On February 2, 1997, the Lakers hosted the Washington Bullets. Liu Han is still on the bench thinking about his changes, and he is now thinking about the actions he saw on the tape almost all the time.

This game was the Lakers' penultimate game before the All-Star break, and the Lakers played hard against the Washington Bullets, who finished eighth in the East.

The Lakers traded Robert Horry to the Phoenix Suns before this game, and the Rockets championship-winning member was traded to the Suns by the Rockets at the beginning of the season and now to the Lakers.

In the first quarter of the game, the Lakers played an efficient performance, Van Exel's hand was hot, and he shot 3 of 3 three-pointers, and O'Neal also played well and scored 16 points in a single quarter. The starting center of the Bullets is the Giants from Romania, who is two meters tall and three-one, George Muressan, but the super slow movement speed makes the current NBA's No. 1 tallest player have no way to face O'Neal. The Lakers scored 46 points in the first quarter, leading the Bullets by 24 points.

In the second quarter of the game, the Bullets launched a counterattack against the Lakers under the leadership of Chris Webber and Juwan Howard, and the two teams played inextricably, Liu Han got a 5-minute opportunity to play in this quarter of the game, and successfully relied on the breakthrough to score 6 points.

At halftime, the Lakers extended their lead to 26 points.

In the third quarter of the game, Liu Han was still on the bench, and the Lakers were in good collective shape today, and Kobe Bryant also came off the bench to score 13 points. But what worries Lakers fans a little is that O'Neal was injured during the game and left the game straight away, going back to the locker room.

Entering the fourth quarter, the hopeless Bullets replaced the bench players and gave up the game, Liu Han was able to get the opportunity to play, he seized the opportunity to attack the defense of the Washington Bullets on the court, although the dribble and breakthrough are still a little dull, but the good physical condition makes Liu Han still successful many times in the face of the Bullets' bench players.

In the end, the Lakers won by 30 points against the Washington Bullets, but to the disappointment of head coach Harris was that O'Neal would be out for nearly two months. That means O'Neal will not only miss this All-Star Game, but will almost miss the rest of the regular season.

One day off, the Lakers challenged the Los Angeles Clippers on an away basis, and the Lakers without O'Neal were in no form in this game, and the Lakers, who were leading in the first quarter, suddenly seemed to not be able to play after entering the second quarter, and the 15-point score in the whole quarter was also a new low this season.

In the third quarter, the Lakers recovered somewhat, but in the fourth quarter, they fell into a cycle of not being able to shoot.

Liu Han recovered in this game, shooting 3-of-4 from three-point range, and more importantly, he staged several times in the third quarter of the game to single-handedly pick up the opponent's entire defense. Liu Han, who played 15 minutes, got 13 points and 6 assists.

But Liu Han's performance was not enough for the Lakers to win, and the team's 35% shooting rate was also a new low this season, with Eddie Jones shooting 1 of 10, Kobe Bryant shooting 2 of 10, and Van Exel shooting 6 of 18, and the poor performance of the three made the Lakers lose to the Clippers by 22 points 86-108.

Before the **** wound, the Lakers welcomed the challenge of the defending champion Bulls the next day.

Without O'Neal, the Lakers seem to have become a different team, and although the Bulls are not in good form today, the Lakers still lost by 14 points.

The Bulls started the game firmly in their own hands, and the Lakers were in a position to catch up after taking the lead in the middle of the first quarter.

Kobe Bryant was educated well by Jordan in the game, and in the face of the god of basketball, Kobe Bryant planned to perform well, but he didn't expect to be taught to be a man.

Liu Han only played seven minutes in this game, but he was in good shape, scoring 8 points on 2-of-3 three-point shooting.

After this game, the Lakers' players who did not participate in the All-Star Game were given nearly a week off.

Liu Han and Kobe Bryant both got the opportunity to participate in the rookie game, and Liu Han was also invited to participate in the three-point competition. Eddie Jones was given a chance to play the All-Star Game, albeit off the bench. Although Van Exel's vote is ranked fifth among Western Conference guards, he can't compare with Gary Payton and Stockton in the point guard position, so he can only go home and watch TV. O'Neal was voted second in the West center behind Olajuwon, but he had to miss the All-Star Game due to injury, and his place was replaced by New Jersey Nets' Chris Gatlin.

This year's rookie game was held in the form of a confrontation between rookies in the East and West, Liu Han qualified as the starting point guard in the West, and Kobe Bryant was also arranged in the starting small forward position in the West.

Before the game, Liu Han met Tim Hardaway who came to watch the game, and of course Tim Hardaway took the initiative to find Liu Han.

