stadium ambition

Chapter 336 How Strong is Kobe and Paul?
The Clippers managed to maintain their lead until the end, beating the Heat 111-96.

Su Yang scored a large double-double with 35 points and 16 assists. The Clippers had five other players who scored in double figures. Except for the Big Three, the Heat each scored 20+ points. Only Joel Anthony scored 12 points on the bench. point.

During the entire game, except for the first moment, the Heat failed to gain a lead once.

Such a result surprised the fans and the media. The Big Three of the Heat, especially LeBron, were questioned a lot.

All kinds of ridicules about LeBron followed. The core argument is that his shooting skills are too poor and he can only rely on his physical fitness to play. When his physical fitness declines after the age of 30, he will become an ordinary player, and then retire sadly and become a joke.

At the post-match press conference, Su Yang was asked by reporters why he was able to suppress the Heat all the time. He replied that the Clippers did a great job in zone defense rotation. Many ideas were learned from the Heat, and even the Mavericks' strategy.

This statement is completely from the heart, but the fans think that he is exaggerating and belittling, deliberately disgusting the Heat.

Su Yang did not respond, and after a day's rest, he led the team to continue to face the visiting Suns.

Without Stoudemire, the Suns have almost no low-post threats in positional warfare.

In addition, Channing Frye's style of play focuses on long shots from the outside. The Clippers made targeted arrangements. Each time the defense was expanded very large, and they adopted unlimited defense changes for small ball tactics. The Suns only had 18 points in the first quarter. Accounted for.

As for the Clippers, only Su Yang and Randolph scored 25 points together, and the team scored 33 points.

In the second quarter of the game, the Suns took the initiative to adjust their play style, and implemented V-shaped tactics in all positional battles. Relying on the tireless large-scale transfer and the strategy of all soldiers, the Suns struggled to bring the hit rate to the normal range.

And Michael Pietrus, known as "one of Kobe's terminators", entangled and bit Su Yang throughout the whole process, causing Su Yang to score only 6 points in a single quarter, but he also paid for 2 fouls, helping the Suns to catch up in the half. 12 points.

But those 12 points never narrowed down again.

With Su Yang's almost perfect performance in the second half, the Clippers finally won 108-96.

After playing the Suns, the Clippers rested for one night and departed for Sacramento at noon the next day.

Considering back-to-back battles, the Kings are unlikely to pose a threat to the Clippers rankings. Van Gundy arranged for Su Yang and Randolph to rest. Gordon also limited his playing time due to muscle tension in his legs, trying to avoid injuries.

After the game started, the whole team launched an attack around Xiao Ao and took a 9-point lead in the first half.

I thought, after the halftime break, Tyreke Evans came down to earth like a god, catching Foye in various ways.

The Clippers adjusted several times in a row, and finally smoothed out Evans' score, but Cousins ​​stepped forward again, like Ray Allen + O'Neal possessed, turning hard inside and dunking, catching the ball from the outside and shooting long shots. 14 points.

Fortunately, Xiao Ao worked hard and McGrady played bravely, dragging the game to the last moment with difficulty.

The Clippers got the opportunity to kill, Van Gundy arranged tactics for McGrady, but McGrady gave it to O'Neal, wanting to help O'Neal realize the wish he made before the start of the season, Van Gundy modified the tactics on the spot and asked O'Neal to execute the lore.

Jermaine Ao lived up to expectations and made a shot, but unfortunately the timeout was not counted, and the Clippers lost to the Kings by 1 point.

Despite the loss, the team was not disappointed and took a special plane back to Los Angeles that night.

At noon the next day, the NBA officially announced the results of the second round of voting for the 11 All-Stars. Su Yang topped the list, followed by Kobe and LeBron. As for the guards in the Western Conference, Westbrook received a lot of support, surpassing Paul and ranking third .

After two days of rest, the Clippers sat at home and ushered in the challenge of the Salt Lake Jazz.

Before the start of the game, Jazz star John Stockton was a guest on the ESPN talk show, talking about rookie Gordon Hayward winning the trust of coach Jerry Sloan and already serving as a point forward in the team, enriching the Jazz's tactical system.

A rookie player who can completely trust the legendary coach Jerry Sloan naturally requires extremely high talent and ability.

After the show was broadcast, discussions about who is better, Hayward or George, increased a lot. ESPN took advantage of the situation to launch a poll. As a result, Hayward crushed George in terms of votes. Many fans believed that George just occupied the championship team.

Paul George happened to see the voting results, and excitedly discussed with Su Yang, hoping to get more balls.

There is only one purpose, to prove that he is better than Hayward and that he is not a system player.

Su Yang agreed on the spot, promising to pass the ball to him at least three times per game regardless of his performance.

When the game started, the Clippers mainly defended the pass and tried not to let Al Jefferson catch the ball easily.

