatness.

When facing Li Chongxiao, Leonard performed well. Although his shooting percentage dropped, he was able to score a goal anyway.He has improved significantly this season, and his fadeaway jumper has become more fluid.

Li Chongxiao only needs to defend Leonard alone, not vice versa.Leonard's defensive ability is already second to third in the league's perimeter, but it is still a bit difficult to defend Li Chongxiao alone.In the third quarter, the Spurs made such an attempt, and Li Chongxiao immediately seized the opportunity, and almost took away the opportunity in a single play.

In the fourth quarter, the overall defense was used to reduce the Lakers' scoring offensive.However, the game has re-entered a stalemate, which is not so friendly to the Spurs, they are the one behind.

In the last quarter, they tried to strengthen their attack, but it was too late.The current Spurs are the same as they were back then. It is okay to chase points slowly, but it is too difficult to burst out all at once.

The result of this battle is naturally that the Lakers won, and the Spurs only lost one game, falling directly from second to fourth.

Li Chongxiao didn't have a strong sense of presence in this game, but after looking at the statistics after the game, he scored 56 points again.Especially the explosion in the third quarter helped the team open the score and secure the victory.

After changing teams, he also chased the Spurs fiercely, which made the local media very angry.A reporter questioned Li Chongxiao at a press conference: "We have trained you, how did you repay us?"

"Two championships, and a salary cut of more than 1000 million US dollars, is it enough?"

"Even if it's cleared, but" the reporter went on to say, "the Spurs didn't do anything special at the time. Why do you beat the Spurs to death every time you meet them?"

"Do you mean that I shouldn't win? Or should I not go all out?" Li Chongxiao replied: "Wouldn't it be more uncomfortable for you if I play casually and win?"

……

The Spurs passed this level, and the next game continued until the entire month of November. Their record was very good, and they were always at the top of the list.

This surprised fans who thought they could only rank third or fourth in the West.Because in terms of strength, the Lakers are not bad, but they are not as good as the lineup formed by the Mavericks. They are very strong from the starting lineup to the bench.From the perspective of lineup formation time, the running-in time of the Lakers players is too short, which is not as good as the tacit understanding of the Warriors.Taking two aspects into consideration, they are no match for the Spurs.

The reason why the Lakers can continue to win is their very good offense, averaging 117 points per game, ranking first in the league.Especially the starting lineup, averaging 85 points per game.This would have been ten years ago, and it would have been the score of a game.

Their offense is also very distinctive. There are not many points in the penalty area, and most of them are obtained through jump shots.Unlike the increasingly popular three-point shooting by centers, the two insiders of the Lakers basically don't shoot outside the three-point line.

Of course, apart from the reason for the excellent offense, it is also related to the fact that they did not encounter too many strong teams in November.In early December, their winning streak was broken with a surprise loss to the Bucks in the East.

Antetokounmpo has been developed and has the appearance of an All-Star this season.Kidd did not hesitate to trade Knight and Jabari Parker, but also to send the ball to him. Now the Greek has become a difficult "monster".

Coupled with Gobert sitting inside, Gasol's rich experience, and Middleton and Brogdon who were accidentally eliminated in the second round, the Bucks' record soared, second only to the sudden emergence of the Celtics in the East.

However, although he lost this game, Jabari Parker performed well, scoring 32 points against his old owner, fully demonstrating his potential.

Then they met the Spurs again, and this time it was still a victory.However, they played very hard in the away game. The double-virtuous combination became more and more tacit, which brought a lot of trouble to the Grizzlies.At the last moment of the game, the Lakers relied on Li Chongxiao's consecutive scoring to get through the danger.

Until Christmas, the Lakers' schedule was relatively easy, with not many strong teams.However, they still lost three games. In addition to losing to the Grizzlies, they also lost one each to the Jazz and Celtics.

In this way, with the league's first record of 28 wins and 3 losses, they ushered in the Christmas game.

(End of this chapter)