Chapter 1094 1093. Battle of Revenge
As January draws to a close, the coldest part of winter is about to pass. The fatigue of watching the game in the past half month or so has gradually dissipated with the change of weather, and the enthusiasm for watching the game has slowly been regained.
There are less than three days left before the All-Star voting deadline. On January 24, the one-month All-Star voting window will close. Now the players who want to be selected as All-Star starters are trying their best to show their strength.
For example, a Los Angeles player, on January 22, the day when the Hawks played against the Nets at home, it happened to be the Lakers playing back-to-back against the Raptors, and the game started at 4 pm.
A player saw that the opponent was no longer frantically double-teaming him like before. When Yao Ming offset Milicic, the strongest player of the Raptors, who scored 17 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists, and the Lakers had the advantage in other positions, a player began to shoot frantically.
While doing the warm-up stretching session, Liu Mang watched the national live broadcast of the Lakers and Raptors, two teams with powerful centers. Seeing that a certain player had scored 50 points with 40 shots, he cursed inwardly that he was shameless.
"Tracy, Jason, look, BIG-YAO scored 25 points with 10 of 10 shots, and that guy only scored 50 points with 40 shots. If these shots were given to BIG-YAO, BIG-YAO would have scored 100 points!"
"..." McGrady was speechless. Can it be calculated like this?
However, what made McGrady even more speechless was that Jason Terry echoed: "Yes, Ace is right. That guy can only score by shooting high, and his hit rate is so low. He only scored 16 out of 40 shots."
Ever since Liu Mang asked Jason Terry to defend James, Jason Terry thought that whatever Liu Mang said was the truth.
"..."
McGrady ignored the two funny guys, changed into his suit and left the locker room.
The night before yesterday, McGrady played 46 minutes in the game against the Jazz. Although he started four consecutive home games, McGrady still had to rest.
Looking at McGrady who left, Liu Mang was a little worried. Kidd and Carter... the new generation of Joe and Pi combination. If the Nets had not suffered many injuries this season, Carter was not seriously injured and Kidd was at the end of his peak, the record would not be so bad.
The key is that the Nets are now in a fierce competition with the 76ers for rankings. Although it is only the middle of the season, both the Nets and the 76ers want to take the lead.
McGrady and Rasheed Wallace not playing is still a big problem for the Hawks.
But the Hawks can't interrupt the rest plan that they prepared since they knew the schedule at the beginning. Moreover, since they crossed the Nets in the 2004 Eastern Conference Finals, the Hawks have not put the Nets, which have passed their peak, in their target opponents. They will not break their plans because of this opponent, unless it is the first game against the Lakers after the All-Star Weekend and the last game against the Heat before the All-Star Weekend. The Hawks will go all out to send all the main players.
The key now is physical protection and training young players.
And they played well. Compared with other teams in the league, the Hawks' winning rate is the first in such a schedule in January.
Although the Hawks want to surpass or tie the Bulls' historical record of only losing 5 games before the All-Star Weekend, the Hawks are now 36 wins and 4 losses, which is the current record. The Bulls lost the fifth game early in the 95-96 season, but they won 9 consecutive games before the All-Star Weekend, which suddenly improved their record to a terrifying 48 wins and 5 losses.
However, the current schedule is somewhat different from that of ten years ago, especially the schedule of the Hawks. The Hawks only have 51 games before the All-Star Weekend.
Now some people are expecting the Hawks to break the historical record held by the Bulls before the All-Star Weekend, and then, they will have a chance to challenge the Bulls' 72-win record.
But the Hawks coaching staff wants stability. 72 wins in the regular season are very tempting, but if they win 72 wins, it will lead to physical problems in the playoffs. That will not be worth the loss. Nothing is more important than the championship.
The main reason is that the Hawks have been in the Eastern Conference Finals for four consecutive years and won the championship for two consecutive years. Although many players have been replaced, Rasheed Wallace, one of the core players of the two consecutive championships, is old. Liu Mang and Jason Terry, the two absolute main players, are young, but they also have to prevent injuries. Liu Mang is okay. The coaching staff treats him as an iron man. Except for asking him to train less, nothing else can stop him. However, Jason Terry is occasionally rested, which proves the goal of the Hawks coaching staff and management this season.
Breaking 72 wins is not as good as winning the championship.
When Liu Mang finished stretching and was about to move his muscles and joints, the system prompt came.
"Ding... Because the host lost to the Nets in the last match, the duel between the host and Jason Kidd has attracted widespread attention, and the natal position suppression series task: the control master's revenge battle is triggered."
"The first battle of the control master's revenge battle: the host must have more assists than Jason Kidd in this game and lead the team to win.
