"Did you make this foul on purpose? You know, it's reminiscent of McHale's foul on Rambis in the '84 Finals, and it turned out to be about the same as today, with the Celtics reversing the game. Is there any deliberate meaning? ”

"No, no, I don't know about 1984, when I was six years old, I couldn't even watch TV because I didn't have a TV at home...... Uh, I just thought I needed to stop Kobe Bryant and stop him from going inside easily, but he was so fast, I didn't expect the impact to be that big, and I'm sorry. ”

"Did the manager ask you to do that? Do you know why he lit a cigar at the end of the race? ”

"Cigars? I don't know, haha, if that's really cool, no wonder he's going back to the locker room so early. He just told me to be tough, that's all. ”

Chris Anderson was the target of many reporters during the post-game player interview, and there was no way that his foul was reminiscent of the 1984 clothesline. And the Celtics eventually won the game, and this foul will undoubtedly be mentioned a lot in the future, becoming another legendary story of the Lake-Kai confrontation.

However, Anderson flatly denied the suspicion of intentional foul and blamed himself for everything.

However, this did not mean that Fox Leon could get rid of the suspicion of deliberately directing the players to commit malicious fouls, on the contrary, his act of lighting a cigar in the final moments of the game caused him to be bombarded by reporters at the post-game press conference.

"Lighting a cigar before the game is over, is it one of your strategies for this game?" "Did you order Anderson's foul?" "Did you have a lot of plans in place before the game, so you have the confidence to rest the main players?" ……

A barrage of questions came at Leon, who appeared to be quite calm, denying all suspicion and speculation while adding, "Maybe I didn't know we were going to win this game before the game, but when I lit the cigar I knew we were going to win." I know the NBA is where miracles happen, but it's not going to happen today, it's not going to happen when the Lakers play the Celtics. ”

Leon then left the Staples Center with his players and left Los Angeles, but the aftermath of the game was far from over.

First of all, on the morning of the second day after the game, NBA officials held a press conference, and Stern personally announced multiple penalties for the Celtics.

First of all, the Celtics were fined $200,000 for violating the rotation of players, which is also the largest fine of the season. Fox Leon was then fined $10,000 for smoking in the arena, while Anderson, who was ejected for a second-degree malicious foul, was fined $15,000 and banned for one game.

The Boston Tribune, a local media outlet in Boston, gave the attitude of Bostonians to such successive punishments, and the next day the newspaper headlined "Who-care, we-have-won!" (Who cares, we won anyway!) ”

If the Celtics had won against other teams, perhaps the developed Boston sports media would have some different voices, but the Lakers, whom the Celtics had won, were a golden, unbeatable rival.

The Celtics beat them in the most Celtic way, and with a pure bench, and arguably no more exciting and precious win this season than this one.

Back in Boston, the Celtics were greeted by a lot of loyal fans at the airport, pulling banners and holding slogans as if the Celtics had won the championship. There are some older fans in the fan base, who have lived through the glory of the Celtics in the 80s, and it is inevitable that they will think of the iron-blooded green army when they see such a game.

After more than a decade of dark times, those old fans were disappointed and always full of hope, and they were just a fraction of a second in the Eastern Conference Finals last year, and this year's Celtics coach change has caused many fans to question how a rookie like Fox Leon can lead the Celtics to rebuild their glory. As the season drew to a close, everything slowly faded into hard-fought victories and team changes, and in this moment of victory over the Lakers with a bench lineup, in Boston, the voices for Fox Leon finally trumped the opposition.

The media that used to be constantly critical of the Celtics' style of play turned their guns around and began to lash out at the league's injustice, the punishment of the Celtics too severely, Stern's discrimination against Boston, including some old old scores, was revealed, and from the Larry Bird clause to the 1997 draft, the Bostonians regained their sense of being an enemy of the world.

For the people of New England, who are smart and proud, kind and narrow-minded, gentle and rough, a peaceful, steady team is never what they want, and a flashy, dazzling team will not satisfy them. Only a contradictory team that is united to the point of selfishness, the pursuit of glory but also to cruelty, and the desire to be the enemy of the world for the sake of victory, can ignite the blood of the New England immigrants who inherited from their ancestors who pioneered the land three hundred years ago, that irrational, anti-civilization fanatical feeling.

