NBA: The man who passed the ball to Yao Ming

After firmly winning the Nuggets at home, the Rockets first rested at home for one night, and then flew to North Carolina, where the Charlotte Bobcats are located in the east, early the next morning.

Among the [-] teams in the league, the Charlotte Bobcats are undoubtedly the most special one.

Because this team is the youngest team in the entire NBA league, last year, that is, the 2004-05 season, the Charlotte Bobcats just joined the NBA family.

Regarding the history of the Charlotte Bobcats joining the NBA, Zhang Jinshui went to learn about it in his last life. The specific operation method is really quite interesting.

After all, the so-called franchise is not just about putting the name of the Charlotte Bobcats together with the other 29 teams. The Bobcats want to actually play games with other teams.

The NBA is the top basketball league in the world, and the strength of the team is far higher than any other league by at least one or two grades.

If the Bobcats find players from outside the NBA and play NBA games, it will definitely not be enough.

Therefore, the most urgent task at the beginning of the Bobcats joining is that NBA officials need to help the Bobcats form a lineup with NBA-level strength.

In order to achieve this goal, the NBA officially tailored an alternative draft specifically for the Bobcats, that is, the Bobcats are the only draft pick, and players from the other 29 NBA teams are available for the Bobcats to choose.

Of course, in order to prevent the Bobcats from selecting the core players of other teams, the NBA officially gave each team a protection list of 8 people, and only players outside the protection list can be selected.

In addition, NBA officials also gave the Bobcats the right to sign with free agents in the free market.

However, in order to prevent the Bobcats with a lot of salary space from signing big fish in the free market, the official set the salary cap of the Bobcats the previous year to one-third of that of other teams, but this is still very helpful to the Bobcats .

Now the head of the Bobcats, Gerald Wallace, was signed by the Bobcats in the free market last year with 3 million beautiful national currency for 1600 years.

In addition, the league also gifted the Bobcats, who had not played a game in 03, the lottery pick in the 04 NBA Draft. In the end, the Bobcats management packaged the lottery pick and the second-round pick through a series of operations. Traded up, in exchange for the second pick, and selected Okafor, who beat the cub Howard last year to win the best rookie of the year.

However, with the great assistance from NBA officials, although the Bobcats have a certain combat power, there is still a long way to go before becoming a strong NBA team.

So far this season, the Bobcats have only achieved a garbage record of 9 wins and 23 losses, ranking second to last in the Eastern Conference.

Their so-called head star Gerald Wallace actually averaged only 15 points and 7 rebounds per game.

The rookie center Okafor, who was once highly expected, has begun to expose his attributes of a glass man. So far this season, Okafor has only played 10 games due to injury, and his average per game has also decreased from Last season's 13 points and 10 rebounds have dropped to this season's 10 points and 10 rebounds.

On the contrary, Felton, who has just been selected by the Bobcats this season and has already secured his position as the main point guard of the Bobcats, has attracted some public attention because of his superb performance in the preseason matchup with Zhang Jinshui.

However, Felton, who can only contribute 10 points and 5 assists per game this season, is a little too bleak in the face of Zhang Jinshui's dazzling performance. They all characterized the reporting perspective as how Zhang Jinshui will get revenge in this game.

Facing such a big Eastern team, the Rockets naturally don't need to be too concerned.

Even when Yao Ming slept without a blanket on the plane and coughed twice when he got off the plane, Van Gundy directly identified this as a sign of a possible cold, and temporarily decided to let Yao Ming rest in this game.

In the face of the Rockets, which lacked a super killer inside, the Bobcats still couldn't make any waves in the game.

靠着麦迪和张金水分别拿下的33分6助攻6篮板和30分8助攻2篮板2抢断，火箭队在第三节节中就以90比62获得了28分的领先优势，并提前打卡下班。

In sharp contrast to the Rockets' twin stars, the Bobcats didn't even have a player who scored more than 15 points, especially Felton, who once clamored that he was better than Zhang Jinshui in the preseason, and Zhang Jinshui. During the matchup, it can only be described as silent as a cicada. In normal games, he only scored 9 points and 3 assists, which was not even the average of the season.

Such a game is really not worth wasting any time to talk about, and Zhang Jinshui also rejected all questions about the All-Star voting after the game.

After the hasty end of the post-game press conference, the Rockets rushed to Sacramento overnight, and on the second day, they challenged their old rivals of the season, the Kings, back to back.

This season, the Rockets and the Kings have played two games.

In the season opening game between the two teams, the Rockets won the Kings after a fierce battle and got a good start to the season.

After that, the record was once very poor, and the Kings fell out of the top 10 in the Western Conference. Bottom rebound winning streak.

Although that winning streak was ended when they challenged the Rockets away, the Kings are still in good shape.

With more losses and fewer wins in recent times, the Kings now have a record of 17 wins and 16 losses, and have stabilized at the 8th position in the Western Conference.

At this time, the Rockets came to the door, but they just happened to be playing the second back-to-back away game.

Just because Yao Ming didn't play in yesterday's game against the Bobcats, and it's true that defeating the Bobcats didn't go through too many fierce battles.

Therefore, in today's game against the Kings, the Rockets did not choose to take turns, but attacked with all members.

But what limits the physical strength of the Rockets is more than just the back-to-back games themselves.

Continuously flying from Houston to Charlotte, and then flying overnight from Charlotte to Sacmento after the game, the resulting exhaustion of the journey had a great impact on the Rockets.

