Chapter 235: Away Battle
After beating the Warriors, the Suns regained the top spot in the West with a 7-1 record, and then the Suns began a brutal back-to-back road campaign.
The first challenge was the Charlotte Hornets, who officially announced on May 21, 2014 that the team had changed its name to the Charlotte Hornets. At the same time, the history of the Hornets from 1988 to 2002 was officially assigned to the current Charlotte Hornets.
The Hornets currently have 15 players on the roster, with Jefferson topping the list with 13.56 million and new signing Stephenson at 9 million. The Hornets have a total salary of $63.179 million. The salary cap for the new season is $63.065 million, the luxury tax collection line is set at $76.829 million, and the minimum wage line is $56.759 million.
The Hornets have been able to strengthen this summer, signing free agents Stephenson, Marvin Williams, and Brian Roberts, and Stephenson will be the outside core of the Hornets, who averaged 13.8 points, 7.2 rebounds, 4.6 assists per game last season, and hit a triple-double 5 times (Li Mojie 9 times, winning the honor of a triple-double title), and is one of the most versatile players in the league.
And Jefferson, the core of the Hornets inside, averaged 21.8 points, 10.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.1 blocks per game last season, and was one of the best centers in the league. In the new season, the combination of Jefferson and Stephenson, plus the outside support of Walker, Henderson, and Neil, Jordan said that the team's goal is not just to make the playoffs.
However, it is one thing to think about it, and it is another thing to be able to do it.
The Hornets, who played at home in this game, played very hard, and they were extremely accurate, and they even forced the Suns to score only 20 points in the first quarter of the game, and led the Suns by 6 points in a single quarter.
But after the start of the second quarter of the game, Gerard Green and Pierce led the Suns' bench players to start powering, and when the main players of the Hornets had to go off the court, the two joined forces to exert power, plus Jokic organized from it, so that the Suns directly played a wave of 15:4, and the score was not only caught up but also overtaken.
The Hornets had to replace the main players in advance, but even so, the main team of the Hornets did not be able to overtake the score, and by the time Li Mojie returned to the court, the score was still 42:39, and the Suns led by 3 points.
Then Li Mojie began to exert his might, in the face of the defense of "No. 1 Zhan Blowing" Stephenson, Li Mojie was unrelenting, three-point shooting, breakthrough, and eighteen kinds of martial arts calmly deployed, scoring 11 points in a row, and directly stopped the Hornets.
Then Stephenson was replaced, and during the timeout, there was a small episode on the Hornets bench, and Kemba Walker seemed to be accusing Stephenson, but Stephenson was obviously disdainful of Walker, and the two were not even willing to do it as apparent brothers.
Come to think of it, in the Hornets starting lineup, Kemba Walker is a man who can only play with the ball, and Al Jefferson also needs a lot of ball possession on the inside, but what about Stephenson? He is also a man who needs to carry the ball, and Stephenson, who played from the strong team Pacers, does not look down on Walker, and even wants to be the boss of the Hornets, and the conflict between the two has become more and more intense.
Steve Clifford, the head coach of the Hornets standing next to him, sighed, it seems that the Hornets have been cool again this year, this Stevenson is a problem player he doesn't recommend it, but Boss Joe likes it very much. When Lance Stephenson was still in elementary school, he even went so far as to foul his teammates in order to steal the ball in the game. And at the age of 17, Stephenson, who attended Lincoln High School, was also embroiled in a sexual assault scandal in which he was accused of molesting a 17-year-old girl on campus. And on August 17, 2010, Stephenson was arrested by police at home for assaulting his girlfriend, and in the confrontation he pushed his girlfriend Williams down ten steps.
In this way, the Hornets finally lost to the Suns 95-108, and Li Mojie scored 32 points, 10 assists, 11 rebounds and 6 turnovers.
At this time, many fans have already criticized ESPN's prediction before the start of the season on the Internet: "The Suns can't make the playoffs? Which wise expert gave this review? ”
"I think the Suns will not only make the playoffs, but maybe they can also break last season's record and go further in the playoffs!"
