Chapter 627
After the Christmas game, the Eagles' record improved to 24 wins and 5 losses!
The Eagles equaled the opening performance of the 69-win Bulls in the 1996-97 season!
The strong start of the Eagles caused most teams in the Eastern Conference to panic!
Miami, American Airlines Center Arena, the coaching staff of the Heat are still working overtime, mainly to watch the game between their two opponents who may be their first round playoffs.
The Heat have a chance to return to the playoffs this year, and may end up in the bottom half of the playoffs from fifth to eighth. The top four in the Eastern Conference are their imaginary enemies. The last thing they want to meet is of course the Eagles And the Pistons, but apart from the top four in the Eastern Conference, the records of other teams in the East are surprisingly bad, but they are not much different in strength. Even the Hornets have slipped down to compete with other teams for fifth to eighth after Mashburn announced his retirement. , The Heat can only study each opponent.
Especially the head-to-head confrontation between the Eagles and the Pistons. They want to see how the two strong teams will come up with ways to target each other. It just so happens that they will play the Pistons in the next game. They can try to see if they have a chance to win the Pistons in the regular season. , As long as you can win one or two times, you can still play against the Pistons in the playoffs. The Heat's lineup is not bad.
In the end, I really saw the way the Eagles dealt with the Pistons, which was rude and straightforward, which gave the Heat an idea.
The Eagles completely blocked the Pistons' normal offense. Pat Riley is best at defense. When he just defends, he still has a chance to enter the second round. The boss has been dissatisfied with the lottery for many years. This year Pat Riley will make a name for himself in the playoffs, laying the groundwork for the plan that he started preparing three years ago.
It's just that Pat Riley didn't expect that guy to win three consecutive championships. The conflict has been suppressed and the other won the championship. The two best big men in the league have won honors, making Pat- Riley's plans were delayed year after year.
After watching the game, the Eagles beat the Pistons 105 to 81. Pat Riley regretted Larry Brown's outdated style of play. Larry Brown's style of play will soon be eliminated by the times up.
"Stan, what do you think of the Eagles?" The greasy man asked the man with a big belly who was wearing Armani and looked dirty next to him.
"The Hawks should be equipped with a little more three-pointers. Their frontcourt combination of Kwame Brown, Rasheed Wallace, and Sherif Rahim rebounds too well. If they are equipped with a group of three-pointers, I believe it will be even better. Strong." Stan Van Gundy said enviously, seeing Kwame Brown's body, athleticism, and jumping, he was so jealous that this player belonged to him.
Pat Riley clenched the cup in his hand, wanting to crush it.
Are you asking for advice for the Eagles? However, with a group of three-pointers shooting three-pointers, Pat Riley feels that this disciple still has a little vision. The league has revealed that the NO-handcheck rule will be introduced after the end of the season. His analysis of the future shows that three-pointers will definitely become more and more Important, the idea of a four-pitcher is nice...but! That's not what Pat Riley wants to hear! He felt that his disciple was so stupid!
"Stan, you have a good idea. Do you think the Eagles and the Lakers have entered the Finals, which team has a better chance of winning? Which team do you want to win the championship?" Pat Lai Li continued to ask guiding questions.
"The Lakers have a better chance of winning. They have two superstars who are one level higher than the Hawks, but I hope we can win the championship." Stan Van Gundy gave an answer.
"..." Really ambitious, which head coach doesn't want a championship, but Pat Riley wants to throw the cup!
At this time, Stan Van Gundy gave another constructive opinion: "Pat, or we will have another year of bad luck! There is a great high school student in the draft next year, and he may be better than Kwame Brown of the Eagles. Great! If we can form a combination of Dwyane and the new No. 1 pick, use Eddie, Lamar, and Caron as chips, and then exchange for a superstar, our young champion combination will be completed!"
Needless to say, Pat Riley was very tempted by this idea, but the boss is probably impatient.
In recent years, the rapid rise of the three teams in the Eastern Conference, the Pistons, the Pacers, and especially the Eagles, has made Pat Riley feel a lot of pressure.
It has reached the point where it has to stud!
