hall of fame small forward

Chapter 299 Conflict
"Who can stop a Houstonian?"

After the Rockets won 14 consecutive victories, an eye-catching news in bright red large bold font appeared on the homepage of ESPN's official website. The Rockets have never been a favored team. They have never developed in history. However, even when they won two consecutive championships in 94/95, under the leadership of Olajuwon, the Rockets entered the playoffs as the fourth and eighth in the Western Conference. A champion that is easily won by narrow escapes.

The Mavericks are weak, the Spurs are old, and the Rockets are strong. They have always been the three illusions of the top three in Texas. The Rockets have never given the performance of a strong team. The Rockets have always given people the feeling of a civilian team, which is due to Alexander's stinginess and the temperament of the Rockets' players.

But now the Rockets dominate the league all of a sudden. They won the championship in the first year, and they were invincible in the league at the start of the second year. It was too fast, so fast that the other teams didn't have a little bit of defense. Two days ago, I didn't see him as an opponent. Today, this guy has become an existence that I need to look up to. This earth-shaking change has another How many teams can accept it?

On December 12, I went to Phoenix to challenge the Phoenix Suns, which had already gone downhill. The Suns have gradually lost their competitiveness in the league in the past few years. Tadamier also lost nearly 02% of his athletic ability due to minimally invasive surgery. Under the support of offensive master D'Antoni, the Suns once became the team with the highest scoring average and the most offensive team in the league. However, defense is the biggest obstacle restricting their achievements. In 3, when the Suns were closest to the championship, Bowen and Horry teamed up to destroy the hopes of the Suns.

Some fans may complain, thinking that the Spurs have harmed the Suns with indiscriminate and unfair means, but from another perspective, this is the NBA, the most physical basketball league on earth, let alone a life-and-death matchup playoffs?Every team has villainous players. In the playoffs, every player will use rude and dirty methods to deal with the enemy. The playoffs are originally a stage of iron and blood. No matter how gorgeous the offense is in the playoffs After all, it is a water moon mirror flower.

However, this year the Phoenix people showed a reverse growth pattern. In the first 14 games, the Suns actually played an amazing record of 12 wins and 2 losses, closely chasing behind the Rockets. The little overlord who has developed absolute athletic ability has developed a more stable mid-range shot. The old monster Hill is getting more and more monsters, the dunk king Richardson is sharp in three-point breakthroughs, and the explosive head Lopez makes people see that he has become With the potential of a defensive champion, Frye became the best three-point shooting center in the league when he came off the bench. Dragic, a second-year student, is showing more and more Nash's demeanor. Although the Brazilian Lightning Barbosa no longer has lightning Go fast, but the one-handed three-pointer is getting more and more stable. Dudley and Amundson have become the two most stable defensive points in the Suns' bench.

The routine of this year’s Suns game is to stun the opponent with a hammer at the beginning, then rely on the substitute to slowly consume you and wear away your experience, and then wait until the second half of the third quarter to give you a hammer with the main force, completely knocking you down On the ground, since the start of this season, the Suns are the team that has turned the fourth quarter into the most garbage time except for the Rockets. The distant king of the regular season in the fans' minds seems to have appeared in this league again.

At the beginning of the game, all the Suns will be very serious. They are already the last barrier against the Rockets. If the Rockets win this game, the opponents behind the Rockets are the Nets, Kings, and Bobcats.Hornets, Pistons, 76ers and other weak teams in the East and West, they are less likely to make the Rockets capsize in the gutter. If the Suns don’t stand up today, I am afraid that the Rockets will start the season with a 21-game winning streak. Go, this is another new record in the history of the league.

And in addition to the fact that the Rockets cannot be the dominant family in the true sense, there are still many new and old grudges between the Suns and the Rockets, such as the hatred between Stoudemire and Yao Ming. , Paul personally eliminated the Suns in the playoffs last season. These are points that the Phoenix people cannot swallow. Today, the Suns have decided to play this regular season as the finals. If the Rockets are a little careless, They will become the first team in the league to successfully kill God!

However, the Rockets may have been dazzled by the winning streak. Since they defeated the Lakers, they have felt a little smug. They didn't take the Suns too seriously before today's game, but they were caught by the Suns. Violent beating, Nash chased three three-pointers, Richardson made two three-pointers, Hill hit two three-pointers, the Rockets were beaten 34 to 14 in the first quarter, and fell behind by 20 points in a single quarter More, this seems to be the biggest point difference that the Rockets have lost since the beginning of the 20th century.

And this is not what made the Rockets angry the most. In the last 3 minutes of the first quarter, the Rockets' loose defense gave the Suns a chance. After Nash and Stoudemire picked and rolled, no one delayed the bully. All the power was on Zonda, but Nash's dexterous base gave Stoudemire an excellent performance stage. After an air cut, Stoudemire received the ball in three steps and two steps, and directly landed on the unprepared Yao Staged a stunning dunk, and deliberately yelled at Yao Ming after the dunk, trying to reproduce the scene in March 04.

The little giant didn't respond yet, but Totoro rolled up his sleeves and prepared to give Stoudemire some color. Of course, the little bully is not a vegetarian. He planned to make something happen on the field long before the game, and it will happen The conflict was also in his expectation, and he also set up his posture at the moment, ready to have a full-scale martial arts with Totoro.

It's really hard to judge who is more powerful between Totoro and Little Overlord, but most fans still believe that Totoro will win in the end. After all, Totoro's past record is there, Lao Zhan's strength + Duran The special height and wingspan + Kobe's agility + McGrady's reaction speed are not blown out. Totoro with the system power bonus is so powerful.

It's just that the fans couldn't see the result of the battle with their own eyes, because they were pulled back by their respective players before the two rushed forward. Adelman called a timeout in time, and the referee finally gave Totoro a technical foul to end the game.

(End of this chapter)