NBA: James wants to team up with me

Chapter 109: 31 was the first to win the match point. It would be unthinkable without Wang Chong.

Wang Chong had always had a relatively gentle image in the team before, so no one, including O'Neal, expected that Wang Chong could be quite scary when he was ruthless. Even the league's famous technical offender Little Prince pulled Sid Wallace was knocked to the ground by him.

It seems that this first-year rookie who seems to be easy to bully is not as kind as he appears.

"Nice job boy, that's how you should fuck those bastards!"

During the official timeout, when he returned to the bench, O'Neal put his arms around Wang Chong's neck and laughed. "If you don't teach them a lesson, they won't learn how to play properly!"

"Shaq, don't teach him a bad lesson!"

Phil Jackson took the tactical board and glared at O'Neal. No coach would like a thorn in the side... That's not right. Every championship team will have at least one player on the team who does the dirty work, but Phil I don't want this person to be Wang Chong or any core player in the team.

Like Wang Chong's foul just now, if it is judged as a second-level flagrant foul, he will be directly expelled from the game, and may even be suspended!

But now in the finals, once Wang Chong is suspended, even if he is suspended for just one game, it will have a big impact.

In order to protect Wang Chong, Phil took advantage of this timeout to take Wang Chong off the court and let Kobe reappear.

If Kobe comes down, it's just a knock. He can't fall out with Kobe at this critical juncture. Winning the championship is the most important thing, so he must also rely on Kobe's strength.

With 4 minutes left before the end of the game, the Lakers have taken the initiative on the field and have a 5-point lead. As long as they stabilize the score in the next 4 minutes, this victory will be within easy reach.

After Kobe's reappearance, Kobe has indeed behaved a lot. He did not continue to take random shots blindly. Instead, he used his offensive deterrence to attract the Pistons' defense and help his teammates attack and score.

In the next few rounds, the Pistons failed to take the opportunity to shorten the score when Wang Chong was off the court.

With 2 minutes and 47 seconds left in the game, Wang Chong returned to the court, adding insult to injury to the Pistons.

Time passed minute by minute, and until the whistle sounded at the end of the game, the point difference between the two teams was always more than 5 points.

92: 87.

The Lakers won the first game of the Finals and took the lead.

The first contribution to this victory was none other than O'Neal.

Facing Ben Wallace, who has been the Defensive Player of the Year twice and will most likely be the Defensive Player of the Year four times in the future, O'Neal made him clearly understand what it means to be your uncle forever.

Even though O'Neal has suffered frequent injuries this season and is a bit older, under Ben Wallace's full coverage, he still made 16 of 13 shots and 12 of 8 free throws, scoring a game-high 34 points and 11 points. Backboard.

Wang Chong scored 22 points, ranking third among the Lakers in scoring, not as good as Kobe Bryant who scored 25 points. However, in the third quarter, Wang Chong scored 13 points with a super high shooting rate, and in the fourth quarter, the Pistons were approaching. He once again stood up to stabilize the situation for the team during the score, which can be said to be indispensable.

Moreover, Wang Chong's shooting rate in this game was as high as 75%, which was infinitely close to O'Neal's 81.3% shooting rate. As an outside player, such a high shooting rate is rare.

Correspondingly, Kobe made 27 of 10 shots and scored 37 points with a 25% shooting rate.

With almost twice as many shots as Wang Chong, Kobe only scored 3 points more than Wang Chong, and the efficiency gap was not that big.

Of course, Kobe doesn't have no merit at all.

Although his shooting percentage is relatively low, he actually attracted a lot of defense from the Pistons on the court. O'Neal was able to be in a 1v1 one-on-one environment with Ben Wallace for a long time, and Kobe was indispensable. In addition, Kobe Bryant did not let him play against him. Hamilton feels better.

The king of mid-range shooters was guarded by Kobe on 16 of 5 shots in this game, with a shooting percentage of less than 32%. As the Pistons' first scoring point, he only scored 12 points in the game, and was even more affected than Kobe.

However, Kobe was a little bit upset about head coach Phil Jackson taking him off the field at a critical moment in the fourth quarter.

After all, judging from the results of the first game, if the following games continue like this, he will have no chance of being named FMVP in the finals.

This is completely contrary to Kobe's own plan.

