Compared to the Lakers' smooth sailing in this playoffs, the Bulls seem to be stumbling a little.

Although the Bulls swept the New Jersey Nets 3-0 in the first round of the playoffs to advance, and did not encounter much resistance from the Hornets in the second round, winning 4-1 to advance, but in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Bulls were cornered by Larry Bird, who led the team for the first time.

The Lakers' record of winning all of the playoffs equaled their own record in the 88-89 playoffs, but in that Finals, the Pistons in the East swept the Lakers 4-0 after eliminating the young and energetic Bulls 4-2 to win that year's championship, making the Lakers the most swept team in the league in the Finals, if you count the record of the Minneapolis Lakers, the predecessor of the Lakers, being swept by the Celtics in 1959. The sweep in the '88-89 season was the third time the Lakers were swept in the Finals.

However, this is all in the past, and the strength shown by the current Lakers team makes people have to marvel at his strength.

The Los Angeles media used the headline "Dynasty Grounding" to describe their expectations for the Finals before the Finals began, and in their view, the Lakers' victory over the aging Bulls was a foregone conclusion, and the Lakers' firepower and consistency in the playoffs so far have led Los Angeles fans and media to believe that they could even pull off a miracle to win the championship.

Compared with the confidence of the Los Angeles media and fans, the supporters of the Chicago Bulls are not weak, as a Bulls with dynastic experience, their supporters believe that the Bulls will teach the young Lakers a good lesson and teach them how to respect their predecessors. Some Chicago media outlets have even reported that the Lakers' inclusion of an international player as the centerpiece of the team is a challenge to the American basketball tradition, and a handful of radical Chicago media outlets have even said that Liu Han's becoming the core of the Lakers is a disgrace to American basketball and a step backwards for the NBA. These discriminatory reports caused a national uproar in the United States.

Some Chinese American organizations have protested against such irresponsible and discriminatory reporting by the Chicago media, but these Chicago media have ignored the protests of the Chinese, who believe that neither Chinese nor Chinese Americans are the mainstream group in the United States.

However, these biased reports by the radical media have been resisted by the league, after all, if the league wants to promote the NBA to the world, it must recognize the status of international players, although this may lose some support in the United States, but for today's global market, the local market in the United States, although not negligible, is not so important.

These things off the field generally do not affect the players themselves, but Liu Han, as a non-American player, has been harassed to a certain extent.

In the United States, there has always been a part of the white community that believes in white supremacy, and they have always had a very strong sense of discrimination against people of color.

Liu Han's mansion in Beverly Hills has always been one of the focuses of Los Angeles' "paparazzi", as an entertainment reporter, he should not pay much attention to Liu Han as a sports figure, but Liu Han's girlfriend Safina is a new hot actress in Hollywood, and the paparazzi in Los Angeles don't believe that this "stylistic love" can last too long, so the attention to Liu Han's mansion is naturally very high.

Just two days before the start of the Finals, the Bulls had just finished their tie-breaker, and a white man disguised as a courier threw a package with filth and discriminatory slogans at Liu Han's mansion, a scene that was recorded by the "paparazzi" hiding not far away.

Although the man was arrested by the police afterwards, the incident caused quite a stir after the media hype and the Chicago media hype.

Although Liu Han and Safina themselves were not physically injured at the time, such an incident also made Liu Han very angry, and what made him even more worried was that the man was released on bail afterwards.

Safina's comfort and relief made Liu Han finally stop worrying so much before the start of the finals, in fact, Liu Han is not worried about himself, as long as the finals start, he will be completely protected by the Lakers, he is more worried about Safina's safety and the safety of his relatives and friends.

This incident has made the league also very angry, although such an event will make the finals more attention, but it will undoubtedly damage the reputation of the league, but now the league is most helpless is that they have nothing to do about such an incident, and their influence has no way to affect the judiciary.

These off-court events have attracted great attention to the finals, and the once again peak duel between Liu Han and Jordan has become the focus of attention in the finals, countless fans have begun to discuss who is the king of the active players, and many former NBA legends have stood up to fight for the two sides.

In response to these discussions, Jordan himself stood up.

"Liu is a very good young player, I haven't achieved anything like him when I was his age, maybe in the future he will surpass me, but now, he is too young, his NBA path is too smooth, I will show him in the next games what is the real NBA, what is awe." Jordan's unscrupulous remarks made the already fiery pre-game atmosphere even more high, and it was the first time that Michael Jordan, the greatest player since the 90s, a 10-time scoring champion, a five-time regular season MVP and a six-time FMVP, publicly declared that he wanted to compete with a young player.

Regarding Jordan's speech, Liu Han made a very simple response in an interview.

"Leave it all to the competition, only the final result will tell who wins." Liu Han's slightly low-key but fearless speech was supported by some retired stars, Jordan has formed a lot of grudges in his career, and there is no shortage of retired stars who want to see Jordan's jokes.

Compared to the hard-to-go between the players, the two managers are very low-key, whether it is the famous Phil Jackson or the famous George Crent, they both said in the following interview that the opponent is very strong, the game will be very exciting, we will give it their all and so on.

The league also specially produced a promotional video for this finals, which was broadcast on major TV stations in the United States, and the focus of the promotional video was the showdown between 23 and 24.

In addition to the United States, the popularity of the finals has also burned all over the world, and even on the European continent, which has never paid much attention to basketball, many groups have begun to pay attention to the NBA, which actually has a lot of credit for Liu Han, who made him play football in France, although it is not a professional game, but it has still received a lot of attention, which makes Liu Han also have a high reputation in France.

In Asia, as Liu Han's home base, of course, almost 99% of the fans support Liu Han.

For a while, almost all eyes of the world were focused on the Finals of the Season, which would be held on June 3, 1998. (To be continued.) )