The second stop of the control master's revenge battle: the host must crush Deron Williams in the next home game against the Jazz, and the three data of points, assists, and rebounds must be at least twice that of Deron Williams' points, assists, and rebounds.
Task reward: Deron Williams or Jason Kidd can choose a peak star card, and the natal position suppression task can continue."
Liu Mang had been waiting for this task for a long time. After losing to the Nets and the Jazz, Liu Mang received a system prompt that the task of suppressing his natal position was interrupted, and a prompt to wait for the task to be restarted.
Locking the title of the league's first point guard, even if there is no such task, Liu Mang wants to take this title.
Moreover, it is often not the players who value the title of the league's first point guard, but the fans.
Liu Mang now averages 30.6 points, 6.5 rebounds, 11.2 assists, 1.9 steals, 0.9 blocks, and 3.7 turnovers per game. Especially the 11.2 assists, the data has made fans regard Liu Mang as a favorable contender for the league's first point guard.
Liu Mang lost to Kidd once before. In that game, Kidd got 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 12 assists, an economic triple-double that he was unwilling to get one more point or one more rebound. Liu Mang only got 9 assists in that game. Although he had 35 points, from the perspective of a "point guard", Liu Mang was at a disadvantage.
However, the disadvantage was not obvious. It was mainly because the Hawks rested and the role players did not shoot accurately in the second half. After Liu Mang started to take over the scoring, he was double-teamed and his teammates could not shoot. The Hawks lost. In terms of performance, Liu Mang was not much worse than Carter and Kidd. It just happened that Carter and Kidd wanted to win the game and compete for the fourth place.
However, for Liu Mang, it was still very stressful to compete with Kidd in organizing the offense...
...
...
"Theo, how are you doing recently?"
"Not bad, Ace, how about you."
"I'm fine too."
"That's good, I hope you can win three consecutive championships."
"Haha, of course, I won't waste the foundation of the dynasty we created together..."
Before the game, Liu Mang and Jason Terry went to chat with the opponent's center Ratliff.
Ratliff's strength has declined a lot now. Liu Mang took a look and found that his ability rating was only 75.
It's not about injuries. Although Ratliff has suffered minor injuries, the impact is not great. These veterans have many injuries. And because the Hawks have demonstrated the correct way to use Ratliff to the Nets, Ratliff only plays 20 minutes in a game. The main reason is that Ratliff is 33 years old. Even though he didn't have a serious injury in the three years with the Hawks and didn't experience a cliff-like decline, he didn't experience his second serious injury. He also lost his previous explosiveness, speed and lateral movement. The number of blocks fell to a new low since Ratliff started in his third year. He only had 1.9 blocks in 21 minutes per game. It was also the only time in the past nine years that his number of blocks did not exceed two.
Although Liu Mang felt that it was not a good idea to think that way, it was indeed a wise choice for the management to send Ratliff away and promote Kwame Brown, although Liu Mang himself was sad for a long time at the time.
Looking at Jason Terry who was chatting with Ratliff about some interesting topics, Liu Mang never expected that the last one left among his teammates back then was this guy. Liu Mang wanted to sell this guy who couldn't even add assists when passing to an open space.
But every time Jason Terry scored a key goal... Liu Mang felt... he should keep him...
At this time, Carter came and hugged Liu Mang and said, "Ace, Tracy is not here, you will lose to me again today, we will definitely beat you this year."
Liu Mang listened to Carter's words and thought: So this guy wants to play to the fourth place and then beat me in the playoffs?
Liu Mang smiled and said, "Vince, your ideas are very creative, and it is easier to realize them in dreams."
"Of course you have to have a dream! Isn't that what you said at the beginning?" Carter smiled and responded, said hello and went back to his own half.
Carter also wanted to win the championship. Although the chance was not great, Carter still felt very happy to show off the victory in the last game.
Liu Mang looked at Carter, who seemed to be simply showing off that they won the last time they played against each other, which felt strange.
"Is it a good thing or a bad thing to help him heal his foot? I don't understand," Liu Mang looked at Carter, who was no different from before, and still felt that he had unlimited talent and would talk about it later. Liu Mang said to the system, "Carter and Kidd's ability evaluation."
"Vince Carter, ability evaluation 94, offense 97, defense 84, three-pointer 93, mid-range shot 91, layup 95, speed 91, strength 88..."
Liu Mang looked at Carter's ability evaluation again, and there was still a little gap between him and the superstar. From the perspective of various abilities, Carter definitely has the ability of a superstar, but what is lacking is the spirit.
"Jason Kidd, ability evaluation 92, offense 77, defense 95, passing 100, three-pointer 86, mid-range shot 71, layup 83, speed 88, strength 87..."
Kidd began to feel a little bit like a monster.
These two outside players, if McGrady doesn't play, Liu Mang feels that it will be difficult to bite!