Jessica and I walked out of the Philadelphia Liberty Library and wandered the streets of the rest of Philadelphia for a while, and then I was ready to head to the stadium for pre-game training, which was now more than three hours before the game started, and the rest of Philadelphia looked like we would only be able to play the next time we were in Philadelphia.

But this season, our Lakers will only play two games in Philadelphia, and I really don't know when the next time will be, if there are no back-to-back games tomorrow, then Jessica and I can come to the Philadelphia Free Library again, and our trip to the Philadelphia Free Library today is still quite rewarding, at least to a certain extent, it confirms that Sir Faustin's identity is indeed extraordinary, and if he is really a person from the future who travels through time and space, So a lot of things can be explained, but seriously, Sir Faustin's manor may just be a place where he hides his secrets, Jessica and I have been there three times, and we still haven't been able to fully find all the secrets, especially the road that Jessica's parents took when they were younger, and what happened there?

There may be another trip to Sir Faustin's estate, who knows, as long as the hard work we put in pays off.

Half an hour later, I finally arrived at the venue where our Lakers were playing against the Philadelphia 76ers, and just like those previous games, I started my training journey in an orderly manner.

Because this training session is not particularly different from the previous ones, I will skip it here a little, and the Lakers and Philadelphia 76ers game will start around 6:30 p.m.

In the past few hours, my training intensity has not been very large, because considering that there are back-to-back games to play tomorrow, I have also learned the lessons of the previous back-to-back games, and I don't want to overdraft my physical fitness in a short period of time, and even today's game I feel that I should arrange my physical fitness more appropriately.

The core player of the 76ers this season is their No. 1 pick, Allen. Iverson, as well as Starker House, who they drafted the previous season, and then Coleman, an interior player who has been in the NBA for six or seven seasons.

Don't underestimate the two rookie players of the 76ers, Iverson and Stackhouse, one of them is in the first season, the other is in the second season, and they are already All-Star level data, Iverson's average points per game this season seems to be close to 25 points, and Stackhouse also played a perfect November, with an average of more than 20 points per game, plus Coleman's contribution of nearly 18 points, it can be said that the current 76ers are mainly supported by these three people.

However, the NBA game is not a simple superposition of player data, the 76ers can indeed only be regarded as a weak team now, although the data of these three players alone is no worse than the Houston Rockets Big Three we just encountered, but the overall strength of the entire team is not much worse.

First of all, most of these players are heavy offense, not to mention Iverson, although he has outstanding stealing ability, but his steal statistics are often based on a gambling defense, which leads to his defense is easy to lose position, anyway, I may not be able to limit Iverson on the defensive end, but I can definitely make him choke on the offensive end.

When I was in Hollywood before, I was a fiasco with him, but at that time, I had just been reborn in Kobe's body, so I wasn't very used to Kobe Bryant's various abilities, especially on the shooting end.

After nearly 20 regular season games, I have made a qualitative leap in personal ability at this time, not to mention that I have been able to open with Iverson, but I will definitely not be completely blown up by him.

And Starkerhouse and Coleman are also players who are not good at defense, and they don't have players who are extremely dominant on both ends of the floor like Olajuwon, and it is difficult not to be completely blown up by us in the face of Shaq and me.

Secondly, the overall tactical literacy of the 76ers, the experience of the players and the three cores of the Rockets who have been veterans of the NBA for more than ten years, how to compare, our game with the Rockets on the court can be regarded as a full demonstration of the real team strength of the Rockets, if it weren't for the fact that our team as a whole is younger than them and has better physical fitness, maybe we would have lost to them a long time ago.

And these old guys of the Rockets can burst out so strong on our Lakers' home court, if they meet in the playoffs, they are definitely not inferior to the Utah Jazz.

As the commentators read out the names of the players on both sides, the game was about to kick off, and as soon as I walked out of the players' tunnel, I immediately felt the atmosphere of the home stadium not inferior to our Staples Arena, it seems that Philadelphia is worthy of a big city in the United States, and the fans here are extremely enthusiastic about the home team's game, and I seem to hear a lot of people shouting

“ai，ai，webelieve you。”

It seems that in less than 20 games, AI has completely conquered the fans here with its gorgeous ball skills, and to be honest, it has also conquered many fans in the United States and even the world, after all, with his height of not even six feet and breathtaking dribbling skills, as well as terrifying speed and strong game**, it is difficult to dislike him.

