Chapter 204: Year-end Summary
Kobe Bryant's private relationship with Jordan is unknown, but Yi Feng was able to appear in the private meeting between them, and Kobe's meaning is already obvious. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. biquge。 info
And Jordan did not show any rejection and disgust for the appearance of Yi Feng......
Yi Feng touched his nose and thought: It seems that he has found another backer......
Because time did not allow it, the meeting ended after half an hour. During this period, Kobe and Jordan were chatting about homely things, and Yi Feng had a few words with Jordan except when he was introduced by Kobe Bryant at the beginning, and he couldn't insert it into the conversation between the two later.
Yi Feng quickly understood that although he had Kobe's acceptance and was able to join this small circle, there was still a long way to go if he wanted to truly make Jordan his backer.
However, being able to do this is beyond the reach of many players. After all, Jordan is the god of basketball that almost all NBA players collectively worship, and being able to get along with him like this in private must be what many people dream of.
After the meeting, Bryant and Yi Feng joined the large army and rushed to Boston overnight. The Lakers' last regular season game of 2015 was against the Celtics.
As the only team in the NBA that can be called a giant, who is greater between the Lakers and the Celtics has always been a point of contention among fans.
In terms of the most convincing championships, the Greenshirts have a league-high 17, while the Lakers are not far behind, with 16 championships. In this respect, there is not much difference.
From the perspective of the ball market, the Lakers have an advantage. Los Angeles's pleasant southern climate, vibrant entertainment scene, and business opportunities to meet celebrities from all walks of life are more desirable and attractive to basketball superstars than Boston, a cold northern city with a strong college atmosphere. And as one of the largest megacities in the United States, Los Angeles is undoubtedly the most expansive market.
On top of that, there are also the New England Patriots and the Red Sox baseball team in Boston, who are more appealing than the Celtics, and the gap is clear compared to the Lakers, the hottest team in Los Angeles. Although due to the decline of the Lakers and the rise of the Clippers in the past two years, it is still debatable who is the last team in Los Angeles, but the Lakers still have a great advantage in the ball market.
Looking at the glory times in the history of their respective teams, the Lakers have 31 Western Conference championships, while the Celtics only have 21, and the gap cannot be ignored.
When it comes to the glory of the Celtics, the most talked about by Green Army fans is probably the eight consecutive championships against the sky. But after that, the Green Army won two championships in the '70s and three in the '80s, and then fell into a long slump until the Big Three met in 2008 and then topped the league again. The long-term decline has also cast a shadow of the glory of the Green Shirts.
In contrast, the Lakers' continuity is much better, with only six times in history that they have not made the playoffs, and the longest decline has only been two consecutive years without making the playoffs. Compared with the 17-year decline of the Green Army in the playoffs and the six-year decline period from 1995 to 2000, the Lakers are more giants.
From the comparison of the above three aspects, it seems that the results have come out, and the Lakers are the greater giants.
But that obviously didn't convince the Green Army fans, who repeatedly fell to the Finals as their opponents when the Greenshirts dominated the league in the sixties. At this time, although the Lakers were strong, they were suppressed by the more powerful Celtics.
The Lakers in this period were tragic, and the most representative tragic man on the team was Elgin Baylor, one of the top 50 superstars in the NBA, who reached the Finals a total of eight times in his career, but did not win a championship. And on six occasions, Lord Belle fell under the butcher's knife of the Green Army.
The black history of the Lakers is often ridiculed as a joke by Green Army supporters. If the Lakers are the most orthodox team, then what are the Green Shirts who dominated an era and overwhelmed the Lakers at that time?
In short, there are those who support the Lakers and those who support the Celtics, and the two sides insist on their own words and argue endlessly. It's an unanswered debate, but it's one of the important elements that makes the NBA so appealing.
On December 30, at the TD North Shore Garden Arena in Boston, the Lakers' away game against the Celtics officially began under the enthusiastic boos of the home fans.
The starting lineups of the two sides were-
Lakers: Kobe Bryant, Julius Randle; Roy Hibbert, Yi Feng, Jordan Clarkson
Celtics: Jay Crowder, Amir Johnson, Jared Sallinger, Avery Bradley, Isaiah Thomas
In the lineup of the Green Shirts, Thomas in the No. 1 position is only 1.75 meters, and Bradley in the No. 2 position is only 1.88 meters.
