Chapter 747
Time passed quickly, Liu Mang and his teammates trained together for a few days, and soon came May 31, the last four days of preparation for the finals.
At 9:33 p.m. last night, the Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and Timberwolves came to an end at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The Lakers, who returned home in Game 6, did not give the Timberwolves another chance, and the Timberwolves also failed to create miracles.
Different from the previous game, Kobe stared at Szczerbiak from the very beginning, and did not give Szczerbiak a chance to run out of open shots. In this game, Payton finally played what the Lakers wanted to introduce. For the task he was asked to complete, the defensive end played at the level of last season, defending Sprewell to 4 of 17 shots and only scoring 14 points and 4 assists. Since the six games in the series, the madman has not scored more than 20 points for the first time. .
Even the madman was blocked, Szczerbiak was bitten to death when he encountered Kobe, Garnett desperately scored 22 points and 17 rebounds in this game, but because the madman was blocked, Garnett held the ball Forced to increase, he was defended by the Lakers with 11 turnovers. Wang Zhizhi, who looked stupid and chubby, stole Garnett 3 times, and Malone even made Garnett 5 turnovers. Garnett once again left a strong mark on the Timberwolves' team history record, an embarrassing alternative triple-double, plus the highest single-game turnover record in team history.
The Lakers defeated the Timberwolves 87-75 and advanced to the finals 4-2.
The start time of the finals between the Eagles and the Lakers is also determined to start on June 4.
In the past few days, after the team's training is over, Prince will pull Liu Mang to challenge Liu Mang one-on-one.
Liu Mang's singles against Prince, the success rate has been greatly improved compared to before!
Although it was a bit difficult at the first time, he became more and more proficient in the fight, changing hands in the air and changing his footsteps. Liu Mang was very desperate at the beginning to be entangled by a guy who was obsessed with single-handed defense, but he felt After seeing his progress, Liu Mang also enjoyed it.
Prince tried to use various methods to defend Liu Mang, but the more ways he thought of, Liu Mang became more and more proficient at using his left hand in the breakthrough. The ten-ball matchup was better than Liu Mang practicing alone. Two or three hours is even better.
What Liu Mang thought was right, when he played against a real defensive champion and polished his offense, it was much better than practicing alone.
Similarly, Prince also found room for improvement in the matchup with Liu Mang. In the past, when he defended against left-handers like Ginobili and Reid, he always had some discomfort, but now he is gradually adapting to the matchup with Liu Mang. The feeling of left-handed players, although the two feelings give Prince different defensive pressures, it is always good to be able to adapt, and it is also good for some players who are obviously right-handed but left singles are very good With more understanding.
The Eagles are steadily preparing for the finals. Liu Mang's singles skills are honed, Prince's single defense continues to strengthen, and the team's offensive and defensive tactics are also steadily preparing for the next finals.
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The fact that the Eagles and Lakers joined forces in the finals has a huge influence. If the basketball circles around the world are counted, it even exceeds the level of Jordan and Shuangsha in the finals for two consecutive years!
The attention contributed by Chinese basketball fans is naturally the bulk of it. Chinese players have led the team to the finals as a core player, and they have already turned the world upside down in the country.
The strength of domestic hardware is increasing year by year, and has been increasing rapidly since the 1990s. The total economic volume has continued to break through, especially the economic growth rate. From the perspective of the country, it is indeed very gratifying.
However, in terms of software strength, it seems to have regressed. Entertainment and culture have been invaded by other countries. In addition, the money in people's pockets is increasing, and with the capital to worship foreign countries, it is even more out of control.
Of course, under such an atmosphere, there must be many people who are disgusted with this xenophobia atmosphere, and certainly in terms of the number of people, there are more people who dislike xenophobia and want to correct it than xenophobia.
However, I am disgusted and want to correct it, but there is no way to correct it, because the domestic software strength has experienced a serious regression in the lost decade, and even sports, which people place high hopes on, is not as good as every year.
Small ball sports such as table tennis and badminton and fringe sports such as diving are great, but their influence is too low; football has high hopes, but the greater the hope, the deeper the despair; high-end tennis, golf, etc., 89% of the domestic Ten cities don't even have a court, and ordinary people can't touch it; basketball has always been good, but basketball is a sport dominated by Americans, the gap between the first and second is almost a gap, and the Chinese team is at most ten or so , is not bad, but it is difficult to become a glory to the point where it can be publicized.