In Pat Riley's view, the Eagles may be the big boss of the Eastern Conference in the future. At this stage, people are most optimistic about the Nets, but Pat Riley thinks that the Nets have no hope. Once they fail, they can continue to maintain momentum. Two failures, maybe Kidd still maintains confidence, but Pat Riley, the rest of the Nets, is not optimistic at all.
Pacers and Pistons, Pat Riley looks down on the Pacers, the defense is not as strong as the Pistons, and the offense is not as good as the Eagles. There is a scorer who has already begun to have the ability to make the final decision. It's okay, it's still a bit far away in the playoffs.
Pat Riley reported that the only teams that can beat the Lakers or Spurs in the West to win the championship after five years are the Pistons and the Hawks, but now it seems that the Hawks have even greater hopes, and the Pistons have been defeated. The Eagles were scared.
Pat Riley more than anyone wants the Hawks to finally kill the Lakers or the Spurs to win the championship. Duncan will be a free agent this summer and will enter the player option after the fourth year of his six-year contract. Duncan It is impossible to implement the player option. He will ask for more money. He is not a person like Nowitzki who does not sign endorsements except for sneakers and German Airlines. If the Spurs are defeated by the Eagles this year, Pat Riley feels that there is a chance to compete for Duncan. Their talent is obviously better than Duncan.
In addition to Duncan, O'Neal is the second choice, using asset transactions, in addition to Wade, Pat Riley is willing to send any player, including Odom who makes him the next Magic Johnson.
But the key to the two plans is that one of their teams lost in the finals! The Eagles are the key to this plan. Pat Riley expects the Eagles to win the championship more than the Eagles themselves.
...
After the Christmas game between the Eagles and the Pistons, the Celtics and the Knicks quickly reached a one-to-one deal.
The Celtics have recovered their form this year. Wen Baker, who averaged 12 points and 6 rebounds per game, is the team's best insider and has an expired contract. The lottery protected the first-round pick and took Howard Ellis and Mookie Norris, two mid-level long-term contracts signed by the Knicks with iron heads.
It's not just Pat Riley who wants to compete for O'Neal and Duncan. On the Celtics side, after seeing the Eagles beat the Pistons and their dominance has improved compared to last year, Ainge continued to collect draft picks. In order to get a big fish in a trade, Angie frantically saved draft picks regardless of his relationship. In order to get one of the two big fish, O'Neal or Duncan, to form a dual-core with Pierce, Angie began to fight.
In addition to the Heat and the Celtics, the 76ers, Hornets, Knicks and other teams are all clearing salary space, wanting to get O'Neal or Duncan, and they are all fighting like the Celtics!
As for the bad team, it started to be completely bad, and the Magic just didn't care about it. Anyway, the bottom one in the league will continue to be bad.
As for the Cavaliers... They also want to join, but they don't think they have anything that can attract these two big fish. The embarrassing positions of tenth and eleventh are inseparable.
Originally, for the next summer, the Eastern Conference teams were not that crazy, but now they have to be crazy. If they want to play badly, they should choose the core team with a higher pick. If they want to show their attractiveness The teams are all striving desperately for better bargaining chips and higher attractiveness.
All because of the Eagles!
The dominance shown by the Eagles, as well as the core players are so young, and there are too many high-quality assets, and there is a good operating foundation for salary space. The Eagles will put a lot of pressure on the Eastern Conference teams in the next few years. In order to keep their jobs, the management must start fighting!
...
The Eagles, who have been regarded as a source of pressure and a future imaginary enemy by the Eastern teams, arrived at five o'clock after the Christmas game, and after the interview, it was just past six or seven o'clock, and they went home to spend time with their families. Went on Christmas Eve.
In fact, except for parties, Americans don't spend many festivals with friends, and mostly at home.
Liu Mang also returned home early. This was the first Christmas in his new home, and his life was very simple, that is, eating, singing, watching the game between the Lakers and the Nets...
After the Eagles won Game 1 of the Christmas game, the Christmas game between the Magic and the 76ers came. McGrady scored 45 points and led the Magic to a difficult victory over the 76ers without Iverson.