At the post-game press conference, Kobe seemed uninterested and had trouble dealing with interviews with reporters.

On the contrary, O'Neal was very excited.

"With Wang Chong, we are even more powerful. We will have no problem winning another three consecutive championships!"

O'Neal loves Wang Chong to death now. This is simply his dream partner. His precise mid-range shooting can help him effectively stretch the inside space. His style of play is smart but not reckless. Unlike some people who keep trying even when they can't make a shot. Wasted investment is a waste of opportunity.

More importantly, Wang Chong was completely reliable at critical moments. In the third quarter, Wang Chong turned the tide and led his team to catch up.

In the presence of Wang Chong, O'Neal's mind has begun to come alive.

"After winning the championship, he put pressure on the management in the summer and traded Kobe for an All-Star player. Wouldn't he be able to win the championship?"

The reason why O'Neal, who was completely annoyed with Kobe, could still endure playing on the same team with him was simply to swallow his anger for the championship. If he could win the championship without Kobe, then there would be no need to hesitate at all.

Also looking worried was Pistons head coach Larry Brown.

Although it was only the first game of the finals, Brown was already starting to feel bad.

As an old rival, OK Group is still within his expectations and control.

But for Wang Chong, he racked his brains and couldn't think of a way to deal with it.

In fact, Brown already attached great importance to Wang Chong. In the first half, he had Prince guard him throughout the game. Later, after discovering that Prince was not working well, he decisively arranged for Rasheed Wallace to switch defenses.

These two strikers are already the Pistons' best perimeter defenders, even better than Hamilton, who struggled with Kobe.

<divclass="contentadv">But he just couldn't guard against Wang Chong.

Both focus on mid- and long-range shooting. Wang Chong and Kobe are completely different styles of players. Unlike Kobe who relies on technology, Wang Chong relies on something very simple in the game, but the effect is outstanding. That is his static Talent, height and wingspan advantage.

As an outside player, Wang Chong is too tall.

Larry Brown has always felt that Wang Chong and Prince should be about the same. After all, Wang Chong’s registered height is 2 meters. Judging from the normal league registered height, Wang Chong, who mainly plays outside, can be 08 meters tall. Height is considered good.

However, after direct observation at close range in this finals, Brown found that he was wrong. Wang Chong's real height was almost over 2 meters by visual inspection. There was no player taller than him among the Pistons' starting five.

Even Rasheed Wallace can hardly block his opponent's shot when defending Wang Chong head-on, and even causes little defensive interference.

The exaggerated static talent makes Wang Chong's natural shooting much more difficult to defend than defenders such as Kobe Bryant.

After the first game of the finals, Brown found that his initial tactical arrangement was correct. If he wanted to limit Wang Chong's scoring, the best way was to block the passing route and prevent Wang Chong from receiving the ball.

But when Wang Chong changes from offense without the ball to offense with the ball like he did in the third quarter, he can only rely on the player's personal ability to limit his offense as much as possible.

At this time, Larry Brown had almost the same idea as Popovich during the Western Conference Finals.

The Lakers are too bad. They have two best players, O'Neal and Kobe, and now they have Wang Chong, who is also very difficult to deal with. How can other teams play? ——

On June 6, in the second game of the Finals, the Pistons suffered another defeat.

In this game, Kobe felt better, still taking 27 shots, hitting 14 goals, scoring 33 points, 4 rebounds and 7 assists.

奥尼尔则一如既往，20投10中罚球14中9得到29分7篮板。

When the OK combination scored 62 points, Wang Chong didn't even contribute much. He scored 11 points on 7 of 16 shots. The Lakers defeated the Pistons with a score of 109:91 and won their second victory in the finals. The total score was 2: 0 lead.

The smooth competition once made Wang Chong feel a little unbelievable. If the difficulty of the competition was just this, then the system's mission would be too simple, right?

Wang Chong, who had this idea, immediately encountered a head-on blow in the third game.

On June 6, in the third game of the Finals, the venue was changed from Los Angeles to the Auburn Hills Palace Arena in Detroit, home of the Pistons.

The home of the Pistons is also one of the league's famous Devil's home stadiums. As a well-known automobile city in the United States, Detroit has a high proportion of factory workers. This also means that at least half of the audience at the Palace of Auburn Hills are manual laborers in factories.