If it weren't for the fact that he was my opponent, I would have felt the urge to ask him for an autograph before the fight.

But I can't do that, I have to beat him on the basketball court, I believe that's the greatest respect for him, and I said to myself, I have to completely suppress him today and let the Philadelphia fans know what I'm capable of.

After all, Kobe Bryant can be regarded as the son of Philadelphia, this is his hometown, and Kobe Bryant was so eager for Philadelphia to sign him with the top pick, so that he can have the opportunity to play for the Philadelphia 76ers, but it is clear that the 76ers are not willing to bet everything on this high school student who is not yet eighteen years old at the time.

I don't know if Iverson will be booed by the Philadelphia fans if I blow it up, but I don't care so much, I have to prove myself first.

After the opening, Shaq jumped to the ball very easily, and then we launched the offense, probably because everyone felt that the 76ers were weaker, so today our entire Lakers team seemed to be more relaxed.

Point guard Van Exel got the ball and dribbled directly to the frontcourt, as if he wanted to take advantage of the opening of the game to play a fast break directly, Shaq rushed very fast, and the speed of the opponent and Shaq could not keep up with Shaq at all, and when Shaq had already rushed into the 76ers' interior line, the opponent's interior line had just run near the free throw line.

However, Van Exel did not pass the ball to Shaq, who had come to the inside, but jumped directly outside the three-point line to shoot, and of course the result was still iron, but at this time, several people on the inside of the Seven and Six were stuck behind Shaq alone, he easily took off the rebound, and then two people hung on his body and smashed the ball directly into the basket.

As the referee's whistle blew and the audience fell silent, Shaq raised his hand to show everyone his powerful biceps.

However, Shaq's additional free throw did not go in, his arm strength was too great, and the basketball smashed directly into the back of the basket, but the rebound of this free throw jumped far away, and Shaq even almost grabbed a frontcourt rebound, but he didn't expect the rebound to bounce to his position at the time, so he was not ready to grab the ball, and Iverson didn't know where to jump out of nowhere, and quickly launched a counterattack after receiving the rebound.

After the opening, Iverson played a point guard, so there was Van Exel's position against him, and the player I played against was Stackhouse, his height was the same as mine, he was six feet six inches, I was confident that I would not fall behind when facing him, but I was quite worried about Van Exel, he is also the kind of player who is stronger in attack than defense, his speed is not slow in guards, but when facing a player like Iverson like a gust of wind, it feels like it is more than a beat slower.

Iverson's counterattack is extremely fast, no one in the whole court can really keep up with his rhythm, if you want to take a fast multi-person package to block his footsteps, then it is very likely that you will all become the background board for his performance skills, in fact, it is true, his back dribble and turn like a spinning top in a rapid advance, you have no way to block a gust of wind, you just have this feeling when he passes you, it is not at all like you are in a counterpoint with a person, but a gust of wind, A bolt of lightning.

Iverson easily beat four of our Lakers in a row, and then gently put the ball into the basket with a low-handed layup, when his teammates had just run past the halfcourt of the basketball court.

It was a very impressive shot for the whole Lakers, especially me, and even though I had seen the speed he showed in the half-game, I underestimated his acceleration and dribble speed throughout the game.

He's not just the kind of guy who runs fast in the feeder, his dribbling speed feels a lot faster than when he runs without the ball, and his body is light, and the change of direction is huge, and anyone with a center of gravity higher than him or heavier than him will be frightened by his terrifying change of direction, and the whole person will lose his center of gravity all at once.

You must know that in my time and space, Iverson is a person who can shake Jordan down, who is Jordan, Jordan is a god!

What followed was the frantic shouting of the fans throughout Philadelphia's home stadium, and the voices of those shouting AI became more and more, and the decibels of the fans' voices were definitely several beats higher than that of Staples.

It's rare for us Lakers to meet a team with a much better atmosphere at home than our Staples, so there was a bit of confusion for a while.

Shaq fed the ball to me, and I quickly took the ball across the half court, and the focus of our game today was to impact their 76ers' penalty area, whether it was to score directly or cause damage, or to force them to shrink inside, it would be very convenient for us to play the rest of the game.