Looking at McGrady's performance, the feeling of easily scoring more than 40 points, Liu Mang felt a lot of pressure!
That broken task, the first step will be started the next time they play against McGrady, that is, at the beginning of next month, the Eagles will play against the Magic again.
The game is not a problem. What a rotten Magic team, they only have 3 wins and 26 losses so far.
But this puts even more pressure on Liu Mang to win the scoring title this season!
Because McGrady doesn't care about anything. Anyway, the record is so bad. After being provoked by himself, even if he is not angry, he may still find it "interesting", and then score desperately...
Liu Mang felt that he would definitely be treated as a cancer in the future! It's getting tougher!
The main reason is that the number of shots is getting more and more. Of course, it is beneficial to the team that Liu Mang played like this. Practice has brought true knowledge. Liu Mang's style of play does make the team more obvious. This is what the team needs, because This year is different from the group of future superstars and the overall strength of the role players. These years are either single-core or dual-core, and the ball is very concentrated.
Therefore, although the Eagles have gathered several stars, they still maintain the habit at this stage. In the first year Liu Mang joined the Eagles, the first scorer was Raheem, and in the second year it became Jason Terry. Now Liu Mang and Jason Terry have concentrated possession of the ball in the starting lineup and concentrated possession of the ball as a substitute. It is clear that the others are also due to their current habits, and the mainstream thinking of the league this year is sacrifice, and Liu Mang has such good physical strength. They are also willing to sacrifice if they can shoot more than 20 or 30 shots in a game and still maintain a shooting rate of about 43 to 45%.
It's just that Liu Mang is very sad, that is, when facing most teams, the advantage is too great, and he often hits a wave of iron first, before the opponent's physical fitness begins to decline, and he can improve his shooting percentage. The opponent is down!
...
...
The next morning after the Christmas battle, Liu Mang watched the game with Dinah, a young and energetic little girl last night, and saw it past one o'clock in the morning, so he didn't get up until seven thirty this morning.
There is a time difference between the east and the west. The last Christmas battle in the west was over, and it was only after 11 o'clock. It was almost two o'clock in Atlanta. The two beauties who were going to sleep for beauty went to bed. I can't sleep because I can't sleep, I can only watch the game between the Lakers and the Nets.
There is not much suspense, 122 to 87, a crazy victory, just the OK combination, the Nets can't handle it, Kidd also met the most uncomfortable point guard Payton, the Lakers stepped on the Nets I can't turn over on the ground.
Although he complained that he didn't go to bed so late when he was watching the game with the little girl in his arms, but the main reason was to find an excuse to abuse the girl. Liu Mang watched the game very attentively. He learned how Payton dealt with Kidd in order to beat Kidd. Direct torture to death.
After waking up, Liu Mang saw that the time was so late, the morning exercise this morning was temporarily cancelled, first get up and do some stretching, simple exercise, and then make breakfast.
There are only 5 days left in 2003, and there are only two games. On the 26th and 27th, they will rest.
Today the Eagles are on holiday, and they didn’t play for Christmas. Of course, they have to make up for it the next day. They resume training tomorrow and play the game the day after tomorrow.
Liu Mang spread out some of the gluttonous little loli's favorite egg pancakes, and after a short while, the little loli poked its head in through the door following the smell.
"Wash your hands, brush your teeth, change your clothes, and eat breakfast!" Liu Mang said without turning his head when he heard footsteps.
"Received!" Little Loli didn't sneak in to steal food this time, she learned her lesson, and was afraid that she would get oily all over her face.
After Liu Mang finished his breakfast, it was already 8:30. Liu Mang went back to his room and took a shower. Only he and Dinah had breakfast. Levia didn't have to get up so early because Dinah was on holiday, so she slept late. Alexia slept in late every day because it was rare for her to have such a long vacation.
Seeing Dinah, who seemed to be getting less and less ladylike, gobbling it up, Liu Mang felt very sad: "Dinah, eat less, aren't you afraid of growing into a big fat man?"
Little Lolita took a sip of milk and swallowed what was in her mouth before speaking. She still kept her manners very well, but her eating behavior became more and more excessive.
