unfinished glory

Chapter 90 The Opening of the Finals

On June 6, the Heat failed to withstand the Pistons' offense at home and lost 6:82.

Although O'Neal scored a game-high 27 points, the Heat's perimeter core "Flash" Wade performed mediocre, shooting only 35% from the field.

I don't know if O'Neill thought of his former little brother, "Peter Pan" Kobe at this time.

The Pistons have reached the finals for two consecutive years and will compete with the Spurs who are waiting for the final honor.

There are six defensive lineups between the two sides in the finals, and many celebrities began to advocate that this is a return to tradition.

Many media have also turned the tide, praising this year's finals, which will be a grand performance showing the essence of basketball.

While Stern is pleased with the reports, he remains concerned.The essence of basketball is the movement of putting the ball into the basket, and the gorgeous offense can naturally attract the audience to stay.

Not everyone can understand the gold content of defensive tactics, and not everyone likes the so-called defensive art.

He has already prepared for the poor ratings, and the only hope in his heart is that Li Chongxiao can recover some losses.

Because the recent media has started to hype Li Chongxiao.

First of all, the various awards for the low pick, and then in the series against the Mavericks, all kinds of controversies and grievances have already excited the media who are afraid of chaos.

What is even more interesting is that this player, who was not yet 19 years old at the time, withstood the tremendous pressure and played a very exciting performance, which suddenly gained many non-San Antonio fans.

In the subsequent Western Conference finals, with high ratings and more audience witnesses, a wonderful lore was completed, which magnified the expectations of such fans.

A few days ago, the media that made a fuss about his age turned up his age again. After comparing the birthdays of Milicic and Li Chongxiao in detail, they pretended to be sorry, but actually gloated and said that he had lost all kinds of young records.

In the end, he was caught by Barkley, and he rants on the show, directly saying that comparing the two children like this is unfair to them.

Li Chongxiao's age was fired like this, and many people knew that the player who averaged more than 18 points per game in the playoffs was just 19 years old.

For the American sports media, three years later, when they became familiar with Yao Ming, they ushered in a new Oriental, completely different from the reserved Oriental like Yao Ming.

Just relying on Li Chongxiao's mockery of Cuban on and off the court in the Western Conference semifinals, this is a treasure trove of news waiting to be tapped.

There is also no lack of some shady media, playing the trick of exaggerating, first blowing up, and then letting him down heavily.

But no matter how it ends in the future, at least Li Chongxiao is hot right now.

He originally wanted to announce before the finals that he would not participate in this year's national team competition, but Li Guoqiang angrily reprimanded him as "naive", so he could only vaguely say that he would wait until the finals before planning.

On the contrary, Yao Ming was brave and announced that he would undergo foot surgery after the first game of the finals. As for the national team training camp and the Asian Championships, we will make a decision after the recovery from the surgery.

……

On June 6, the much-anticipated 9-2004 NBA Finals kicked off. The San Antonio Spurs played against the Detroit Pistons at home.

It was the first time for Li Chongxiao to play under the eyes of his grandfather and parents, so he seemed very excited.What makes him even more excited is that his first signature shoe has finally come out after long-awaited.

Li Guoqiang came here this time, and he also dealt with this matter incidentally. It must be too late to advertise now, so the release of the sneakers was scheduled after the finals, but the shoes were put on by Li Chongxiao first.

Li Chongxiao's combat boots are called "SuperFly". When he brought two pairs of sneakers to the locker room, the sharp-eyed Duncan saw them all at once, and the whole locker room suddenly became a mess.

The other two core members of the team, Parker and Ginobili, have straight eyes. As long as they are NBA stars, who doesn't want to have their own signature shoes.

Popovich appeared soon to stop the commotion, but he vaguely knew about the relationship between Anderma and Li Chongxiao.

Fortunately, the players also knew what time it was. After knocking on Li Chongxiao for a few meals, they all calmed down and listened carefully to the coach's tactics.