I don't know if it's because of being milked, against the Celtics away, all the players of the Suns don't feel good, they are simply casting the Celtics' basket into steel, on the contrary, the Celtics have how to shoot with the blessing of the home buff, and Thomas Jr., who was traded to the Celtics in advance because of the butterfly effect on the bench, was even more violent, hitting three three-pointers in a row.
The Suns finally regained some touch in the fourth quarter, but it was too late, and in the end, the Celtics defeated the Suns 114-106, and Li Mojie scored 29 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists, shooting 47.2% from the field and 39.4% from three-point range.
However, the Spurs were unusually strong in their overall performance and ability to take advantage of opportunities in the final moments, and after a tie after the first three quarters of the game, the Spurs seized the opportunity at a crucial moment in the final quarter of the game and finally won the game 99-96.
Then the Suns continued to play away, this time it was the Nets, three games in four days directly wiped out the state of the Suns, the Suns will continue to play iron in the last game, and on the other side, the Nets played well under the leadership of Joe Johnson and Lopez, and finally the Nets scored 6 double-doubles, defeating the Suns 121-112, Li Mojie still scored 30 points, but the shooting rate was only 43.1%, and the three-point shooting rate was 20%.
"I'm finally home, I'm tired, Anella come over and make me a knee pillow!" The schedule of three games in four days made people like Li Mojie feel tired, and as soon as he returned to Phoenix's home, he lay on the sofa and didn't want to move.
Anella, who was sitting on a tablet, said: "You guys came back after a night's sleep last night, and now you won't sleep again, by the way, I'll tell you something, Adidas has also asked me to be a spokesperson!" ”
"Well, I see." Li Mojie buried his head in Anella's thigh and looked like a salted fish, and he was not surprised, what is so strange about Adidas looking for female celebrities to endorse, like that Beibi, Xi Mengyao and others were not all spokespersons of a certain brand of Adidas later? Anella is now much more famous than these two, and the headband of the Colombian fitness goddess is not less!
"They said yesterday that the two of us should shoot a commercial together, I don't know if you're available!" Anella asked.
"Yes, this kind of thing can be done with Fleicher, pick a date to come out." Li Mojie replied casually.
But what he didn't know, he said that Fleicher was there, and the phone rang immediately and Fleicher's thick Texas accent came: "Mojie, you've been doing a good job lately!" ”
"What's good? I've lost the last two games. Li Mojie picked up his mobile phone and replied.
"That's a small thing, you didn't notice that you're at the top of the scoring charts right now!" Fleischll excitedly.
"Huh? It's like, what's wrong? Li Mojie was curious.
"What's the matter, Durant averaged 30.1 points per game in his third season, becoming the youngest scoring champion in history, and now you have a chance to break his record, the record for the youngest scoring champion!" Fleischer reminded.
"Looks like yes, Mo Jie, you see you're indeed at the top of the scoring charts right now, a lot ahead of second place James!" Anella, who was next to her, also chimed in.
"James is not enough, his goal this season is only to win the championship, the Cavaliers currently have Irving and Love, they all need the right to shoot, James can't shoot more in order to run in the lineup, Wade and Kobe are old again, Anthony is not as good as a day, Durant was originally the biggest competitor, but he is estimated to be back in the middle and late stages after the game, so you have a good chance this year!" Fleischer carefully analyzed.
"Oh?" Li Mojie also began to recall, this season's scoring champion seems to be Westbrook, averaging only 28.1 points per game? Durant has been hit by injuries this season, and the Thunder haven't even made the playoffs. is also a single-core team, Wei Shao was injured last season, and as a result, Durant single-core led the team to play the second record in the West while winning the scoring title and MVP honor, but this season Durant was injured and Westbrook led the team, although Wei Shao won the scoring title, but the team didn't even enter the playoffs!
"This honor is really attractive!" Li Mojie finally nodded. I want to talk about "The New Magician of Basketball" with more like-minded people, pay attention to "excellent reading literature" on WeChat, talk about life, and find confidants~