I am not discriminating against manual laborers such as workers, but workers in the United States are all rough men with hot tempers, love games, beer and cigars, and it is common for them to get into fights over disagreements.

The most famous vicious beating incident in the league occurred at the Palace of Auburn Hills, just a few months after the start of the new season.

The incident at the Auburn Hills Palace began when a fan threw a beer bottle at Artest, who was lying on the technical stage to put pressure on the referee, causing the latter to lose control and angrily rush into the fans' stands, triggering a group fight.

Although it was wrong for Artest to hit someone first, it is undeniable that Pistons fans hit players with objects and used all kinds of verbal abuse and provocation.

It is worth mentioning that Stephen Jackson single-handedly fought against dozens of Pistons fans in a battle, punching a child with one punch. He became famous in one battle and was dubbed the "Martial Saint".

The funniest thing was Pacers substitute Fred Jones. After the conflict broke out, he rushed into the audience as soon as possible, only to be surrounded and kicked by the audience in the stands. He was beaten violently.

The fighting spirit of the Pistons fans is really not low, and they are completely worthy of facing this group of basketball players. After all, the vast majority of the spectators here are doing manual labor in the factory.

Standing on the court, Wang Chong could feel the overwhelming noise, and the enthusiasm was even greater than the Lakers' home court.

This is not surprising. The Lakers’ home court has never been the devil’s home court. It is located in Los Angeles, the City of Angels. Most of the fans at the Lakers’ home court are celebrities from all walks of life, including celebrities, singers, celebrities in the entertainment industry, and some successful people. No. No one is as passionate as die-hard Knicks fan Spike Lee.

The Pistons are different. The workers have a loud voice. In addition, the Pistons have entered the finals for the first time since the 89-99 season, which naturally makes Pistons fans even more excited and happy.

As excited as they were, the boos for the Lakers were loud.

As if boosted by the home fanaticism, the Pistons played quite aggressively in this game. This aggression is not only reflected in basketball skills, but also in other aspects.

O'Neal was annoyed by the larger defensive actions of the Pistons players, and his own movements in the game were also a bit louder. As a result, he was plagued by fouls throughout the game and only scored 14 points on 7 of 14 shots.

After Kobe's outstanding performance in the previous game, he immediately showed his true colors in this game, scoring 13 points on 4 of 11 shots.

就连以稳定著称的王崇这场比赛也没打好，10投4中，罚球6中4得到12分。

Sure enough, a bad touch is contagious, especially when a shot is missed, there will always be overwhelming cheers from the stands, which has a great impact on the team's morale. Only O'Neal, Kobe and Wang Chong scored in double figures for the Lakers. , the team scored a total of 80 points in the entire game, which was far lower than usual.

At the post-game press conference, O'Neal, as the team boss, consciously took all the responsibility for the failure on himself.

"I did not perform well in this game because I got into a foul problem and failed to help the team win. Here I make a promise that I will not make the same mistake again in the next game and I will change again in the next game. Returning to what I was in the first two games, I helped the team win the game with offensive scoring."

O'Neal fulfilled his promise. In Game 21 of the Finals two days later, still at the Pistons' home court, O'Neal made 16 of 11 shots, 4 of 36 free throws, and scored a double-double with 20 points and rebounds.

Although Kobe continued to hit 25 of 8 in this game and scored 32 points with a 20% shooting rate, fortunately, Wang Chong's touch recovered in this game.

O'Neal's strong dominance at the basket gave Wang Chong many opportunities, and he did not waste these opportunities. He made 15 of 7 shots in the game, 5 of 3 three-pointers, and 4 of 3 free throws. He scored 20 points like Kobe.

Even though he only had 20 points like Kobe, Wang Chong's 20 points were really crucial, because 20 of these 9 points were scored in the fourth quarter.

In the fourth quarter, O'Neal scored 13 points and Wang Chong scored 9 points. 26 of the Lakers' 22 points in a single quarter came from the two of them.

It was precisely with 26 points in the last quarter that the Lakers defeated the Pistons in a thrilling 92:88, taking the lead in winning the match point 3:1, and were only one step away from the championship!

The Lakers fans breathed a huge sigh of relief. While cheering and cheering, they couldn't help but feel scared for a while.

It's hard to imagine what the result would be if they didn't have Wang Chong. Are they the team lagging behind 1:3 at this time?