After Christmas, the NBA officially enters the middle of the season.

From the Christmas game to the start of All-Star Weekend, it was the toughest time for any team.

Fitness, war weariness, and long fixtures can have a huge impact on each team.

This is often the time when injuries are high.

But in the same way, this period of time is the time for the strong team and the weak team to open up the gap, and it is the real strong team that can rely on its comprehensive strength to survive the record in this difficult schedule!

All teams know this, but there are not many who can do it!

The Hawks are now firmly in fourth place, and the fifth Magic team is good, but it is only by relying on Maddie's supergod to win, this way of winning is unreliable, even if Maddie does become a superstar this year, and the Magic team has no problem maintaining the fifth place, but it is really difficult to go further.

So the Eagles are in a two-for-all position.

Hold on, hold on to fourth, in the middle of this season that is both difficult and also an opportunity, the coaching staff's expectation for the players is that if the Pistons can't hold on, their side will take advantage of the situation!

Second in the East! This goal keeps the Eagles players motivated.

They all wanted to do better, and after a four-day break, the Eagles returned to the journey with two consecutive defeats and humiliation.

The first unlucky guy to meet them was the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers are rotten, not completely, third from the bottom in the East, and have a heart that wants to rot, but even the skills of rotten are not as good as the Heat and the Bulls.

The Eagles saw that they were pitiful and decisively helped them.

On December 28, the Hawks' first game after Christmas, they hosted the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Hawks were upset by the Pacers and Pistons back-to-back abuse a few days ago, but they couldn't get revenge for a while.

I have to find a team to vent!

Coincidentally, the Cavaliers came.

After the start of the game, Rahim, who had been hated miserably by O'Neal Jr. and Ben Wallace for two consecutive games, turned on the rampage mode after coming on the court, and continued to eat and kill on the inside, which made the Cavaliers stunned inside.

Let's recruit who to provoke!

Raheem is playing like crazy, Jason Terry is here again, all kinds of swing shots, but Jason Terry has been practicing three points diligently in the past few days,......

After the first quarter, when Raheem and Jason Terry were replaced for a break, the Cavaliers felt that they could probably play well, and Liu Mang came......

The last time the Hawks went to Cleveland to play, Liu Mang's performance was okay, but it can't be said to be very good.

The idea of the Cavaliers players is that you can make fouls, whatever you want, as long as you're not as grumpy as Jason Terry and Raheem.

However, Liu Mang's improvement is not something that a Cavaliers player can imagine.

When Liu Mang appeared in a strange posture after pretending to be a strong step back again and again, and scored three three-pointers in the second quarter, the Cavaliers players collapsed......

Give me the ball and I'm going home! That's what the Cavaliers players are saying......

……

112-87, the Hawks slaughtered the Cavaliers in their first game after Christmas to end a two-game losing streak!

Liu Mang shot 8-of-13, 5-of-8 three-pointers, and 4-of-6 free throws, scoring 25 points in the second and third quarters combined! Efficiency is blowing up!

Raheem played the first quarter with 20 points in a single quarter, and Jason Terry came on the court in the first and third quarters, shooting 20 times and scoring 28 points on 12-of-20 shooting.

Liu Mang, Jason Terry, and Rahim combined for 73 points!

Gradually, due to the Hawks' team structure, a guard, a strong small forward, and a bench scorer, the team's scoring basically depends on these three people.

Liu Mang hurt when he heard this nickname, what does this portend?

This nickname is not very good!

Also, Liu Mang felt that he and Jason Terry were called "less", and reluctantly accepted that he was a rookie, and Jason Terry was only 3 years old, but Raheem played until his sixth season and was 25 years old......

25 years old?

Liu Mang thought about it, it doesn't seem to be too old, the future three doubles are all in their 30s, isn't it still called "less"......

It's going to be done, but there's a nickname anyway......

……

……

Playing the Cavaliers is so irritable, in addition to a bad breath that has accumulated for four days, there is also the fact that he will leave Atlanta the next day to play away, and Texas has two consecutive away games.

Two opponents, the stronger one was the opponent on the first day of the 2002 New Year, the San Antonio Spurs.

But for Liu Mang's side, the more important opponent is the first, challenging the Houston Rockets away on December 30!

It's been so long, Liu Mang has almost forgotten about this matter, but when he saw the schedule, the familiar red team logo, Liu Mang immediately remembered it.

The first opponent when he came to this world!

The first first-class star to play against, Steve Francis!

Boss Fergus!

This man with a bold personality, but too stubborn, and finally ended hastily in the NBA.

For Francis, Liu Mang's impression is generally good, helping Da Yao fight back against the opponent who bullied Da Yao, and when he played against the Lakers in the third game of the first round of the playoffs in 04, he scored four three-pointers in a row at a critical moment to get the first and only victory of his career.

After that, Francis was traded to the Magic, and his morale was gone, and after that, he continued to suffer injuries and retired after seven or eight seasons.

But now Francis is really popular!

The eye-catching, unprecedented two-way guard play, single-handedly scoring and organization activated the old cat Cardino Mobley's scoring ability, except for the shooting selection is a little worse, it can be said that this year's Francis has indeed interpreted the name of the two-way guard very perfectly.

It's just that the Rockets are really bad inside, let's just say that when a team's rebounding king is a point guard, you know that the team is 100% off.

The last point guard who was the team's rebounding king was Oscar Robertson, who was one of the top ten in history, and the Kings he led in those years did not pass the first round, but the lowest years of his rebounding career, the playoffs were so strong that he won the championship.

It is worth mentioning that he went to the Bucks in those years and partnered with Abdul-Jabbar.

Even Magic Johnson is so good at rebounding and is not the team's rebounding champion, it is still worth mentioning that Magic has never left Abdul-Jabbar after winning the championship.

The scariest thing is coming, Orcas Robertson is a 60s star and Magic is an 80s star......

Fighting with Boss Fu, whether there is a task or not, Liu Mang is very excited!

The first time he played against Boss Fu, Liu Mang didn't fully react to what was going on, so he finished a game in a daze and spent a precious top star card.

Now Liu Mang knows how precious the top star card is, the first star card made him feel the three-point feeling of a historic pitcher, with a foothold, the second star card gave him a new understanding of the already powerful counterattack, and the counterattack skills praised by the laughing mamba at his peak gave Liu Mang a lot more choices in counterattacks!

……

When he arrived in Houston, Liu Mang felt like he had come from the "sub-modern" "old city" Atlanta to the modern city!

It's not that Atlanta is dilapidated, but it's a problem of this era, and there is basically nothing in Atlanta that can be regarded as high-tech by Liu Mang.

But in Houston, it's different, although if you really want to talk about it, it's still many years behind Liu Mang's modernization in mind...... But at least you can breathe in the haze!

It's not particularly exaggerated, it's the feeling that from a distance it looks like the fog hasn't completely lifted, but you're pretty sure it's impossible to fog up this weather.

This is a familiar modern city!

But Liu Mang was a little strange after he came to Houston.

Generally speaking, when he goes to a city where he has a conflict with the opposing star this year, not to mention being "picked up" and ridiculed by the opposing fans at the airport, at least he will see some game publicity or something, such as mocking something, but Houston just doesn't!