This love for basketball was first tapped by Auerbach, who is now playing bridge at Woodmont Club in Washington, D.C., and has been running to the club for three days in a row. As he grew older, his life shrank and became his last garden – and of course the North Shore Garden Arena if they could make it to the division finals again.

After a light breakfast, Auerbach began to pass the time at the table, during which Rob Eze kept trying to remind Auerbach to check the morning newspaper to see what Fox Leon had accomplished yesterday.

But the old man was very excited, and Eze wanted to interject several times to cause a topic, but Auerbach didn't give him a chance, and it wasn't until lunch that Eze found an opportunity to say to Auerbach: "Andy Miller's side should have been resolved, Leon seems to have negotiated conditions with him, but I don't know what it is...... Anyway, Miller seems to be using his media connections to discredit Leon and the Celtics. ”

Auerbach didn't say a word, and gently picked up a piece of mapo tofu with chopsticks and put it in his mouth, which was a lunch delivered from a Chinese doll restaurant. After chewing the rice, Auerbach said, "My chopsticks have improved again, and I can hold tofu...... Leon's chopsticks are very good, as if he was born with them, and I don't see him eat Chinese food very much. Anyway, he kept saying that Chinese food in the United States is not delicious...... Hmph, as if he had been in China. ”

Eze heard that Auerbach was talking, so he didn't answer the conversation and brought the conversation to yesterday's game, saying: "Fox was fined again, so were the Celtics, and then Chris Anderson was suspended......

Eze thought that Auerbach would ask what was going on, but Auerbach just nodded and continued to use chopsticks to pick mapo tofu.

Eze finally couldn't help it, and he said bluntly: "Yesterday, the Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers with a pure bench lineup!" In Stamps! And Fox Leon lit a cigar at the end of the game, and I watched it live on TV at the time, and the faces of the Lakers fans were green! Even the referee had a big mouth, and the Celtic players, they were all stunned, you don't know how angry the TV station cut the camera to Leon at that time, and he was cross-legged and lit a cigar! It is said that Stern was also on the scene and really wanted to see his expression. ”

Eze said a lot excitedly, but Auerbach still didn't react, he knew that he stared at Eze, as if to say, "I haven't seen anything, I need you to tell me this".

At this point, Eze finally gave up, ate honestly, and prepared for the bridge game in the afternoon. Auerbach had finished eating, he wiped his mouth and said, "I'm a little tired, I'm going back to the lounge to rest for a while, and we'll start again at two o'clock in the afternoon." ”

After saying that, he walked out of the chess and card room, and as soon as he went out, he called the waiter of the club over, pushed him and said, "Hurry up, bring me all the newspapers from yesterday and today!" Also, turn on the TV in the lounge and tune in to the NBA's pay-per-view channel for yesterday's Celtics and Lakers game...... Do you have any footage? It is best to have a video...... No? Damn it, hurry up kid! “

With that, Auerbach impatiently entered the lounge, and while waiting for the waiter to find a newspaper, he excitedly circled around the lounge. And when he saw the detailed report of yesterday's game, as well as the photo of Fox Leon lighting a cigar at the Lakers' home court, he even blushed with excitement and giggled.

He re-read the words from the report, imagining the scene as he wished that the race was there that night, and then accompanied Leon to light the cigar.

Closing the newspaper, Auerbach stopped smiling, pulled out an unsmoked cigar and lit it, and smoked it gently in the lounge. His body and mind were relaxed, and for nearly a month he didn't listen to Leon's news, nor did he pay attention to the Celtics, because he was waiting, waiting for Leon to pass the test he had set, the almost harsh and cruel test, the bloodless test that killed people, enough to make a new coach lose confidence in the basketball world forever.

He had to do it, he didn't have the patience and the time, and he didn't have the cost to raise the next Bill Russell, Tom Heinsoane, KC Jones, he had to use this method to give birth to the next one.

So far, at least, Fox Leon is on his way to becoming another Auerbach, but Auerbach doesn't know what's really going on in his mind. (To be continued.) )