Chapter 1529 1528. This Is Very McGrady (Asking for Monthly Votes)

In the past few years, in January every year, the NBA has to rely on the Hawks, Lakers, Heat, Suns, and Mavericks to survive.

There is no way. Almost every season, January is the month with the lowest network traffic and news topic index in the NBA.

In addition to the fans' fatigue of watching the game, the players are not willing to fight hard at this time, fearing that injuries and other things beyond their strength will affect their performance in the second half of the season.

But this year is different. The Hawks defeated the Mavericks, Hornets, and Cavaliers in a row, but they couldn't make the headlines. The same is true for slaughtering the Pacers by more than 30 points.

Because the competition for the second to ninth place in the Western Conference has entered a white-hot stage since the beginning of the new year! Even if the Trail Blazers win a series of games, they may rush to the second place in the Western Conference.

In January, the attention of the NBA has not decreased but increased!

There has never been such a fierce ranking competition in the history of the NBA. This year, the Western Conference may create a spectacle where the top nine teams all get 50 wins, which means that there may be a team with 50 wins that cannot enter the playoffs!

This has never happened in the history of the NBA.

Facts have proved that it is not that fans don't want to watch the game in January, but they all know that in January, except for the popular teams that are arranged to meet and play more intensely, most of the games will be less competitive and the fans will have some aesthetic fatigue.

When it comes to the card battle after the All-Star Weekend, all the fans will come back.

This season, the NBA ratings have not declined in the middle of the season, and the network traffic has not decreased but increased, which is a good illustration of this point.

On January 6, the first All-Star voting data was announced.

The day after the Hawks and the Lakers played the Christmas game, the All-Star voting began. Starting from the 6th, the 17th, and the 28th, the votes were announced every 11 days, and the 28th was the final result.

The continued enthusiasm of the fans is also a huge benefit to the All-Star voting.

In the first stage of the All-Star votes this time, 8 stars have broken the million mark!

In terms of Western guards, Kobe and Iverson, the 96-generation guards, began to dominate the position like the double 21 at the beginning.

The votes of both players exceeded one million. Kobe won the first championship after O'Neal left, and his popularity continued to rise. He ranked first in the West with 1.39 million votes and was the highest vote so far.

Iverson ranked second among Western guards with 1.13 million votes and third among Western forwards.

The only Western forward who broke the million mark was Tim Duncan, who entered his peak again, with 1.03 million votes.

Anthony ranked second among Western forwards with 790,000 votes.

At the center position, Yao Ming was the unshakable first place, winning the championship for six consecutive times, with 1.25 million votes.

There was no big suspense for the Western guards and centers. Kobe and Iverson were too popular. The third Chris Paul and the fourth Steve Nash did not have as many votes as Iverson.

The same was true for Yao Ming at the center position. O'Neal only received more than 700,000 votes, only 50,000 more than Wang Zhizhi.

Duncan's All-Star start is unlikely to be shaken, but Anthony is not stable. Behind him are Carlos Boozer with 750,000 votes and Josh Smith with 710,000 votes, as well as Gasol with 630,000 votes and Odom with 470,000 votes.

In the East, no one except Liu Mang expected that Dwight Howard would be the first in the Eastern Conference All-Star votes.

Howard ranked first among Eastern Conference centers with 1.28 million votes! Even higher than the votes of Western Conference center Yao Ming!

It's not that Howard is the most popular among Eastern Conference stars, but he is the most likable at this stage. He laughs all day long like a big kid, which attracts many people to vote for him.

Kwame Brown is far away from the All-Star starter, with only 610,000 votes, ranking second among Eastern Conference centers.

But even more unlucky is Milicic, the unlucky kid. He only ranked fourth among Eastern Conference centers in the United States with more than 300,000 votes. Even the Heat's backup center Rasheed Wallace received 60,000 more votes than him.

Just like Nowitzki, fans think he is great, but not many people vote for him.

Milicic is too simple. When other popular stars go around in the summer to promote and make money, he goes back to his hometown to help his mother milk the cows and relies on his fame to help his mother's ranch contact dairy manufacturers to sell milk...

He doesn't have to help his mother farm now because he has money, but the older generation cannot live without the land. Milicic bought a ranch for his mother.

The most powerful dairy farmer among NBA players is Milicic if nothing unexpected happens.

Among Eastern Conference forwards, James ranked first with 1.15 million votes, and Garnett ranked second with 910,000 votes.

The storm caused by Garnett last year is much smaller this year. The war between Garnett and the Bulls management is continuing. One wants a long-term contract, while the team only wants to give a short-term high salary. The negotiations failed, which also affected Garnett's popularity to a certain extent.

The competition for the Eastern Conference forwards is also fierce. The votes of Stoudemire, Grant Hill, Rahim, Pierce, Bosh, and Marion are not low.

Especially Grant Hill, who ranked fourth among the Eastern Conference forwards with 690,000 votes.

For guards, Liu Mang ranked first with 1.2 million votes, second in the Eastern Conference, and McGrady with 1.13 million votes.

These two are very stable, because the third place is Wade with 850,000 votes... and the fourth place is Carter with only 510,000 votes, which is a big gap from the top three.