"Hey, handsome guy, I heard that dead fat man say that you plan to learn from my breakthrough, right?" Tim Hardaway seems to be on good terms with O'Neill.

"Hello, Tim, I can call you that, right? Yes, I watched your game footage and thought your dribbling and break-through was cool, can you teach me? ”

"Haha, you've got a good eye, and seriously, the only one in the league who can catch up with me in terms of breakthrough efficiency is Mitch (Mitch Richmond, who was teammates with Tim Hardaway on the Warriors). But your height may not make you as fast as me, you know, to break through, first you have to lower your center of gravity, and then at the same time you have to learn to control your rhythm, not always very fast to break through the opponent, you have to learn to combine fast and slow, so that the opponent doesn't know where you want to move next in order to break through the opponent. Also, I've watched your game, and seriously, if I had that accurate as you, I'd have won a championship a long time ago, or if you don't combine shooting and breaking, your step-back jumper is pretty good. Tim Hardaway said a lot to Liu Han quickly, although he didn't think Liu Han could learn his own breakthrough, but he promised O'Neill that he would definitely do it.

"Thank you, Tim, I feel like I've learned a lot." Liu Han seemed to be very grateful to Tim Hardaway. What Hardaway didn't know was that Liu Han was actually very familiar with his breakthrough rhythm and movements, in fact, no one would believe that Liu Han could really learn other people's movements in a short period of time, but because he had relied on shooting to solve the opponent's problems in the past and ignored these.

Since he had already learned a lot from Tim Hardaway, Liu Han decided not to go to Iverson, after all, he didn't know the other party at all, and the other party wouldn't necessarily teach him.

The NBA's All-Star Game is a show, everyone shows their own personality and skills, so the intensity of the game is very average, and no one will be very serious about defending during the All-Star Game.

Liu Han found out this after the start of the game, he didn't understand it at first, so he played very hard after he came on the court, and in the face of Iverson's defense Liu Han shot three three-pointers in a row and hit them, and Liu Han seemed to work harder in defense, he felt that the game should be taken seriously.

Liu Han's behavior angered the lads in the east, and for a while, the intensity of the game began to rise.

Kobe Bryant actually played very hard in the game, he was never a low-key player, and he wanted all eyes to be on him.

The hesitation of Liu Han's behavior made both sides of the game start to be a little serious, so the spectacle of the game has decreased, and the audience likes to see wonderful dunks and fancy tricks, rather than you go back and forth to compare shots with each other.

The coach in the west immediately replaced the perpetrator Liu Han after discovering that something was wrong, and the game was only five minutes into play.

After Liu Han got off the field, he met his good friend Lei Allen, and Lei Allen quietly said to Liu Han: "Hey, man, why are you playing so seriously?" It's not a regular game, you're going to be targeted. ”

"Uh, don't you want to win this competition? How can you fight if you don't fight seriously? Liu Han looked puzzled.

"Haha, I know, you definitely won't know this, okay, anyway, if you play again, don't go so seriously defensively, just go to dunk yourself, the more beautiful the performance, the more popular it is." Lei Allen gave a brief explanation to Liu Han, who looked confused.

After Liu Han got off the court, the rhythm of the game finally returned to normal, both sides had players who were good at dunking and players who passed the ball well, and the basketball was flying around in the air for a while.

Liu Han still felt a little unbelievable when he looked at the players on both sides who were barely defending on the field, and his expression amused Steve Nash, who was sitting next to him.

"Hey, Liu, don't you feel uncomfortable?"

"Uh, yes, I really don't feel comfortable, how can I not defend it." Liu Han's words at this time seemed very helpless.

"Haha, it's an All-Star Game, it's actually a show, you know? It's about who pleases the audience more, and I'm Steve Nash, and it's a pleasure to meet you. "Steve Nash was drafted with the 15th pick in the first round this year, and he wasn't much valued with the Phoenix Suns, mainly because his size really didn't look like a defensive player.

"Oh, hello, I'm Liu Han, and I'm glad to know you." Liu Han had a good influence on Nash, and he didn't find any complicated expression in the eyes of this delicate-faced white man.

The rookie game was divided into two halves, and Liu Han did not get another chance to play in the first half. After the start of the second half, Liu Han played again.

This time, Liu Han stopped defending seriously after he came on the court, and he began to try to show off his dunk in the game, but so far, his dunk is just jumping up and putting the ball into the basket with both hands, but Liu Han's dunk still caused laughter from the audience, and they felt that this clumsy dunk action was more "chic" than the air relay just now.

Liu's first All-Star Rookie Game ended in this atmosphere, and all he had left was the next day's community service and All-Star Three-Point Contest.