But height doesn't mean everything, although Thomas is not as tall as many ordinary people, but he is currently averaging 22.3 points per game, ranking 11th in the league in scoring, and is the most lethal offensive knife for the Green Army. And he can also average 6.3 assists per game and intercept 1.2 steals per game!
Bradley is also not to be underestimated, he entered the NBA through the draft in 2010 and was the 19th overall pick in the first round. When he first entered the league, he showed terrible talent on the defensive end, and in the third season of his career, he had already entered the second team of the league's best defensive team.
So far this season, Bradley has averaged 1.5 steals and 0.3 blocks per game, which is not an exaggeration, and it doesn't show his deterrent power on the defensive end at all. Because his defense is not about statistics, but really disrupts the opponent's offense.
Yi Feng played against Bradley tonight, and he deeply felt the strength of his defensive ability. In the first quarter, he handed in an embarrassing score of only 6 points on 2-of-8 shooting. Missed two three-point attempts, missed all four of them, and ended up hitting only two layups and two free throws.
Although Bradley is not tall enough, he has his own set of defensive experience when facing shots from guys taller than him, and Yi Feng appreciated his routine in the first quarter.
Facing Jay Crowder, a young guy who just signed a five-year, 35 million contract with the team this summer, Kobe Bryant struggled similarly in the first quarter. Only one hit from six shots, plus two glaring errors. In contrast, Crowder played well, contributing 12 points in a single quarter.
If it weren't for the poor condition of the rest of the Celtics players except Crowder, perhaps the Lakers would not have just trailed by 3 points at 24-27 at the end of the first quarter.
Louis Williams, who came off the bench in the second quarter, performed extremely eye-catching, scoring nine points in less than three minutes, and the Lakers quickly overtook under his continuous bombardment.
After that, although the Green Shirts were unwilling to return a three-pointer, Williams assisted Nick Young for consecutive three-pointers, and the Lakers, who continued to fire, launched another wave of 6-0 attacks to extend the lead.
Seeing the Lakers in full swing, Jared Sallinger scored two goals in a row to finally alleviate the team's decline, but then Kobe Bryant, who had no touch at all, broke through and scored layups one after another, making Sallinger's efforts go to waste.
The Green Shirts went on a 7-0 run to tie the game in the final period, but the Lakers scored five straight points in the end. Despite Crowder's three-pointer in the final minute, the Lakers still led the Green Shirts 58-53 in the first half.
Under Bradley's strong defense, Yi Feng made 15 shots in the entire first half, but only hit 5 of them, with a shooting rate of only 30%, and only scored 14 points. Fortunately, he had another 4 assists, otherwise the first half would have been completely useless.
Entering the second half, Celtic began to launch a counter-attack, and a wave of 7-0 attacks quickly took the lead.
In the second half, Yi Feng finally got familiar with Bradley's defensive rhythm and finally began to put on a personal scoring show at TD North Shore Garden Arena.
first used a turnaround jumper learned from Kobe Bryant to force the ball into the basket against Bradley's defense; Then he used the cover to shake off Bradley and hit a three-pointer. What made Yi Feng raise his eyebrows the most was the success of Bradley's three-point shot after he stole Isaiah Thomas's pass and broke fast.
Yi Feng, who scored 8 points in one fell swoop, helped the team overtake the score again. However, this is not the end, Clarkson and Randle also came to add icing on the cake, Kobe Bryant also fired on the outside, and the Lakers vigorously played a wave of 22-4 super attack waves, and the lead came to 14 points!
At the critical moment, 2010 star Evan Turner made consecutive free throws, which narrowed the gap for the Celtics. However, the Lakers did not let the opponent chase the difference closer, and kept the difference at about 8 points.
In the final minute of the third quarter, the Green Army missed the offensive shot, but Marcus Smart staged an extremely amazing super dunk from Randle. Although Randle himself was furious, the morale of the Lakers did not hurt much, because Yi Feng immediately responded with a three-point whistle!
