God's hand behind the scenes

Chapter 194 Christmas War ([-])

After defeating the Spurs, the 76ers continued their journey this season.The whole team really wants to play against the Lakers who are currently leading the way in the West. Unfortunately, according to the NBA schedule, any team in the regular season and teams in different regions only needs to play one home and one away Two games, and the 76ers will have to wait until next year if they want to touch the Lakers this season.

Although the team still maintains absolute dominance in the Eastern Conference, Chang Wei has not relaxed the training of players. In his opinion, everyone still has a lot to check for omissions and make up for vacancies.For example, Iverson's long-range shots, Lynch's defense, and Mutombo's offense, etc., as long as there is improvement, it is easy to feed back on the court, and it can also make the team play more easily.

Unknowingly, time has entered December, and in this month, the most eye-catching and most profitable for the NBA is undoubtedly the Christmas game.Every year on the first day after Christmas, the NBA will only arrange a few heavyweight games, which are called the Christmas War.Since the 12s, the NBA has had a tradition of launching heavyweight games on Christmas Eve. This kind of business thinking seemed quite advanced at the time. The NBA's selection criterion for the annual Christmas game is a "grudge" or an open arena where popular stars compete for popularity and the market. Everything is to attract attention.

As a team with a lot of action this summer, the 76ers were naturally scheduled to appear in the Christmas game, but before that, the official staff responsible for making the schedule would not have thought that this team could actually become the leader in the East. It's right on target.However, the number of Christmas games at this time is still relatively small. This year, the league has only arranged two games, one in the East and one in the West.

The Pacers in the 20s can be said to be a powerful team. They have reached the Eastern Conference Finals in the last three seasons, and even reached the Finals in the 90-1999 season, although they were eventually defeated by the Lakers 2000-4. , but their formidable strength cannot be denied.Reggie Miller, Jaylen Rose and O'Neal are a trio that the Pacers are proud of, and it happens to be a perfect distribution of the three generations of old, middle-aged and young. Currently they are only 2 games behind the 1.5ers. Follow closely behind.

Brown is terrified of Miller. After all, the "Miller moment" of 8.9 seconds and 8 points has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. This is a great scorer who can score with Jordan, so Brown's pre-game arrangement is completely aimed at Miller. , He wholeheartedly wanted to lock up this old and vigorous top shooter, and he did not hesitate to arrange for Iverson and Snow to double-team.

However, in Chang Wei's view, the biggest threat to the Pacers is not the long-established Miller, but their current leading scorer Jaylen Rose.Although his reputation is not as good as Miller, and his personal honors are only the best rookie second team in the 94-95 season and the most improved player in the 99-00 season, he really hit the weakness of the 76ers.In fact, it is not considered a weakness, but with Lynch as a half-flank gate who is still training, it is estimated that it will be difficult to limit Rose's performance.

In addition, Jermaine O'Neal is also a point worth noting. Of course, he was not the top insider in the league in his previous life, but now he is still a young meat full of infinite talent. Although Chang Wei used props for Mutombo, he can't guarantee that he can Competing against O'Neal, sometimes the suppression of talents is more terrifying than props. He has no confidence in this group of duels.

However, Brown's arrangement is not right to say that there is a problem. Although Miller is 35 years old, he is still the soul of the Pacers. If he can suppress his performance, it may be a big blow to the morale of the Pacers. .In fact, apart from player training, Chang Wei still treats the head coach’s arrangements more as a bystander. This is also the most common attitude after his rebirth. After all, he has watched many things on TV. are different.

If Chang Wei belonged to this era, maybe the sense of participation would be stronger, right?

This Christmas game is the home of the 76ers, and all the tickets will be sold out soon. After all, the 76ers have not participated in the Christmas game for many years. Only those very old die-hard fans will vaguely recall the grand occasion in Philadelphia.And now they finally felt the enthusiasm and passion of the Christmas game at home again, and it is normal for the tickets to be sold out.

When the 76ers entered the arena to warm up, more than half of the seats in the arena were already occupied. Seeing the home team show up, these emotional fans wanted to beat gongs, drums and set off firecrackers to express their support and encouragement.Looking at the stunned Chang Wei, Brown asked with a smile, "Chang, have you experienced such a game atmosphere before?"

Chang Wei shook his head and said, "To be honest, the NCAA Final Four might be equally popular, but it's not my home field after all. It feels good to see that most of the fans on the sidelines support my team."

Brown closed his eyes, as if he wanted to hug the entire arena, and murmured: "That's why we have to do our best to win this game. I don't want to disappoint the fans in Philadelphia. For any team, the fans Support should come first, maybe many people don’t care about the influence of fans now, but I know their power can change everything.”

Chang Wei smiled: "So we are bound to win this game?"

"Confidence and certainty are actually two different things. I am willing to do my best to win, and everyone should have this idea, but this does not mean that we can win the game without hindrance. .Football is round, and so is basketball. As strong as the Bulls, they will lose. No one dares to speak out about the results of the game until the last moment."

Before Chang Wei could continue to ask questions, Brown said with a smile: "Although defeating the Pacers is a difficult task, it is not impossible. As long as we can maintain the belief that we must win and play our own style completely, we can win the Pacers as well." possible."

Seeing the players lining up for a layup, Chang Wei smiled and whispered, "I hope so!"

In his opinion, this is undoubtedly a hard battle. Leaving aside the overall strength of the Pacers, many teams have extra bonuses when they play the Christmas game. Everyone hopes to show their faces in front of the national audience.Although this game is the 76ers' home game, they don't have too many worries about playing away games with the Pacers' unscrupulous style. There are only 76 wins left, and the top spot in the Eastern Conference may change position at any time.

(End of this chapter)