I also didn't wait for Shaq and other interior players to be in place, and rushed straight to the 76ers' interior line

Tuckerhouse's pace is good, but it's clear that he underestimated my determination to hit the inside, and maybe he thinks I'm just a fake shot and will eventually wait until my teammates come.

But I first put my back to him, and then I turned around and accelerated with the center of gravity, and directly passed Stackhouse half of his body, this guy reacted very quickly, and I was not able to completely leave him behind, but as long as I got more than half a body advantage, then he had no chance to prevent my breakthrough again, unless he took a foul.

In the end, Starhouse still paid for his foul, and I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to fight two plus one, and I was a little frustrated, because just now I was really just a little bit short of being able to get into the basket, and if the two plus one hit was successful, the psychological blow to the law was far stronger than just two free throws.

I hit two free throws steadily, and I've been shooting around 90 percent of my free throws this season, except for some instability when I'm getting fiter, and I've been able to score the ball very easily at other times.

To be honest, I don't usually practice a lot of free throws individually, maybe in addition to Kobe's original muscle memory, the shooting coach also made great contributions to my shooting movements, which not only greatly improved my shooting speed and stability, but also made my free throws much more stable.

To be honest, our Lakers' shooting coach is definitely a talent, I wonder why he hasn't been able to improve Shaq's free throw level, maybe in addition to asking the master to lead the door, the most critical point is to practice by the individual, if Shaq himself is not willing to invest a lot of time in training free throws, then who can help him get a better free throw feeling.

In fact, there have been a few times when I have actually seen Shaq practice free throws by himself, and the strange thing is that Shaq is often able to maintain a free throw shooting percentage of about 70% or even higher in practice, but once it is time for the official game, his free throw shooting percentage will drop sharply.

When I was training, I often only hit 80% to 80% of my free throw shooting rate, but after the game, my free throw shooting will become more stable, which may also have something to do with my efforts to maintain my stable mentality during the game.

If you can continue to maintain your mental stability, then it is very helpful for you to maintain a high competitive state, you can not doubt your shooting, even if your shot selection is not good, but many times the opportunity on the court is fleeting, you can't always wait for the best opportunity to shoot, then the opponent may also find a better defensive position, so you can understand that there is no best opportunity on the basketball court. Or that the definition of the best chance is not so set in stone.

When I feel like I'm in that position, then I shoot and don't care how difficult it is.

The 76ers don't have a chance to counterattack quickly this time, our defense is very fast, because we have seen the super speed of AI, so everyone has raised their vigilance, and they don't want to be a background board for being played by AI anymore, although many times NBA players are used to being the background board of some superstars, but after all, the opponent is just a small man who is only less than six feet, which will cause greater stimulation to the psychology of our Lakers players.

Originally, I also wanted to exchange defensive players with Van Exel, and let me defend the AI, but if I think about it, letting him defend Stackhouse will only become an ATM, and I may not be able to defend against the AI, so that both of us will be blown up, but at least now I can limit Stackhouse in one-on-one defense, so we can't both be blown up on the defensive end.

On the offensive end, it doesn't matter so much, and in terms of the 76ers' individual and overall defensive level, we have a chance to blow them up inside and outside.

In short, whoever has a better hand in this game, let him lead the offense, Shaq's offense is not bad after the start, he looks like he wants to get the lead in the game for our Lakers team quickly, of course, it is best to directly let the game go into garbage time, so that we can get off the court early, so that we can have the opportunity to save more energy for tomorrow's back-to-back games.

In fact, it's not just Shaq who thinks so, but we all think this way on the Lakers team, so after the start of the game, we all quickly reached a tacit understanding and strive to get into the game as soon as possible.

In this defensive round, our Lakers team has increased the defensive intensity a lot at once, and if you want to quickly open up the gap in the game, defensive counterattack is undoubtedly the best way.

We have a certain advantage in terms of physical talent, especially on the inside, AI is not the kind of player who likes to make long-range three-point attempts, so most of his threats come from the breakthrough and mid-range jumpers after the emergency stop, to limit him, it must be me and Shaq to work together, I only hope that Shaq will not pull the gate on the defensive end in this game, at least to give the opposing offensive players enough deterrence on the inside, so that they do not dare to easily challenge the inside penalty area position where Shaq sits.