Such a strategy achieved good results. The Jazz were very annoyed every time they started an offense, and George did not disappoint Su Yang. All three passes were converted into assists. The Clippers took an 8-point lead in the first quarter, and the team shot nearly 70%.

In the second quarter, George only made 4 of 2 shots, but kept Hayward scoreless through defense.

After the halftime break, the Jazz strengthened their defense, focusing on double-teaming Su Yang, sometimes starting directly from the baseline.

However, Gordon and George did an excellent job of responding, and the Jazz could only give up using double teams early.

After losing in three quarters, the Clippers led by 6 points and entered the fourth quarter. After Su Yang took a break, he hit Deron four goals in a row. On the defensive end, Deron made three turnovers, directly extending the lead to 14 points, laying the foundation for victory.

In the end, the Clippers defeated the Jazz 103 to 95 and became the first team in the league to achieve 30 victories.

In terms of statistics, George scored 18 points, 2 assists and 6 rebounds, and beat Hayward in all directions. After George returned to the locker room, he immediately picked up his mobile phone and opened Twitter. In the voting initiated by ESPN, he chose himself and Publicly retweet.

Su Yang also helped to retweet, and then all Clippers players with Twitter helped to retweet, even the old-school player without Twitter, Russell Butler, temporarily registered on Twitter, and in the voting, he chose "George is better than Hayward" player of'.

After the game, it coincided with New Year's Day, Su Yang got three days off, and took a private plane to Stanford that night.

After playing with Lu Rulan for two days, he flew back to Los Angeles to resume training according to the regular plan.

On the night of New Year's Day, January [-]nd, the Clippers sat at the Staples Center to face the Eagles.

Stern personally presented Su Yang with the Western Conference Player of the Year trophy for December and the Rookie of the Year trophy for George Month.

George also gave an opening speech as a team representative, announcing that the official website of the new arena is online, and fans can go to leave a sentence on it, and those words will be selectively engraved on the back of the chair or other places for long-term retention.

The event received enthusiastic support from fans, the website server was almost overwhelmed, and even fans of many other teams participated.

The game started in a blink of an eye. After Joe Johnson left New York, the Eagles' strength dropped sharply, losing 13 points in the first quarter.

I thought that the tone of the game would be established here, but I never thought that Su Yang was fouled by Pachulia for a layup.

He ran away on the spot, scoring 7 points in 18 minutes, quickly giving the Clippers a 21-point lead.

At halftime, he accepted an interview with FOX News, bluntly saying that Pachulia will definitely hurt other players on purpose, and suggested that the league should disqualify Pachulia from playing and impose a heavy fine on his annual salary as a warning to punish criminals.

There was a lot of reaction from fans and the media to his remarks, and Pachulia's ugly foul GIFs were pulled out again.

After returning from the halftime break, Su Yang continued to go berserk. He used the cover to find Pachulia many times. He trained several times in a row and easily scored 8 points.

The entire fourth quarter turned into garbage time, and the Clippers eventually won 107-98.

Su Yang only scored 30 points, but scored 80 points on nearly 44% shooting, triggering a feast of media bragging.

As for Su Yangyang's extremely severe criticism, NBA officials responded in a neutral manner, saying that they would strengthen the review of criminals.

After beating the Eagles, the Clippers got three days off. Under the arrangement of agent Schwartz, Su Yang filmed three commercial endorsements, went to Hollywood Street to record a talk show, and finally went to Irvine for a tour, and high school teammate Luo Well, a few people get together for a short time.

The NBA League Office announced the results of the third round of All-Star voting at the same time. Su Yang's top position was unshakable, but LeBron overtook Kobe with a slight advantage. Paul also secured the third position in the Western Conference due to the addition of the Los Angeles metropolis.

On January [-]th, the Clippers played at home against the Denver Nuggets, whose main force returned from injury.

Perhaps because of the good record some time ago, he felt the hope of winning again. Anthony was in a good state of mind. He hit shots one after another at the start of the game, and took the initiative to defend and switch defenses. However, Nene and others performed poorly. The Nuggets lost 7 in the first quarter. point.

In the second quarter of the game, the defensive strength of the two pairs was quite high, with various strikes and mistakes, it was difficult to tie the game.

When Nene came back from the halftime break, Nene finally found his form. Unfortunately, Anthony was like a discouraged ball. He only made 7 of 3 shots in the third quarter. The Clippers, led by Su Yang, fully blossomed and extended their lead to 16 points. .

In the last fourth quarter of the game, after Anthony reappeared, he wandered around like an outsider.

The Nuggets collapsed, and the Clippers played an average 9-0, directly ruining the hope of victory.

In the end, the Clippers won 106 to 89, and Su Yang and Anthony also scored 31 points.

The media used the same score to make a fuss, pointing out that Anthony is at least two grades worse than Su Yang in terms of skills, but the biggest gap is mentality. Anthony always complains that his teammates are too poor and can't fight tough battles.