Although Carter started to develop a more stable style of play two or three years later than in the original time and space, he also did not escape the matter of "outdated".

Wade didn't know whether it was good luck or bad. On December 24, the league announced the All-Star candidate list. All-Star players could only be selected from this list. Wade returned on the 21st. He performed well in the first game after his return, so the league added him to the list, but he could only be ranked third on the candidate list.

In any case, the starting guards of the Eastern Conference All-Stars are all from the Hawks.

…

There is no doubt that the results of the All-Star voting will also become a factor affecting the motivation of the players.

The fierce competition among the top nine in the West means that the record will not be much different, and the data of the stars are not so different. The extremely disparate distribution of the first round of votes in the West naturally makes some stars dissatisfied.

In order to improve the enthusiasm of the players and increase the highlights that fans can find when watching the game, the league announces the votes every ten days or so, otherwise it would just announce the All-Star starters on the 28th.

But…

These things seem to have nothing to do with the Hawks.

The battle for the third to fifth place in the East and the bloody competition for the second to ninth place in the West have nothing to do with the Hawks.

The Hawks' January schedule looks relatively difficult. Since the Hawks only have four or five strong opponents in late October, November and December, there will naturally be many more strong opponents in the remaining 52 games.

Just like the first three games played in January, the first game was the Hornets and the second game was the Cavaliers, both of which were opponents that were considered popular teams at the beginning of the season.

After playing three away games starting in January, the Hawks' record became 27 wins and 6 losses. After looking at the results of the first All-Star voting on the 6th, the Hawks faced the challenge of the Nets that night.

This is the first of five consecutive home games for the Hawks after five consecutive away games.

In the game against the Pacers yesterday, the Hawks didn't play well at all. The opponent looked like they were ready to surrender. The Hawks were embarrassed to abuse them too much and won by 36 points.

This time against the Nets, the Hawks' players who can play are quite motivated.

Speaking of being able to play... it's very simple, the Hawks' second back-to-back game is here.

The coaching staff will never let Wade play in the second back-to-back game. The team doctor said Wade can play without restrictions, but the coaching staff is afraid!

It's a miracle that Wade can recover to such a good health. Since the medical records in the history of the NBA, there has never been a situation where a cruciate ligament is torn and he can still have top physical fitness.

This requires more care.

In addition to Wade, McGrady, Kwame Brown, and Marion also took a rest.

The starting lineup sent by the Hawks in this game is Rondo, Liu Mang, Mason, O'Neal Jr., and Brad Miller.

The Hawks have a sophomore plus a superstar plus three old men... The strength they play is really not good.

Rondo is a little bit uncomfortable. When he was playing with Liu Mang, Marion, McGrady, and Kwame Brown, he threw the ball into the air in a counterattack and the four of them jumped out and dunked. Now only Mason and Liu Mang can do it.

The Hawks trailed by three points at 23-26 in the first quarter, but they tied the score at 50 after halftime. They tied the score in the first half purely by their enthusiasm.

In the second half, the Hawks' advantage in depth was reflected.

Indeed, the Nets are still good, not at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. They sent away two superstars and got a lot of high-quality role players. When they sent out the best lineup, they played on par with the Hawks in the first half. Among them, rookie Noah's support played a big role. Nocioni's three-pointer and Du Hong's cut-in cooperated well with Noah.

But as the game progressed, Jason Terry found his feeling in the second half, Scola's inside singles, plus the most stable Liu Mang...

In the third quarter, the Hawks scored 37-22 in a single quarter, which widened the gap to 15 points in one fell swoop, making the game lose suspense.

In the end, with Liu Mang playing for 39 minutes and scoring 33 points, 5 rebounds and 9 assists, Rondo's 11 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists, Jason Terry's 21 points and Scola's 16 points, four Hawks scored in double figures, and the Hawks easily defeated the Nets 113 to 99 to win seven consecutive games.

After playing against the Nets, on January 8, the Hawks welcomed the Wizards, the second opponent of the five consecutive home games.

Currently, the Wizards, the seventh in the Eastern Conference, have a record of only 16 wins and 19 losses. Unlike the last time they competed with the Hawks until the last minute, this time the Wizards were defeated by the Hawks early.

Liu Mang played for 21 minutes in the first half, scored 17 points, 6 assists and 4 blocks in the half, and clocked out...

McGrady, who returned after a break, was indeed extraordinary. He hit 5 three-pointers in the first quarter and helped Liu Mang get 4 assists in a single quarter. As a result, McGrady made 0 of 6 three-pointers in the second and third quarters... His hit rate was wiped out.

Liu Mang felt that McGrady was like this every time, wanting to be more aggressive after a wave of aggressiveness, but the result was always on McGrady's side.

Wade's comeback ensured the continuity of defense when rotating the lineup. Although Wade played for 28 minutes and only got 14 points and 4 rebounds, and only had two assists, he allowed the Hawks to continue the high-quality defense that they had played around Liu Mang at the beginning.

115 to 91, the Hawks defeated the Wizards by 24 points and won 8 consecutive games!

29 wins and 6 losses!

If they win one more game, the Hawks will become the second team in the league to win 30 games, and if they win one more game, the Hawks will tie the Spurs' season-high record of nine consecutive wins!