Under such circumstances, even if the country wants to correct this atmosphere of xenophobia, it cannot correct it, and there is no argument that can be used to correct it.
Therefore, when Liu Mang gained a firm foothold in the NBA, the highest hall of basketball in the world, especially after he won the MVP this year and led the team to the finals, the finals were hyped by the official media in China, and he was promoted from the Eagles. From the beginning of the finals, almost every day the court sports channel has a special documentary on basketball, including the origin and development of Chinese basketball, the hardships of reaching the top in Asia, and entering the world hall... Then Battelle and Wang Zhizhi were the pioneers, and Liu Mang and Yao Ming entered successively. The NBA has a pivotal position, and finally Liu Mang is about to touch the pinnacle of NBA honors.
Liu Mang's rogue value has been rising these days, even faster than his MVP and 70 wins in the regular season. As predicted by the system, this season is a year for him to establish his status in the NBA and the domestic sports world. Year.
Liu Mang also pays attention to domestic news from time to time, but one thing is beyond his expectation, that is, there is not much media hype about the Chinese Derby in the final match between him and Wang Zhizhi, and even the domestic hype is him and Kobe Bryant and the Eagles. And the topic of the Big Four of the Lakers.
From this point of view, Liu Mang felt a kind of confidence in the domestic basketball world!
The less confident you are, the more you will use some small things that are not the point at all in the eyes of others to paralyze yourself.
For example, in the future, Jeremy Lin will be forcibly tied up, and Zhou Qi, who has no dominance in the Development League, will be promoted as a superstar embryo, etc., and this is almost impossible in Yao Ming's peak period.
But now, Chinese players have Liu Mang in the east and Yao Ming in the west. They are both top players in their respective positions. They have given domestic basketball fans strong confidence. Similarly, they have also inspired many children to want to play basketball.
If it’s just the original Yao Ming, although many people in China fall in love with the NBA and basketball because of this, Yao Ming’s sense of distance to ordinary people is too great. The powerful one is Sabonis. Although the big Z is tall, the gap with these two is not so big.
There is only one Yao Ming, which is almost impossible to replicate. Although the fans fell in love with basketball, they did not have the urge to devote themselves to the sports career, nor the urge to become a dream.
But Liu Mang is different. Although 1.93 meters is very tall, it is not out of reach. In 1999, the average height of domestic adult men reached 1.67 meters. There must be a Guo Ailun.
The proportion of adult men over 1.83 meters tall in China has exceeded 10%, the proportion of adult men over 1.91 meters is close to 3%, and the proportion of men over 2 meters has reached 5 per thousand about.
Although the proportion is far from the height of 12% of the people in the United States who are over 1.91 meters tall, the country has a large population and a large base, and tall people are not less than those in the United States. It can be seen that the height requirements are stricter and higher than that of American college athletes, and the average height of CBA is also higher than that of NBA.
In the past, most of the successful basketball players in China were insiders. Director Zhang, Battelle, Wang Zhizhi, and Yao Ming, who had a little influence in the world, were almost all insiders. sexual strength.
But now after Liu Mang appeared, everything is different. The children in China are more enthusiastic about basketball!
Because compared to Yao Ming, Liu Mang's height is not out of reach. There is no shortage of players of this height in college, and even some high schools have players who are close to 1.9 meters. They all see hope!
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The domestic hype for the finals between the Eagles and the Lakers is mainly to promote Liu Mang, and the attention in the United States is not low.
Everyone wants to see the Lakers lose in the Finals too much. The three consecutive championships allowed the Lakers to establish a position that is estimated to be at least 20 years at the beginning of the new century, but it also made countless fans want to see the Lakers collapse. .
Right now the Lakers are on the tightrope, either they win the championship and step over the tightrope and survive the middle-class trap, or they fall off the tightrope and crash straight into rebuilding.
The Eagles broke the record set by the Lakers in the 1999-2000 season one after another. From the number of regular season wins to the historical record of winning streak in a single season in the playoffs, the records kept by the Lakers were broken one by one by the Eagles. It's time to play against each other in the finals, and the topic of the finals brought up far exceeds that of the past few years. It has reached the level since the 1997-1998 season that it has almost been confirmed that Jordan will retire for the second time.
The influence in the entire basketball world is even greater than when Jordan won three consecutive championships!
