On April 19, 1998, the final round of the 97-98 NBA regular season officially began.

In recent seasons, the Jazz's results have been very stable, they have been a favorable contender for the first place in the West in the regular season, according to their regular season results last season and this season, if they were placed in the past, it is likely to win the first place in the league, but I have to say that the Jazz's luck is really bad, before the rise of the Lakers there was a Bulls, and now after the rise of the Lakers, they can only survive in the second position in the West.

Malone and Stockton are the top combinations in the history of the entire league, one of them is at the top of the assist list, the other is at the top of the scoring list, if it weren't for the misfortune of being in the same era with Jordan and catching up with the rise of Liu Han, their pair would probably have won the championship long ago, and the personalities of these two are actually quite consistent with the style of the Jazz, which is also due to the Jazz's ten years of believing in head coach Jerry Sloan, The star who had a brilliant career with the Bulls and had his jersey retired by the Bulls did a great job as a coach.

Now the last game of the season, it can be said that the Lakers and Jazz will play again, the Lakers hope to get 72 wins, equal the best record of the Bulls, and the Jazz do not want to lose to old rivals before the playoffs begin, so this game will be the biggest focus of this round.

At the pre-game press conference, the two head coaches were very polite, Jerry Sloan first praised Liu Han for scoring 88 points in the last game, and then he also praised the Lakers' tactical quality, but finally he also said that the Jazz will do their best today and take this game seriously.

Lakers head coach George Krent told reporters that the entire Lakers are looking forward to a win in this game, and they will tie the Bulls' record of 72 wins.

The Lakers are on the home court, and the first-row star bench on the sidelines is filled with celebrities from all walks of life in Los Angeles, and Lakers fan Jack Nicholson will hardly miss a game at home for the Lakers. "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger also appeared in his sideline seat, and he and Nicholson had a good conversation, and there were rumors that Schwarzenegger was going to enter politics, but it was not confirmed. American music legend Leonard Ridge also appeared on the sidelines, although he is not a native of Los Angeles, he lives in Los Angeles all year round and loves the Lakers very much.

"Hey, Liu, we're going to win today, right?" Jack Nicholson called Liu Han who was warming up, he had contact with Liu Han at a drinking party, of course, Safina helped him introduce him, Safina's previous films shot in Europe were introduced by Nicholson to Safina, otherwise she would not be able to win the favor of European directors as a newcomer, so Liu Han is also very grateful to Nicholson.

"Jack, rest assured, we're going to win, and we're going to win the championship." Liu Han is very confident in today's game.

As the referee tossed the ball high, the battle of the spotlight officially began.

The Lakers are still O'Neal who jumps in the middle circle, and there are no changes to their starting lineup for this game.

The Jazz switched to Greg Foster for the mid-circle jumper, and Ostertag had a sluggish season and was pressed to the bench by Jerry Sloan.

The two-meter-one-to-one Greg Foster jump ball was clearly no match for O'Neal, and the ball was grabbed by Ray Allen after being dialed out by O'Neal.

The Jazz were very quick to defend and didn't give the Lakers a chance to play fast. This season, the Lakers have launched a fast break directly after the jump ball win, which is quite a deterrent tactic.

Seeing that the fast break was hopeless, Ray Allen handed the ball to Nash, who slowly dribbled through the half.

Stockton rested for almost a month at the start of the season, and his form has declined since returning from injury, but Nash, who is still very young defensively, is still very experienced.

Nash didn't dare to be careless in the face of Stockton's defense, thinking that Stockton and these old guys have experienced the era of the previous "black hands", so they all have their own set of "small tricks", which will make you inadvertently suffer blows from the mind to the body at the same time.

Liu Han did not run to the weak side with the defender as usual today, but took the initiative to run to Nash to cover Nash.

Stockton observed Liu Han's movements in the corner of his eye, and he wanted to bypass Liu Han's cover, but what he didn't expect was that Nash handed the ball to Liu Han at close range when Liu Han ran up. In a normal game, this kind of passing between two players in very close proximity is a taboo on the court, because such a sudden pass receiver is likely to not react. However, Nash's pass was designed, and it was a tactic specially formulated by Lakers head coach George, which used this reverse thinking method to make Liu Han inadvertently receive the ball on the other side.

Liu Han's catch really surprised the Jazz players, and Liu Han took advantage of the Jazz's trance this time to suddenly hit a three-point shot, and the Lakers got off to a good start.