Popovich first said Daye, I will punish you for not being able to start this game, which caused a burst of laughter. From the two days of tactical drills, Li Chongxiao originally played the role of a substitute.

Then he began to arrange tactics again, the key word is defense.

The first ball in the opening game, Mohamed successfully jumped the ball and scored after receiving a pass from Duncan.

The Pistons in the away game showed the momentum of the defending champions. After losing two points first, they began to firmly grasp the initiative on the field.

By the time Li Chongxiao replaced Bowen on the court more than eight minutes into the first quarter, the score was 19:9. The Pistons led the Spurs by 10 points in the away game relying on their tough defense.

After Li Chongxiao came on the field, according to Duncan's regular pick-and-roll style of play, he scored two points first.

In the next round, Ben Wallace made two free throws, and Duncan also went to rest.Li Chongxiao, who had lost his good friend, did not lose his touch. He received a pass from Parker and hit another two points.

Since the All-Star Game, Li Chongxiao has slowly shown a little ability to attack independently. In the next round, he steals McDyess, and then breaks through Hamilton in the offense for a layup.

In the last 3 minutes of the first quarter, the Pistons misfired, and the Spurs scored consecutively, tying the score at 20:20.

At the beginning of the second quarter, the two teams grabbed each other's throats, and there was a "bang bang bang" sound of iron hitting, which caused the ratings to drop wildly.

In the game concept of the two teams, scoring is secondary, and defense is the mainstream.In a hand-to-hand fight, one side scored 15 points and the other 16 points. The two teams scored 36:35 at halftime, and the Spurs led by one point.

36:35 in the half, not even the score of the Suns and Spurs in the Western Conference Finals.

Many media reporters just yawned after watching it. The only thing that comforted them was that Li Chongxiao performed well and scored 10 points.

The old coach K in the stands was stunned for a long time. He pointed to Li Chongxiao and asked Du Hong, is this still the kid in my team?
We saw on the spot that Li Chongxiao performed with ease in this kind of high-intensity confrontation. This level is much better than Redick, the core of Duke this season.

The old coach K felt very lucky. If he had really let this kid go to another college team, he probably would have ruined his reputation for the rest of his life.

Luol Deng and Du Hong, who accompanied the old coach K to watch the game, were also surprised. Most players in the NBA only care about themselves during the long season, and their impression of other players stays in the game they played against themselves.

The match between the Spurs and the Bulls was a few months ago. I didn't expect Li Chongxiao to improve so much in such a short period of time.

The old Li's family was also surprised. Ms. Wang Caixia even asked Li Guangfu: "Dad, did you secretly change our child while we were not in our hometown?"

What surprised them even more was yet to come.In the second half of the third quarter, the two teams that were evenly matched in front of each other suddenly decided the winner.

After Li Chongxiao came on the court, taking advantage of the opponent's lack of energy after repeated battles, he kept attacking the basket.After dragging Hamilton for three streets, the masked man was almost exhausted.

At the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter, he personally scored 15 points, helping the Spurs to open the point difference to 20 points in one fell swoop.

With more than six minutes left in the game, Larry Brown rarely gave up the game, and he replaced all the main players.

Unlike the Spurs who went smoothly in the Western Conference playoffs and reached the finals without bloodshed, the Pistons played hard round after round.

季后赛第一轮4：1赢76人，第二轮4：2战胜步行者，东决4：3艰难的跨过热火。

Before the players could recover, they rushed directly from Miami to San Antonio, so today they showed a little physical exhaustion.

Larry Brown judged that the situation on the court was impossible to turn over, so he simply reserved the players' physical strength and focused on the second game.

The two sides began to change players, and the on-site media regretted that Milici was on the field, while Li Chongxiao was off, and the duel between the youngest players in the finals could not be achieved.

But as Barkley said, there is no comparison between the two. Milicic failed to score a point in 4 minutes, while Li Chongxiao scored a game-high 25 points today, winning the best game in the first game of the finals. player title.

(End of this chapter)