And when I defend them, I will put them into the interior line appropriately, and then combine with other players to carry out front and rear wrapping on the players who burst in, which is the most common pocket formation, this trick is simple and practical, but it is still a little particular when choosing the bag clip, but as the time of playing together between our players increases, the tacit understanding between each other on the defensive end will also improve, especially when encountering leaks, the speed of complementing each other is very important.

However, Iverson also seems to have sensed the change in the intensity of our defense, and no longer directly hit our basket after holding the ball as before, of course, in fact, the 76ers' tactics are basically handed over to Iverson or Starkerhouse for singles most of the time, and the others are either responsible for grabbing rebounds or watching them perform singles.

While I have to admit that Iverson and Stackhouse are really good individually, it's still very difficult for the two to afford the whole team entirely on their own.

In this round, the tactic of the 76ers is to open up space for Iverson to play alone, and Van Exel, who defends him, is actually less than six inches tall, only an inch taller than Iverson, so in fact, the two of them are about the same in size, Iverson is relatively slimmer and more explosive, Van Exel is more physically important, and he is stronger than Iverson in terms of strength.

However, the huge impact generated by Iverson once he rushed up can still make Van Exel eat a pot, not to mention him, even if he is an ordinary interior player in the league, he may not be able to completely block it in the face of Iverson's full impact on the inside, in a sense, speed is equivalent to strength, as long as you are fast enough, the impact you produce will be large enough.

Iverson's breakthrough will be launched to the right most of the time, his right hand side is also Van Exel's left hand side, which is not his favorite defensive direction, he himself lacks good enough defensive prediction on the defensive end, there is no way to keep up with Iverson's footsteps in the first time, and sure enough, Iverson just creates enough space for himself to break through with the simplest change of direction in front of the body.

AI is the kind of player who you know where he will break through, but there is no way to defend it, this first step is too fast, the rhythm changes too fast, it is simply dazzling, fans will feel that Iverson is as fast as a lightning bolt dozens of meters away from the stadium, and those players who are close to Iverson are even more amazed by his physical dexterity, that speed is completely beyond the limit of your personal reactions, once his speed reaches that level, You can only silently watch him rush to the inside, and there is no way to stop him.

I don't even think Shaq can completely stop Iverson's breakaway layup, even with Shaq on the inside.

It can be seen that Van Exel has tried very hard to keep up with Iverson, but it is clear that Iverson wants to be the first to attack, to destroy Van Exel in a kind of will, to make you understand that I am going to make you desperate on the defensive end today.

Iverson broke through Van Exel and hit the ball directly with ease, and Van Exel was clearly unwilling to give up, so he asked Shaq to serve as soon as possible, so he could immediately hit a beautiful response ball against Iverson.

However, he was a little too anxious, and just as he dribbled the ball past half court, another forward of the 76ers stepped forward to delay him, and at this moment, saying that it was too late, the lightning rushed from the side again, and before Van Exel could react, he had already cut the ball in his hand.

I saw this situation and gave up my defender Stackhouse and ran straight towards Iverson, I wanted to delay Iverson's speed as much as possible, because I had previous experience with him in one-on-one battles, so I still have some mental preparation for his dribbling rhythm change, at least I know how he dribbles regularly.

However, I still underestimated Iverson's speed of change of direction a little, it is not something that I can limit by simply knowing what he wants to do, I think my speed and speed are already the top in the league, but compared to Iverson, it can only be regarded as second-rate, he is too much more than others.

If you haven't played against him, you don't know the feeling, the powerful pressure that comes from this little man, because his speed is so easy to stimulate your nerves, and of course it is easy to stimulate the nerves of the home crowd.

The shouts and cheers poured in like a tidal wave, and I can now feel what it was like when the Rockets played on our home court last time, and it was really not easy for them to be able to maintain such a strong winning streak in that state, so they are really a team that deserves respect, and they have enough great players in their team.

Iverson was clearly reluctant to pass the ball, even though Stackhouse was completely let go by me at this point, and he only needed a simple chest pass to give him an easy three-point opportunity, but Iverson didn't do that, he was going to challenge my defense head-on, just like we did when we went head-to-head, and he was ready to use his speed to break my will.