In the game against the Kings that day, all Rockets players, including Yao Ming, felt cold. Zhang Jinshui only made 20 of 8 shots and 9 of 3 three-pointers even though he used all the weapons in his arsenal. With the worst shooting percentage of the season, he scored 19 points, 6 assists, 1 rebound and 3 turnovers, and this score is already the team's highest score tied with Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady.

The Rockets' opponent, the Kings, not only won three consecutive victories just before, and they are in full swing, but also, before this game, they had already rested in Sacramento for 2 days, waiting for the arrival of the Rockets.

Under the ebb and flow, the Rockets played very hard in this game.

In the first half, although the Rockets' shooting percentage was very low, relying on their solid strength foundation and defensive tenacity, they were still able to bite the score 39 to 43.

But in the second half, the Rockets' offense still couldn't start the situation, while the Kings gradually hit some key goals amid the cheers of the home fans, pulling the score to 10 points.

Especially at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Rockets trailed the Kings by 56 points 66-10.

McGrady was trying to recover some points by relying on the dominant period of the lineup when he led the bench, but when he broke through the opponent's backup guard, he collided with the opponent, and then fell to the ground in pain.

Although it was just a hard collision, McGrady stood up after only lying on the ground for a while, but it still shocked Rockets coach Van Gundy. He immediately called a timeout and asked the Rockets team doctor to conduct further examination on McGrady.

When the team doctor confirmed that McGrady was fine, Van Gundy replaced McGrady directly after careful consideration, and when the Rockets were still 5 points behind in the fourth quarter, they still only allowed Sprewell and JR Smith played with a pure bench lineup.

At this time, Zhang Jinshui realized that Van Gundy was about to give up the game.

To be honest, since Zhang Jinshui joined the Rockets, he has played for almost half a season. The Rockets only lost four games, and all of these four losses were lost when the Rockets took a break.

In other words, the Rockets have never lost to any opponent in more than 30 games played by the main force.

In the recent period, the major media have been praising the Rockets, advocating that they are the most capable team to compete for the championship this season, almost all of which are based on this point.

However, as Van Gundy no longer sends the main lineup to play, giving up this game means that the Rockets' "undefeated golden body" will be broken.

In Zhang Jinshui's heart, there was a hundred reluctances.

After all, this difficult game has reached the fourth quarter.

Although his arsenal is empty, Zhang Jinshui is still very confident that he will recover the score with Yao Ming and McGrady at the last moment. It would be a pity to give up now.

Of course, Zhang Jinshui also fully understands Van Gundy's concerns, that is, he does not want the Rockets soldiers to take any risk of injury.

Therefore, until the end of the game, Zhang Jinshui gritted his teeth and said nothing. He could only watch helplessly after the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game. Artest and Mike Bibby embraced excitedly. Together, cheering on the victory of this game.

I don't know, I thought they just won 20 consecutive victories, or won the championship.

After the game, some dejected Rockets returned to the locker room.

Van Gundy also brought the coaching staff to apologize to the players, saying that he did not arrange the game well, so that the players obviously made efforts, but did not get the corresponding rewards.

The players immediately stopped Van Gundy from apologizing. In the final analysis, the schedule arranged by the league for the Rockets was too devilish, allowing them to play more than 5 back-to-back games in less than half a season, and most of them were away games. back to back.

Van Gundy forcibly protected the players at the last moment. In fact, he would face pressure from the public media. At this time, the players naturally had to stand with their coaches.

As for the resentment caused by this game, it can only be borne by the next opponent.

Immediately after the ARCO Arena, the home stadium of the Kings, the Rockets did not choose to stay one more night in Sacramento, but endured physical fatigue and flew back to Houston directly.

Compared with the big bed room in the hotel, the bed at home must be more suitable for players to recuperate.

For the next two days, Van Gundy did not arrange any training for the players, allowing the players to take a good rest, and then on the third day, the Rockets ushered in the Hornets, also in the Southwest Theater.

In the eyes of the mainstream NBA media, this rebuilding team really has no room to change hands in front of the mighty Rockets.

And the battle for the best rookie of the season, which has been touted for two games, is no longer so interesting after Chris Paul failed twice.

In the end, the match held at the Toyota Center, where even the press area was not occupied due to the lack of interest from the media, finally ended with a loud bang by the repressed Rockets soldiers.

In the first half alone, the Rockets had a huge 68-point lead 38 to 30, and Yao Maishui all scored more than 20 points in the half, creating an unprecedented and unique record in NBA history.

And the entire second half directly turned into garbage time, which also allowed the Rockets soldiers to have no exhausted physical strength, so they could calmly fly to Atlanta the next day.

And on the third night, they challenged the Eagles, who tied with the Bobcats for the second-to-last spot in the Eastern Conference, in an away game in Atlanta.

The Rockets, who have a fairly good physical reserve, naturally won't make any changes in this kind of game. It is still a familiar taste, leading by 3 points in 25 quarters, and it's time to get off work.

At this point, the Rockets' busy week of running around and including a back-to-back away game has finally passed.

The record of 3 wins and 1 loss is not bad at first glance, but considering that the opponents in the three games won by the Rockets were all weak teams, and the only opponent who lost happened to be the only one of the four opponents who had a season. The strength of the playoffs, such a record, actually does not make the Rockets very satisfied.

However, at this embarrassing time period, something that no one wanted to fight suddenly happened.

After a week that many people thought was very mediocre, the Rockets surpassed the Spurs, with a record of 31 wins and 5 losses, half a game ahead of the 30-5 Spurs, and became the No. [-] team in the Western Conference. The team is also the team with the best record in the league!