Many Anthony fans are quite dissatisfied with this, and they argue with various arguments. The media also pointed out that in the 08 playoffs, the Nuggets fell behind 0-3 against the Lakers. Anthony bluntly said that the series is over, but Iverson simply said that there is still hope. .

Anthony fans pointed out that no one can come back after falling behind 0 to 3, thinking that Anthony just can't talk about scenes, but the media also used the 09 Western Conference Finals as a case, pointing out that Anthony only fought against Kobe in the first game. After losing by 2 points, Anthony gave up the entire series, and every subsequent game was soft, and he also disappeared early 1-1.

Anthony fans were speechless, and the media's bragging about Su Yang reached a new height in contrast.

Su Yang didn't take it seriously, and took advantage of the Clippers' four-day vacation to fly to AJ's headquarters to shoot a video of the second-generation signature shoes.

After finishing the endorsement action, he flew to San Francisco to attend the New Year's party of foreign students and delivered a speech as a representative.

After that, he and Zheng Xiang spent two days discussing matters related to the shooting of his personal documentary.

On the [-]th, the Clippers played at home against the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors' lineup has not changed in any way, and the tactics have not been challenged. The Clippers dealt with it easily.

Facing the three-two defense, Curry and Ellis were quite struggling, but Dorell White slipped the bottom line and scored several times.

But Dorell's score could not make up for the overall gap of the Warriors, and the game lost its suspense early.

Su Yang didn't play for 1 minute in the fourth quarter, and the Clippers eventually defeated the Warriors 105-91.

After the game, the Clippers got another three days of rest, spending the most relaxing period of the season.

Such a schedule is extremely unreasonable, but it is not targeted by the league, but the Staples Center, home of the Clippers. Every year from the beginning of January to February 1, the center is used very frequently because of various concerts and award shows.

The Clippers and Lakers also get a lot of rest opportunities during this period, and then they will start the crazy schedule of "five games in seven days" or "seven consecutive away games", which is an extremely powerful test for players' physical strength.

Considering this situation, Van Gundy canceled the load training and only kept the daily shooting and running tactical training.

In this way, the three-day rest ended happily. In the evening of NO.12, the Clippers played against the Nets at home.

Before the game started, Su Yang, on behalf of the team, presented the championship ring to Travis Outlaw, his teammate from last season. He also held Outlaw's shoulder and watched a specially prepared short documentary. Outlaw.

After the game started, Su Yang did what he said, using George's cover three times in a row, and singled out Outlaw to score by misplacement.

The other three of the Nets were also difficult to score under the strict defense of the Clippers. Only Lopez scored 8 points by relying on strong play.

After the first quarter, the Clippers led by 12 points, and the situation remained the same in the second and third quarters.
The Nets didn't make any waves in the fourth quarter, and the Clippers won 102-88.

Early the next morning, the NBA officially announced the results of the fourth round of All-Star voting. Su Yang won the election with a record number of votes. He and Kobe formed the starting guard in the Western Conference, while the forwards in the Western Conference were Anthony, Durant and Yao Ming.

It's a pity that Yao Ming was unable to play due to injury. President David Stern personally designated Timberwolves forward Kevin Love as a substitute, while Western Conference head coach Popovich appointed Duncan to replace Yao Ming's starting position, forming the strongest lineup.

In the East, LeBron, Howard, and Stoudemire form the frontcourt, while Rose and Wade form the backcourt.

Su Yang took the initiative to sign up for the three-point contest, and at the same time accepted the invitation to attend the slam dunk contest. The news of his participation in the slam dunk contest was quickly spread, and the major casinos in Las Vegas opened one after another, hyping the relationship between him and Griffin. showdown.

After two days off, the Clippers headed to Oakland for their second game against the Golden State Warriors in a week.

Perhaps because he knew that it was hopeless to compete with the Clippers on defense, Warriors coach Keith Smart set up a large and small lineup at the beginning of the game, focusing on ultra-fast-paced offense, and allowed Ellis and Curry to play at will. Do not make any restrictions.

Such a gamble really liberated the Warriors. Ellis and Curry scored 25 points in the first quarter.

But the Clippers still led by 4 points and entered the second quarter, and then kept the rhythm of whatever they wanted throughout the whole process, which was extremely easy.

In the end, Su Yang scored 34 points and 12 assists, leading the team to defeat the Warriors and achieve 6 consecutive victories.

After the game, the whole team set off for Los Angeles overnight.

On the plane, everyone took their seats.

Van Gundy picked up the walkie-talkie and shouted: "Next, we will start a difficult journey of five games in seven days, and our first opponent is the Lakers after getting Chris Paul. Are you ready to beat them?"

Su Yang heard the words and thought: "Finally, I can know how strong Kobe and Paul are!"

(End of this chapter)