And I defended with all my might, first of all, I completely raised my focus to a higher level, I enjoyed the feeling of competition, the stronger the opponent was the more my blood was full of heat, and when the game got into the heat, my blood would start to boil, and they would tell me that it was time to burst out of my true energy.

The first thing to do to defend Iverson is not to easily start to dig the ball, with his reaction speed, your ordinary ball digging action is no different from slow motion in his eyes, so once you do that, not only will you not be able to cut off his dribble, but will expose you to a huge defensive hole, at this time he really will be easier than crossing the road in the early morning.

The second point is that you have to keep enough defensive distance from him, although Iverson also likes to shoot pull-up jumpers, but to be honest, compared to his more than seven or eight percent of the breakaway layup shooting rate, his mid-range shooting percentage is obviously relatively low, as long as you can force him to finish with a mid-range jumper, then your defense has been more than half successful.

The last part is how much you can interfere with his shots, Iverson's height does suffer a little, even if his arm span makes up for his shortcomings to a certain extent, but when facing a swingman who is half a head taller than him at every turn, it is a better defensive strategy to raise his hands to try to seal his vision.

You don't necessarily have to block his shot, because his bounce speed is fast, even if he is not tall, but the shot height is not low, and in the case of a certain drift back, it is very difficult to block Iverson's shot first.

What you can do is try to interfere with his shooting vision and the rhythm of his shooting, and let him shoot when he is more uncomfortable, so that your defense is successful, and you don't have to demand more from yourself, no one in the league can completely limit AI, and Michael who is a few years younger may not be able to do it.

Iverson was quick to reach his max speed, and I knew he was still trying to break through my defense from the right, but I was quick to step back, blocking his right thrust in time to force him to either shoot or pass, but judging by his body movements, he was not very happy with either option.

Iverson saw that there was no way to directly break through my defense, and began to use a series of fancy dribbles, trying to attract my attention, of course, I tried not to let myself move with the rhythm of the AI's dribbling, and there is a trick here, so when you defend the ball handler, don't focus all your attention on his dribbling, but focus mainly on his eyes, his hands may deceive you, but generally speaking, his eyes can't deceive you, If you're experienced enough on the pitch, it's really easy to tell in the eyes of your opponents that they're really attacking.

Of course, that's exactly what I'm doing at this point, but Iverson clearly understands it, so he tries to keep his eyes out of his mind so that I don't easily see through his true thoughts.

This kind of real-time gambling on the basketball court is a very interesting thing, and if you have ever experienced such an opponent who is evenly matched with you, and even you have decided to treat him as your lifelong enemy, then you will enter a completely different state of mind, in which your strength will be completely stimulated.

Iverson first used a series of cross-steps and crotch dribbles to make it impossible for me to guess his attacking path, and then dribbled the ball to the left, which I think must be trying to do with his best of super big forward changes, so I don't believe he really breaks through to the left, and I still guard his right hand in this situation.

Iverson's reaction was also very fast, after seeing that my center of gravity was not affected, I immediately changed the direction of the body that I was supposed to do in front of the body to a small step back to worship the Buddha, for the back of this Buddha worship action, I have no way at all, because if it is an ordinary person to do such an action to connect I will definitely be able to react, but Iverson's action frequency is too fast, and I judge that he will break through the right side, so this time he pressed the center of gravity and broke through directly to the left, and my center of gravity was no longer stable all of a sudden, Stumbled and almost fell to the ground without turning sideways.

I felt like my ankle was under a lot of pressure, and if there was one person in the league who could break someone's ankle, it would be Iverson.

I can't chase him down anytime soon, so I can only watch the AI pass me and go to the basket.

At this time, Shaq, who was guarding the basket, saw that I was easily passed by Iverson, and he couldn't help but be a little surprised, he glared at Iverson angrily, raised his hands high, and made it look like he could completely tear Iverson's thin body apart at any time.

However, Iverson was very light and agile, as if he was spinning around Shaq, Shaq was too tall and his center of gravity was too high, when Iverson lowered his center of gravity, he walked around Shaq at a very fast speed, and finally cut under the basket before Shaq could turn around and hit the ball into the basket with a look back at the moon.

Iverson's ball played with me and Shaq continuously, and it made both of us emotionally up, although we were not annoyed by a ball, but deep down I also secretly made up my mind that I must give Iverson some color when I go back.