It's not that Liu Mang's influence is greater than Jordan's or that the Hawks have greater influence than the Bulls, but that the Hawks have the opportunity to defeat a dynastic team, which brings huge influence!
Moreover, compared to the original Pistons in history, the Eagles are obviously more popular. The current impression of the Pistons is still the impression of the bad boys in the late 1980s. Not many people like it, but the Eagles are different!
When the Lakers also advanced to the Finals, in terms of public opinion, there were many more fans who supported the Eagles than those who supported the Lakers.
Just like the Beat-LA that the Celtics yelled back then, except for the Lakers fans, almost all fans supported the Eagles to kill the Lakers!
In addition, the Shuangsha Finals matchup, the continuation of the MVP battle between Kobe and Liu Mang, and the title of the strongest lineup in history all detonated this basketball season!
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"Ace, the Lakers are coming to Atlanta." Stockton came to the lounge and said to Liu Mang.
Today's training is over, Liu Mang is reading the newspaper delivered in the afternoon in the lounge.
The main reason is that the winning odds of gaming companies and the championship predictions of major websites have come out.
It is not without reason that the Lakers are hated by people, because in terms of the chances of winning the championship given by major media and gaming companies, the Lakers have a 75% chance of winning the championship, which is a three-quarters chance, while the Eagles Only one in four, twenty five percent chance.
The odds of the Lakers winning the championship are 1.2 to 1, while the Eagles are 2.4 times. Obviously, the media is more optimistic about the Lakers.
Liu Mang understands better why the fans hate the Lakers so much. He hates the Lakers. From the bottom of his heart, he is optimistic about the Lakers and fears that the Lakers will continue to win the championship.
For Liu Mang, this was an extra motivation.
Hearing Stockton say that the Lakers had arrived in Atlanta, Liu Mang asked, "So early? By the way, John, how do you know? I didn't see it in the news just now?"
Liu Mang is a bit strange. The Lakers just finished playing the Timberwolves yesterday, and they are here today. You must know that two years ago, after the Lakers led the Nets 2-0 at home, they went to an away game for the third game, and the other teams were second. I went back to familiarize myself with the away game the next day, but the Lakers only arrived in New Jersey the evening before the game, and they lived in Jersey City, so they went directly to the away game the next day.
"Carl called me and asked me out for dinner, Ace, are you going?" Stockton shook his phone.
It turned out to be like this, Liu Mang smiled and said: "I won't go, you and Karl get together, we will be rivals with him from now on."
"OK." Stockton didn't force it. Sometimes it's not good to have a third person in a man's friendship, even if it's a little apprentice.
After Stockton left, the last teammate who stayed in the arena also left, and the entire arena fell silent.
In this quiet environment, Liu Mang can finally be alone for a while.
He didn't leave after the afternoon training, mainly because he wanted to be alone.
It's amazing that the arena, which was originally the busiest, is actually the quietest place.
Liu Mang closed his eyes and let his head go for a while. After feeling calm, he opened the system panel and watched the change of a task after the Lakers advanced to the Finals last night.
"As an official, Mo Ruozhi Jinwu, facing the strongest team in NBA history, the host's path to becoming a superstar in the NBA era has officially begun. In this season when all heroes rise together and old-school basketball reaches its peak, the mission is triggered: King's Landing."
In the past, this task was just placed there, and there was no other specific task content. After the Lakers advanced to the finals last night, the task content finally came.
"The first stage of King's Landing: Defeat the Los Angeles Lakers, the strongest team in the new century, to win the championship. Task reward: Advanced Endurance Fruit. Failure penalty: OK combination relationship is restored, Shaq - O'Neal and the Lakers relationship is restored, Shaq -O'Neal endorsed Kobe Bryant early, and Kobe Bryant began to endorse Shaquille O'Neal's regular-season slacking."
Endurance fruit... Liu Mang has been longing for it for a long time, but he has tried to spend millions of rogue points to draw it. Apart from such and such strange survival skills, what kind of cognition tree species extracts liquid from trees, repairs water pipes, repairs... Ceilings, even repairing computers, repairing bicycles, and other weird skills in industries that are still profitable in the United States, and some weird wilderness survival skills, I didn’t get anything useful.
Liu Mang has been storing it for a long time but it is still level 0, and a special skill that cannot be activated forcibly: super speed level 0, which is the skill he got from Hamilton back then, still can't be used.
Because no matter how hard Liu Mang tried, there was basically no room for physical improvement.
