Near noon, a staff member came to Chi Liang and invited him into the manager's office.

In the manager's office, in addition to the general manager, George, there are also Van Exels and Williams.

Seeing the two of them, Chi Liang's heart tightened, and he guessed the reason why George was looking for them.

If I guessed correctly, the league must have made a penalty for the clash in the Key Arena, otherwise the three of them would not have been invited here.

Everyone knows the importance of this penalty, and no matter how it is decided, it will have a negative impact on the Nuggets.

Regarding this clash, league president David Stern said that he was troubled, not to mention the SuperSonics, who had the second record in the West last season and had Payton, the current No. 1 point guard.

As for the Nuggets, who finished at the bottom of the league last season, but judging by their current record, they are on a path to rise.

In addition, the Nuggets' style of play is very much in line with Stern's expectations and has attracted more attention from the outside world.

Because of this, Stern also has a lot of expectations for the Nuggets, hoping that the Nuggets can bring more attention to the league.

Stern is distressed, due to the shrinking season, the NBA is not as influential as before, and if two teams are resentenced, it will definitely be even more detrimental to the league.

However, public opinion from the outside world is still there, especially McLene, who caused the conflict, accused the media that Chi Liang kicked him and knocked out his front teeth.

In addition, many teams in the league are also beating the water dogs, and they have put pressure on the league through various channels, which has played a role in fueling the situation, and they hope to resentence the Nuggets and the SuperSonics to make it more beneficial to them.

Even if Stern was reluctant, he knew in his heart that in order to calm the situation, two teams would have to be punished.

This time, the coalition moved quickly and passed the verdict on the clashes.

Van Exel punched McEllen and almost caused a scuffle, resulting in a total of 15 game bans and a $100,000 fine!

Williams pushed McLaen and was banned for 5 games! A fine of 5w dollars!

McClen maliciously fouled, and it was the starting point of this incident, and the league punished him very heavily, with a 25-game ban and a fine of 20w dollars!

In addition, the alliance found the image of Ji Liang kicking McClen, but it was impossible to determine whether he was intentional or unintentional.

For Ji Liang's performance, Stern affirmed that he has the hope of becoming a superstar. At the same time, he also wanted to develop the Asian market, so naturally he had no idea of heavy sentences, so he was banned for 3 games and fined 10,000 US dollars.

After the decision came out, both teams expressed their dissatisfaction with the league's decision and chose to appeal and ask for a change in the decision.

After the half-dethronement of Vin Baker, McLaren meant a lot more to the SuperSonics. In this shortened season, being banned for 25 games almost means that most of the games will not be played, and it will definitely affect the team's record.

As for the Nuggets, they are also very dissatisfied, the team is finally on the road to revival, and Van Exell is the outside core of the Nuggets, suspended for 15 games, which has a great impact on the Nuggets.

As for Ji Liang and Williams, they are not banned many times and will not be able to play again in a short time.

For this punishment, Chi Liang did not express dissatisfaction and was banned for three games, but gave him time to adjust, and at the same time, he could better understand Inglish's skills.

On February 15, 1999, the Nuggets sat at home to meet the challenge of the Suns.

In this game, the Nuggets team without Van Exel, Ji Liang and Williams is obviously much weaker. Especially the substitute lineup, without Chi Liang's tandem, it is completely a mess of scattered sand, fighting separately.

There was bad news, and there was good news, and after a few days of recuperation, Lafrentz finally recovered from his injury and became the starting center of the Nuggets again.

Although they have home-court advantage, compared to the Nuggets who have an uneven lineup, the Suns are significantly stronger and have a big advantage.

After the start of the game, the Nuggets took the lead and used the inside advantage to launch a wave of offense.

Compared to the Suns, the Nuggets have a stronger interior line, especially McDyce, and the Suns are difficult to limit.

However, in terms of strength, the Suns' Gugliotta is not much worse, and he can barely blow up with McDyes.

As for Luke Longley, he couldn't keep up with Lafrentz at all, and was pulled out of the box by Lafrentz and made a jumper.

However, compared with the inside, the Nuggets' outside line is much worse, and the combination of Billups, Stich and Fortson has a significant gap with the Suns.

In the first half, the two sides went head-to-head, and McDyce was in good shape, scoring 20 points in just half time.

With McDyce's outburst, the Nuggets were not pulled away by the Suns.

However, in the second half, due to the consumption of a lot of physical energy, McDyce's offense gradually slowed down, and the Suns took the upper hand.

By the fourth quarter of the game, the Suns had already achieved a double-digit advantage, and even though the Nuggets tried to catch up, they still did not narrow the score, and finally lost the game with a score of 102:115.

With the loss of the three main forces, the strength of the Nuggets has undoubtedly decreased a lot, even if McDyce breaks out, it is powerless.

In addition, in this game, Jason Kidd ushered in a burst, playing 42 minutes, 9-of-17 shooting, 10-of-13 free throws, and achieved a triple-double of 28 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds.

On the other hand, there are three Nuggets players who have scored more than 20 points, namely McDyce, Stich and Billups, but unfortunately the scores of the rest of the players are too low, which is the main reason for the Nuggets' loss.

After a day's rest, the Nuggets traveled to Portland to take on the Trail Blazers.

The Trail Blazers in this period are undoubtedly the strongest teams in the West, with an extremely luxurious roster, such as Damon Stoudeyer, Arvidas Sabonis, Isiah Ryder and other All-Star players.

In addition, on the bench of the Trail Blazers, Rasheed Wallace, Jermaine O'Neal and Bunch Welsh are also seated.

In this game, the Trail Blazers always suppressed the Nuggets, giving what they wanted, and when the game was over, the Trail Blazers had five double-doubles and easily won the victory.

After losing two games in a row, the Nuggets' disadvantages became more and more obvious, and the original momentum of revival came to an abrupt halt, and there was a tendency to revert to the belly of the fish.

After losing the game, the Nuggets went to Salt Lake City non-stop to take on the Jazz back-to-back away games.

Even though Karl Malone and Stockton are a year older, they are still in good shape, and with Brian Russell and Hornacek, they are still a few strong teams in the West.

Due to back-to-back games, McDyce was in poor form, especially when he was elbowed by Karl Malone, resulting in a sleepwalking game in the game.

In this case, the Nuggets were completely suppressed and had a low shooting percentage, falling into a scoring drought for a while, and by the end of the game, only three had scored in double figures.

After losing the game, the Nuggets went on a three-game losing streak and had a 4-5 record.