The little loli wiped her mouth and said: "No way! Dinah is growing up, she needs to eat more, grow taller, and be taller than her mother and teacher, otherwise she will be too short to stand with the uncle when she grows up. Already!"
"All right, you eat, but eat slowly, don't choke, no one will grab you!" Liu Mang replied helplessly.
Just as Dinah was about to reach out to take down an omelette, she saw the clock on the wall, and suddenly thought of something, and ran to turn on the TV.
"What's the matter, is there any program to watch?" Liu Mang asked curiously.
"Uncle, you forgot! Today is the day when the All-Star voting starts!" Dinah tuned to the sports channel, and it was exactly nine o'clock when the NBA's official press conference began.
David Stern appeared on television to announce the start of voting for the 2003-2004 Los Angeles All-Star Weekend.
Only then did Liu Mang remember that this year's All-Star voting has only started now!
As there are more and more voting channels and the work of counting votes is becoming more and more onerous, so starting from this season, the time for All-Star voting has been shortened, starting from December 26th, the day after Christmas, to January 25th. number for a period of one month.
But this does not mean that the number of votes will decrease too much. On the contrary, this is a way for the alliance to limit the excessive number of votes. Because voting channels have been fully opened on the Internet this year, and this time the venue is Los Angeles, the number of votes will definitely skyrocket. In order to reduce the pressure on the vote counting department and also to prevent the number of votes from appearing too exaggerated, the voting time was shortened from 45 days to 30 days.
After David Stern announced the start of voting, he began to read the names of the players selected for each team name by name. David Stern enjoyed this feeling very much, the feeling that everything was under control.
Liu Mang listened for a long time before arriving at the Eagles. A total of eight people from his team were selected for the voting list. Besides him, Raheem, Jason Terry, Rasheed Wallace, Eight people named Ratliff, Stockton, Boozer and Prince were selected for the big list.
But Liu Mang knew that only he and Ratliff had the chance to be selected as the All-Star starters. The others were just experts who made this list. Or a veteran player, or a player with future All-Star potential.
As for Little Lolita, as a loyal Eagles fan, she grew up in Atlanta. The Eagles are naturally her home team. This is also the key reason why Liu Mang and their mother and daughter began to get closer, because Liu Mang joined the Eagles. They got off to a very good start in the first regular season game and helped the Eagles reverse the Rockets. The mother and daughter were so excited that they invited Liu Mang to dinner, and the relationship got better and better.
Seeing little Lolita very excitedly saying that she has "eight" All-Stars, because the NBA's publicity is that they are selected for the big list, and they are all All-Star candidates. Liu Mang became interested. Apart from himself and Lat Leaf, how many players can be selected for the All-Star game this year?
But the teammates don’t care so much about these personal honors now. They are not very popular stars in the first place. It is enough to be selected as an All-Star once or twice. In fact, most of the All-Star games have never been selected in their careers. All-star first-class star and quasi-first-class star's luxury.
...
The two-day rest day passed quickly. On December 28, the Eagles ushered in a game against the Denver Nuggets at home.
With the arrival of another top rookie, the Eagles are all shocked. Anthony may be the best performer among the rookies this season. For a long time, the record of 17 wins and 13 losses is quite impressive. The west and the east are a bit similar, that is, the strong teams are too strong, and the weak teams have a 50% winning rate.
The main reason is that the Jazz performed poorly a year earlier, and the Nuggets didn't even have an opponent to compete with them for the eighth place. Watching the Rockets, Mavericks, and Grizzlies compete happily for the fifth place, they sat firmly on the Diaoyutai.
Anthony's performance is naturally the best of the Nuggets. He is the one who makes people feel that the future superstar is coming. He averaged 21 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists per game. It is the offensive kaleidoscope.
For the match against rookies, Liu Mang has always been very concerned. He has always upheld the heart of caring for these juniors. Every time he prepares for the match with the strongest rookie, he is so attentive every time. He I feel that I am so great, I don't think about whether there is any return, and I come back selflessly to educate those young people! Thinking about it, Liu Mang felt that he was too great!