unfinished glory

Chapter 80 Scene Three

In the early morning of May 5, the league announced the best defensive lineup for the regular season.

The first defense is led by this season's Defensive Player of the Year, Ben Wallace, who was named for the fourth straight year.

There are two big men at the forward position, Garnett, who was selected for six consecutive years, and Duncan, who was also selected six times.

For the remaining two positions, Bowen of the Spurs was selected for the first defense for the second consecutive year, and only Larry Hughes of the Wizards was selected for the first time.

The second defense is Marcus Camby of the Nuggets, Andrei Kirilenko of the Jazz, Prince and Billups of the Pistons, Kidd and Li Chongxiao.

Li Chongxiao participated in the selection as a striker. He got the same number of votes as Kirilenko and squeezed into the second defense.

With three players selected to the All-Defensive Team, plus Manu Ginobili and Parker who also received defensive votes, the Spurs' overall defense this year is terrible.

Popovich bluntly said that this is the team's strongest year since he led the team.

……

The third game between the Spurs and the Mavericks was moved to the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

Both sides started with the regular lineup of this round of competition. Facing Dampier, Muhammad once again succeeded in jumping the ball.

Parker passed to Duncan, who singled Dampier for the first point of the game.

The Mavericks attacked, Nowitzki also scored the first goal, and the two sides tied.

In the second round, Parker broke through and scored the ball. Mohammed's throw after receiving the ball was interfered by Nowitzki and bounced off the basket.

Li Chongxiao, who followed up from behind, looked at the opportunity and made a dunk before Dampier. Dampier's hand only hit his arm.

The two had physical contact in the air, Li Chongxiao was knocked to the ground, and Dampier staggered.

Hearing the whistle sound, Li Chongxiao clenched his fist with his left hand and waved it excitedly.As soon as Duncan put his hand on his head, he heard Parker exclaiming "What?"

As soon as Li Chongxiao turned his head, he saw the referee pointing at himself, signaling the Spurs No. 6 to grab a rebound and hit the ball, and the Mavericks had the ball.

Li Chongxiao was a little confused, he went to the referee with doubts and signaled that he would hold the ball first, and the opponent didn't even touch the ball.

The referee said blankly: "I trust my eyes." Then he ignored Li Chongxiao at all and ran away.

Cuban on the sidelines stood up, applauded vigorously, and shouted hello. Li Chongxiao turned around and glared at him, then ran to his position and began to defend.

In the next few rounds, the two sides played fairly well, the score rose slowly, and the referee did not make any outrageous moves.

Just when Li Chongxiao put the question back to his stomach, thinking that it was really a normal misjudgment just now, the referee immediately told him, you are too naive!
Finley made a strong charge with the ball, and Li Chongxiao was a normal defensive defense, but was called a blocking foul by another referee.

At this time, Li Chongxiao understood, and so did the players and coaching staff.

Popovich reprimanded loudly from the sidelines, and a referee hurried over to explain.Duncan walked towards the referee who whistled the penalty, and spread his hands to express his doubts about the penalty. The referee even made a blocking gesture, which meant that Li Chongxiao had indeed committed a foul.

Li Chongxiao walked over and asked: "Why did I make a foul? I didn't do anything!" The referee glanced at him, turned his head and replied: "You are a foul."

After playing for less than 5 minutes, Li Chongxiao was forced to take a break. He drooled hard and said to Popovich, "Coach, can I make such a low-level mistake? The referee..."

Before he could say anything, Popovich pressed his shoulders and motioned him not to say anything, because he already knew.Before Li Chongxiao could say anything else, he walked to the sidelines and directed the game.

Coach Budenholzer pulled Li Chongxiao and shook his head. Li Chongxiao looked around. Sure enough, many reporters' cameras had already been aimed at this place. Li Chongxiao had to take another sip of water and focus on the field.

After Li Chongxiao went off the field, the Spurs replaced Barry, and the Mavericks failed to hit any offensive climax.

This made Li Chongxiao a little rejoiced, but at the same time very annoyed, this kind of discrimination is too blatant!
……

After more than 5 minutes in the second quarter, the Mavericks led the Spurs 36:30 at home.Without the entanglement of Li Chongxiao, Stackhouse performed very strongly. He played 8 minutes off the bench and scored 10 points.

Taking advantage of the free throw, Popovich called Li Chongxiao over and asked him to go up to defend Stackhouse: "Be smart, don't make such big moves, understand?
This is their home court. I can't ask you to use such a tough defense like the last two games. You have to grasp your own degree.I know you can't kill your opponent this way, but you can't let him score too easily, understand? "

"OK!"

Li Chongxiao nodded, replied briefly, and stepped onto the court to replace Horry, ready to grab a rebound.

Stackhouse hit the second free throw in his crouch-like stance.

Li Chongxiao used Duncan's pick-and-roll to hit a three-pointer and scored the first point of today's game.

In the next defensive round, Li Chongxiao was a little timid, allowing Stackhouse to run over him and layup easily.

He beat his palms to encourage himself, and silently reflected in his heart.