In the next offensive round, Shaq took the lead, he was asking for the ball outside the three-point line, but I didn't expect this guy to want to break through the basket directly with the ball, but you really don't look at Shaq's size is a little huge and bloated, but in fact, Shaq at this time has not affected his flexibility because of his excessive weight as he did later, and he can be regarded as a flexible super fat man at this time.

I saw that he made a tentative step outside the three-point line, and then dribbled forward to break through, and the players who defended him did not dare to resist him head-on, so they could only call his teammates around him to come over and wrap Shaq, but Shaq began to use his good tricks near the free throw line at this time, and saw that he took the 76ers players who came to help defend directly as a pillar, and then rotated around this pillar very flexibly.

In fact, Shaq's shark rotation doesn't seem to have anything special, but the most important thing is that his body is too tall, too wide and too strong, and the physical space occupied by the whole person is extremely large, and those who want to block Shaq's footsteps will be ruthlessly blocked behind him by his big elbow, plus Shaq knows how to use his body and borrow strength when he turns around, and he can press the person who is the pillar in place and can't move at all.

All that's left is a little faster turnaround speed and more interior finishing.

Nearly half of Shaq's offense under the basket is finished with a dunk or attempted dunk, and many times, even if he doesn't dunk directly, it will cause a foul on the defender.

Shaq's dunk can be said to be full force, and after he landed, the basket shook for more than ten seconds before gradually regaining balance, and even the home fans of the 76ers couldn't help but let out an exclamation at this time, as if they saw the gods descend to earth.

Shaq smugly waved to the crowd on the sidelines, then raised his arm to show his biceps.

I shook my head slightly, thinking to myself that I should stop focusing on these things, I am afraid that the seven or six people will not use this gap to fight back again.

Sure enough, perhaps knowing that their 76ers almost didn't have any advantages and opportunities when playing positional battles, they could only seize every opportunity to counterattack quickly, and even if they didn't have a chance, they had to find a way to create opportunities.

Iverson once again took the lead in launching a new round of attack, but this time he was not as alone as before, after finding that there was no good counter-attacking opportunity, he took the initiative to pass the ball to Starkerhouse, it seems that my previous defense of Iverson still has some effect, making him realize that it takes a lot of physical effort to attack me and Shaq in the positional battle.

Or maybe he had other plans and wanted Stackhouse to drain my fitness on the offensive end first, after all, the player opposite me was actually Stackhouse, but if he really thought so, it can only be said that he was still a little wrong, and my fitness is quite good.

On the other hand, if we had beaten the 76ers today and had taken a huge amount of physical exertion, we wouldn't have played as well tomorrow against the Boston Celtics.

The Lakers and Boston Celtics have always been a pair of historical rivals, with the two biggest teams in the league's history with the most championships, but it seems like it's been a long time since they entered the '90s.

If you look back at the history of the league over the past few decades, from the Lakers McCann dynasty in the fifties, to Cardinal and Lord of the Rings Bill. Russell's Celtics won 11 championship rings in 13 years and completely dominated the entire '60s, which were considered a lot of championships, during which the Lakers won several championships, and the '80s were back in the yellow-green era of the Lakers and Celtics.

The Lakers' showtime was led by head coach Pat Riley, legendary Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Cobra James Worthy, who won a total of five championships for the Lakers.

The Celtics also won three championships under the leadership of Big Bird Larry Bird, Chiefs Parish, and Refrigerator McHale.

The Lakers and Celtics won 8 of the 10 championships in the 80s, and now our Lakers team is once again on the road to rise, but the old rival Celtics still seems to be in the doldrums, but because the historical ties and grievances between the two sides are too entangled, every time our Lakers go to the North Shore Garden Arena, the home of the Celtics, they will be greeted with extreme enthusiasm from the fans.

There are many legends in this historic arena, such as the famous theory that there are a few wooden floors on the basketball court in this arena that were specially manipulated by the Celtics, and it is easy for untruthful away teams to slide in that place every time they come here.

Of course, rumors are just rumors, and the truth of the matter may not be the case, but it also reflects from the side that the home court of the Boston Celtics is very terrifying, and it is not much worse than the Devil's home court of the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City.