October 22, 2017, 9:30 a.m. Beijing time.

For the first time in the new season, the Houston Rockets made their debut at the Toyota Center, their home stadium.

Yang Yiming, wearing the red No. 17 jersey, walked out of the players' tunnel with his teammates amid loud cheers and DJ music.

1/

In the dark, the curtain of his NBA road slowly opened.

This is a big battle that Yang Yiming has never seen before. He had just graduated from college before, and this October was expected to be his first CBA season with the Beijing Enterprises men's basketball team, but Zhou Qi, who was also a Chinese player, was unexpectedly injured, and a phone call from the Rockets team brought him to the floor of the Toyota Center without any experience of a CBA game.

Yang Yiming also participated in CUBA events in college, but even if college basketball is lively, it is just a dojo in the "snail shell" of thousands of people, waving flags and drums, and making it lively, which is not as strange and bizarre as the court of nearly 20,000 people. During the warm-up training, he was a little stunned. In order to facilitate the admission of spectators, the Toyota Center adopts a sunken design, and the grandstand area is only a few meters higher than the street road, but the central playing field, like the ancient Roman arena, has been dug at the lowest point, and it seems that the air pressure has become lower when standing inside. Looking around at this stadium with a capacity of 20,000 people, it is packed to the brim today, and it has become a sea of red. Not only were there supporters of all colors seated, but they were all Yang Yiming's appearance that he found novel, there were several groups of fans alone, there were marching bands with percussion, black aunts dressed up with bells and whistles, and even a group of big fat men without shirts, who wrote the seven English letters R-O-C-K-E-T-S on the flesh of the white flowers, standing in a row, spelling out the words Team Rocket. The cheerleading team of the professional team is indeed much sexier and hotter than the college campus court, and at the moment they are sitting bare-legged on the floor on the sidelines, ready to wait for the players to finish their warm-up shots and play with the Rockets. And Chris Paul, who continues to be suspended due to injury, changed into a neat and straight Armani suit early, sat in the player area and waited.

These are all scenes that Yang Yiming has never seen.

When the Rockets officially appeared, the lights of the stadium changed from bright to dim, the host introduced each home team player in an exaggerated tone of boxers on stage, and the large screen above the head conjured up the corresponding player appearance short film, and the last huge rocket projection slowly rose into the air along the curtain hanging from the screen, and the audience was boiling.

Yang Yiming, whose expression seemed to be calm, was also beating wildly in his chest.

So this is the NBA!

It turned out that stepping into the dream land where he had been haunted by his dreams since he watched Yao Ming land in the NBA from TV felt so wonderful!

2/

The first home game, coupled with the familiar Texas Civil War opponent, this game was played with momentum from the beginning and the Rockets maintained the lead.

Yang Yiming, who wore the No. 17 jersey, also got more playing time than he did in his last game against the Kings — and maybe his banter at the press conference that morning really worked.

With 1:30 left in the first quarter, Yang Yiming replaced small forward Trevor Ariza, and there was a small area of jubilation in the arena. Since Yang Yiming's jersey has not yet had time to be put on sale, he saw some fans waving Zhou Qi or Yao Ming's commemorative version of the jersey to express their support. No. 9 and No. 11.

In the first quarter, Yang Yiming grabbed a backcourt rebound and had a chance to shoot in the middle range on the offensive end, but unfortunately the ball bounced twice on the basket and bounced out again.

After a short break, he continued to play early in the second quarter, with Coach D'Antoni fielding a small man lineup led by Eric Gordon and Yang Yiming playing the role of false No. 4.

"Do you remember the last ball in training?" Coach D'Antoni recreated that combination on the tactical board, "I pulled the three-point open when I had the chance, and Yiming and Ryan (Anderson) were both. Then the opposing center will be forced out and Gordon will have space to break inside or split the ball to shoot you a three. ”

It worked, as Gordon broke through to the basket and hit a sideways hook shot. Immediately after the second round, the Mavericks locked up the defense in the penalty area, Gordon chose to divide the ball after breaking through, Yang Yiming waited for a long time, opened his hand and hit it, and scored three points.

After successfully helping to protect the next backcourt rebound, Yang Yiming and Eric Gordon once again played the tactic of breaking through the ball to the three-point line, only this time seeing the defender jump up to block, he just made a shooting feint, and distributed the ball to Anderson, who was ambushed on the same side, who hit a three-pointer.

The margin was stretched to 20 points, and the Mavericks were forced to take a timeout.

"Well done!"

"Pretty."

The teammates came up one after another and high-fived Yang Yiming to congratulate.

"Chinese Yang is no worse than Chinese Yao." Nene , a veteran center who was also playing in the NBA during Yao Ming's time, also came to praise the young man, put his arm around his shoulders and pointed his finger over the arena.

Receiving the towel handed by Guo Xiaochun, Yang Yiming wiped his sweat while following his fingers and looked up. Under the black dome of the arena, there are seven retired jerseys hanging high. Although far away from the sparkling lights of the stadium at the top, the jersey shone in the dark as if by magic, and the numbers and names on it were very clear. Among them are Rockets legends like No. 22 Drexler and No. 34 Olajuwon. And the latest one of them is the No. 11 jersey from Yao Ming from the Great Wall of China.

Yang Yiming looked at it for a while before looking away, then wiped off his sweat and walked back to the players' area to rest.

3/

In the fourth quarter of the game, Yang Yiming had another chance to play, hitting two shots and two shots, scoring 4 points, 3 rebounds and 1 steal.

Although the Rockets made all the substitutions in the fourth quarter, scoring a mediocre 15 points as a team, they still won the game comfortably with a huge 34-point lead built up in the first three quarters.

James Harden, who had 29 points, three rebounds and seven assists, was named the best of the game and received a standing ovation from the fans when he was substituted.

Yang Yiming was finally able to play 11 minutes, and the statistics he handed over to the home fans included 7 points and 5 rebounds, as well as a steal and an assist.

"How do you feel?" Walking back into the passage of the locker room, Yu Xiaochun asked.

"Unbelievable I played at the Toyota Center! Think we didn't think it was a few days ago! ”

"That's right. Come to think of it, my biggest dream was to one day be at the Toyota Center to play a live game for the Rockets, but now, I'm directly in the dugout with you! It seems that Yang Yiming is not the only one who is excited to realize his dream today.

"It's going to be our home stadium from now on."

"Can't wait to come back."

"Yes, come back and fight together!"

In the passage, two figures, one tall and one short, walked next to each other.