The stamina of 90 was reached last season, and it still exceeded the original upper limit of endurance. The original upper limit of stamina for Liu Mang was 85, but with the increase of the upper limit of strength and his own speed reached the upper limit of 94, the upper limit of endurance has also increased. It has been improved and reached 90, which is regarded as the top physical fitness.
But compared with the epic physical fitness of Hamilton and Kobe, it is too far behind.
The skill of super speed, the minimum activation requirement is 95 stamina.
As for stamina, it seems inconspicuous. If you give a player with average ability, like an ordinary starter between 70-80, it is useless. Even if he has the physical strength to play the whole game, even if he fights hard, he rarely gets injured. , the coach will not give him a chance.
But when it comes to the strength of quasi-first-class stars or the strength of first-class stars, it is different, such as Hamilton.
If it reaches the top or even the strength of a superstar, such as Kobe, endurance is the comprehensive ability of physical strength and injury resistance. Hamilton is the kind of physical strength and first-class injury resistance, while Kobe is the kind of super physical strength and injury resistance. The kind that is also super sick.
Kobe’s biggest feature is that he can survive. First, he survived Jordan until he retired, then survived the peak periods of Carter and Iverson, and then survived the peak period of Tracy McGrady. Later, he even survived the peak period of Wade. Well, it is commonly known as "NBA Carina Lau"... These people's careers are far inferior to Kobe's overall, but their peak one or two years are not worse than Kobe's peak one or two years, and there are even more shining ones. place.
However, Kobe is like Carina Lau who survived Lin Qingxia, Maggie Cheung, Wang Zuxian, Zhong Chuhong... Kobe also survived these people, and was selected for the first round in 2013. At that time, even Wade could not enter the second team. .
For superstars, stamina is one of the most important aspects of physical fitness. Liu Mang himself does not have much talent in this area. Like ordinary domestic basketball players, his physical energy will be lost quickly under high-intensity confrontation, so physical medicine and The master of quick shots is extremely important to him.
As for the skill Liu Mang coveted for a long time, if it is normal, he will not be able to use it in his life.
But now the mission is here, advanced stamina fruit!
"Advanced Endurance Fruit: Increase endurance by 3 to 7 points."
Compared with the 8 to 15 points of the ultimate fruit, there is a gap, but if it can be increased by 5 points, it is enough for Liu Mang. He only needs to meet the requirements of only using it. As for the consumption of physical energy, it is not a problem for him.
The early repair of the relationship between O'Neal and Kobe is bound to be a huge obstacle for Liu Mang to dominate the NBA in his future career! Even if O'Neal's peak can only last until 2006, there are still two years to be the league's first center, and the most important thing is that O'Neal, who played with Kobe, played much more easily than when he was with the Heat. Pat Riley used O'Neal as Ewing and squeezed it to death, and the Lakers have always supported O'Neal, giving O'Neal the best chance to rest, so that O'Neal can play well in the playoffs.
For example, in the Western part of the Lakers playoffs this year, O'Neal did not perform very well throughout the whole process, but his deterrent power is there. Yao Ming was replaced by the Rockets, and Duncan and Nesterovic were replaced by the Spurs. , Playing the Timberwolves attracted Garnett and Olowokandi's defense away, helping Kobe to play the king of the Western Conference Finals and laid the foundation.
Liu Mang can believe that if O'Neal continues to play with Kobe, it is estimated that his excellent performance will be extended for two to three years, and O'Neal can indeed average 17.8 points + 8.4 rebounds per game in the 08-09 season and was selected as an All-Star. This is O'Neal who was almost crippled by Pat Riley.
Therefore, this gave Liu Mang the pressure and motivation to win the championship!
Liu Mang couldn't count himself, how many expectations and pressures he was carrying and the motivation brought by these expectations and pressures, and at the same time, the fruit of endurance was in front of him!
Moreover, even putting aside all the expectations and pressures and the rewards of the system, Liu Mang is full of motivation just because he has a chance to win the championship.
The closer you get to the championship, the deeper the desire for the championship becomes!
and……
Liu Mang took out his mobile phone, and found a text message sent by a guy who pretended to be aggressive and slapped his face a few days ago, who obviously lost the game at night.
Play the finals with this guy, play the finals with the OK combination!
From this point alone, Liu Mang's motivation to beat the Lakers is about to burst from his heart!
There may be another chapter tonight, try to write as much as possible, the finals are about to start~