Defending Stackhouse in the second round, he stepped up his confrontation and put the opponent outside the three-second zone.

Stackhouse has been in the league for many years, and he is no longer as ignorant and ignorant of world affairs as he was in front of him. He leaned on Li Chongxiao, half turned and raised his hand to make a fake shot. Li Chongxiao raised his hands high, unmoved.

Seeing that the fake move was seen through, Stackhouse was not upset. He took the ball down and made a pass to the outside, making Bowen, who was about to come to help defend, go back.

Then he turned around again, raised his hand against Li Chongxiao, threw the ball, and shouted "and one".

Li Chongxiao's arm didn't move at all, it was Stackhouse who took the initiative to lean forward, but the referee still didn't let him go and called a thug foul.

Maybe it was because the whistle was blown too far, and there was no playback shot on the big screen at all.

The three fouls were called by the three referees respectively. The referees made it clear that they did not want Li Chongxiao to have an easy time.

Li Chongxiao also resigned to his fate and raised his hand, indicating that he had fouled, and no longer asked the referee to argue.He pulled Bowen over and signaled to change defenders with himself.

In the next few rounds, the Mavericks failed to pull the score away in one go.

Li Chongxiao switched defenses in front of Finley, and the Mavericks wanted to repeat the same trick, but Finley, who is only 32 years old, seemed a bit old.

Facing Li Chongxiao's not-so-strong defense, his four attempts to attack all failed.A breakthrough was insufficiently confrontational and failed to form an effective threat, and both mid-range shots were disturbed.There was also a dribble that was directly intercepted, and the distance from the ball to the hand made the referee embarrassed to call a foul.

On the contrary, the Spurs seized the opportunity and brought the score back to 6 points. Li Chongxiao contributed a mid-range shot.

Just as the Spurs were gaining momentum, the Mavericks replaced Finley and Josh Howard appeared again.He only came up to do one thing, using his not-so-mature back-up technique to single-handedly beat Li Chongxiao, but Li Chongxiao has learned how to do it well, he doesn't take power easily, and he doesn't make shots easily, he would rather let you score than foul easily.

Josh Howard made one of two, and Li Chongxiao also made one of two, still a three-pointer. In the limited playing time, he still contributed 7 points.

With 1 minute left in the first half, Li Chongxiao still couldn't make it through.

In the next round, when Li Chongxiao double-teamed Nowitzki, he hit the opponent's knee. Facing this foul, he had nothing to argue about.

……

As soon as the second half of the game started, Popovich put Li Chongxiao on the court, probably because of a broken jar.

The Mavericks have always maintained a weak lead. In this quarter, their offensive ability was released. They played 4 minutes and scored 12 points.

During this process, Li Chongxiao paid another foul. In order to stop Josh Howard's fast break, he directly hugged the opponent and sent his fifth foul.

Popovich pointed at him from the sidelines and Li Chongxiao shrugged his shoulders. Sooner or later, he would be punished. It is better to use it wisely. You can’t just watch the opponent widen the point difference to double digits. .

But in the next round, the Spurs failed to prevent the Mavericks from scoring, and the point difference still came to 10 points.

During the timeout, Li Chongxiao proposed to rest and prepare to play the fourth quarter, but Popovich refused. He would rather light the fuse now than plant a time bomb in the final moment of the decisive battle.

Li Chongxiao could only play. He knew that he might be sent off at any time, so he played very focused and active.

He assisted Duncan and Ginobili to score goals successively, then intercepted Terry's pass, rushed to the frontcourt, and made a fast-break three-pointer amid Cuban's noise.

The point difference narrowed to 3 points, and Li Chongxiao deliberately turned a corner to the auditorium where Cuban was, took a look at the opponent, and bent down to straighten the shoelaces that had not been loosened.

In the next defense, Nowitzki singled Muhammad, dribbled the ball, and did not push.Seeing this, Li Chongxiao hurried over to double-team, blocking the opponent's passing line of sight with one hand, and moving the other hand down to defend the passing line.

The other players of the Mavericks began to move, but the Spurs' defense rotated quickly, and Nowitzki struggled to find passing opportunities in the cracks.

He took a step forward, watched Terry coming, and quickly threw the ball through the gap, but was caught by Ginobili who was waiting.

Before Ginobili could take two steps, the whistle blew. He looked back and saw Nowitzki lying on the ground, and the referee was signaling Li Chongxiao to foul again.

Li Chongxiao put his hips on his hips, smiled and shook his head.

Cuban jumped up with joy and roared loudly, and the audience applauded along with him.

On the big screen, when Nowitzki was passing the ball, his right foot slipped and he couldn't stand still. He fell to the ground, pretending to be tripped.

Sure enough, the referee fouled Li Chongxiao by tripping, and the German used a football flop to send Li Chongxiao off the field for a rest.

Li Chongxiao didn't even bother to find the referee, so he just sat back on the bench, watching the team gradually fall behind in this quarter, watching the team being targeted again and again in the fourth quarter, and watching Cuban celebrate the victory like a clown.

(End of this chapter)