The Jazz's offensive routine is still their classic pick-and-roll combination that has not changed for many years. Stockton holds the ball at the top of the arc, Malone mentions the line cover, and then Stockton bursts in the direction of the screen, which is if the defender chases Stockton, Malone will get the offensive opportunity, if he doesn't defend Stockton, then he can drive straight in.

However, the Lakers' defense was very focused today, Nash bypassed Malone's cover and chased Stockton closely, while Robert Horry resisted Malone to the death and did not let him go down. In this way, although Stockton will have a slight opportunity to break into the interior, O'Neal's reinforcement will put Stockton under great pressure.

Sure enough, Stockton met O'Neal's supplementary defense after breaking into the inside line, he didn't dare to be strong, so he hit the ground and handed the ball to Foster, who was vacant, and Foster was about to jump up and dunk, but his preparation was as slow as a sloth, and Liu Han, who was returned to the inside line, came down directly from behind.

Liu Han's fan flew the ball unexpectedly into Ma Long's hand, Ma Long shot directly after getting the ball, Horry didn't pay much attention to Ma Long's shot because he just turned around and stuck in the position, so that Ma Long won the shot.

Judging from the start of the two teams, the Lakers seem to play more easily than the Jazz, and the Lakers' first offense is obviously more exciting than the Jazz's first offense.

The game continued, Nash dribbled the ball across the half court and hoisted the ball directly to O'Neal inside, Greg Foster was better than Ostertag's strength and speed, but his ball skills were really rough, and the defense O'Neal was to use brute force to resist, and was thrown away without a trace by O'Neal's quick back turn. O'Neal certainly won't be relentless in the face of an empty basket, and a violent dunk made the Jazz's basket creak.

Jerry Sloan covered his head in pain off the court, compared with other teams, the Jazz's interior line is undoubtedly excellent, but for the strong teams in the league, the Jazz's interior line is not very powerful, except for the year-old Malone, no one in the Jazz team can help Malone on the inside, the previous Ostertag was like this, and the current Greg Foster is the same.

However, the Jazz's offense was impressive, and although Greg Foster was completely ignored on offense, the rest of the Jazz players were still very good, otherwise they would not have won 62.

Jeff Hornacek hit a three-pointer from Stockton in the bottom corner. The score came to a 5-5 draw.

Next, the Lakers' offense has been dominated by the interior, O'Neal played exceptionally well in the face of rough brother Foster, and all kinds of skills that he had never used before were shown by him one by one, O'Neal used to play with his body, and his opponents were the league's top inside, so he rarely used his own skills, which made people feel that O'Neal had nothing but physical advantages, but now as O'Neal became more and more accustomed to the training method given to him by Li Rui, he began to play like a real traditional center. Half-turned small hook, then turned and then turned forward to shake off the defender's board, O'Neal at this time Olajuwon possessed, and Greg Foster couldn't find North.

Jerry Sloan couldn't take it anymore and replaced Foster with Ostertag and prepared the player to wrap O'Neal on the inside.

Ostertag's presence and the Jazz's attention finally halted O'Neal's offense, but the Jazz showed a hole on the outside after increasing the interior defense, and Liu Han and Ray Allen each scored three points to gradually widen the gap between the two teams.

Not to be outdone, the Jazz both Malone and Stockton are starting to push their way, and they don't want to lose the game so easily.

As the players on both sides gradually began to exert their strength, the game became more and more exciting, and the movements of the players on the court became bigger and bigger, especially on the Jazz side, Ma Long's elbow hit Liu Han and O'Neal more than once.

The referee of the game, Joey Crawford, finally couldn't help it, and he called Malone aside to warn him to rein in his movements.

Malone wants to ignore this big bald head who favors the Lakers, but thinking about it, it's really not cost-effective to be blown a T now, and for the Jazz, their desire not to lose this game is actually not so strong, compared to the result pursued by the Lakers, this game is not so important to the Jazz, and the most important thing now is the upcoming playoffs, so Malone nodded to Crawford and signaled that he would relent.

As Malone gradually reined in his movements, the Jazz's defense was no longer so "iron-blooded", and the first quarter ended quickly, with the Lakers leading by 6 points at 34-28 to end the first quarter, Liu Han didn't take many shots in the first quarter, only scoring 8 points, but grabbed 4 rebounds and handed out 3 assists. (To be continued.) )