At the end of the third quarter, the Lakers led the Celtics by 11 points, 89-78.
Neither team was in great offensive form at the start of the final quarter, until midway through the fourth quarter, when Turner became the dominant player for the Green Shirts, scoring three consecutive goals to score six points and narrowing the gap of 12 points to just six points.
At the critical moment, Bryant made two free throws for a foul, and then scored another three-point score to score five points in a row, plus Yi Feng's last-minute supplemental knife - a fast-break layup, the Lakers regained an 11-point lead.
Seeing that the Green Shirts were about to collapse, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens made a tactical deployment and guided Turner and Thomas to join forces to play a 9-0 attack wave, and the gap quickly narrowed to only 2 points!
At the moment of life and death, Yi Feng, who had a big heart, became the hero of the Lakers, and he faced Bradley with consecutive jumpers and scored 6 points to reconsolidate the Lakers' advantage. Although the Green Army still did not give up and continued to pursue with tenacious will, Kobe Bryant scored a crucial three-pointer with 1 minute and 40 seconds left in the game to stabilize the situation again.
Randle then drew a foul on the inside and hit both free throws, giving the Lakers a seven-point lead with 1:03 left to go.
The Lakers also won the game. In the end, the Lakers defeated the Celtics 115-107 on the road to win two in a row, and the Celtics, although they have an 18-14 record, also fell out of the top eight in the extremely competitive East because of tonight's loss.
Although Yi Feng scored 30 points again tonight, he didn't shoot well against Bradley, the league's top defender, with 11-of-25 shooting and only 44% shooting. Bryant was similarly inefficient, shooting only 7-of-19.
In addition, on the Celtics side, Isaiah Thomas had 24 points and 7 assists, Turner had 20 points, 4 rebounds and 8 assists, Crowder had 17 points and Bradley had 13 points.
The Lakers won the final regular-season game of 2015 and ended the year with a nice ending.
In January 2015, Bryant underwent surgery for a torn rotator cuff and announced early reimbursement for the third consecutive season. He seems to have gotten fragile enough to get a shoulder injury aggravated by a single dunk, and it's unknown how long the passing star will be able to stay active on the court.
For the first four months of 2015, the Lakers were in a terrible state of constant losing.
In April 2015, they finished the 2014-15 season with a worst 21-61 record and a win rate of just 25.6%. The Lakers missed the playoffs for the second straight season, the second time since 1974-1976 that the Lakers failed to make the playoffs for two consecutive seasons.
As a big team, the Lakers' first choice for a rebuild is to use the advantages of Los Angeles and big clubs to attract top free agents. But this summer, the Lakers missed out on LaMarcus Aldridge, Mark Gasol, and even Greg Monroe in a row.
Unexpectedly, as a dignified giant, the Lakers' attraction to free agents has dropped to this point, and in the end, they can only sign role players such as Louis Williams and Brandon Buss.
Judging by these encounters, 2015 was almost the most tragic year in the history of the Lakers. But the extremes of things must be reversed, otherwise the poles are too late, and after the Lakers are miserable to the extreme, they will usher in the opportunity to be reborn in pain.
In this summer's offseason, the Lakers also had an important operation, which was to use the No. 1 pick and a sum of cash to trade the Timberwolves' No. 1 pick, and then use this valuable No. 1 pick to win Yi Feng.
The young man from a red country on the other side of the Pacific Ocean was born before the draft began, quickly grabbing a huge amount of attention. Although he was praised for his incredible talent, many Lakers fans were not optimistic about him at first. If it weren't for Kobe's strong advocacy, Yi Feng might not have had a chance to come to the Lakers at all.
But what many people didn't expect was that the selection of Yi Feng was the turning point for the Lakers to bottom out and be reborn!
So far this season, the Lakers have played a total of 33 regular season games, with a record of 19 wins and 14 losses, ranking fourth in the West! The regular season is only 40 percent complete, and the Lakers are almost equal to all of last season's wins.
Such significant progress, is it Kobe Bryant? Was it Louis Williams who brought it? Was it Nick Young who brought it? Or did Julius Randall bring it?
No, it's neither!
The Lakers can make such significant progress, and the biggest credit is Yi Feng! (To be continued.) )