On September 12, 2000, the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, all the members of the Chinese men's basketball team stayed in the Olympic Village, and the arrangements for the warm-up games were basically the same, the two youngest players in the national team, Yao Ming and Meng Xu were arranged in the same room, after some tidying up, the head coach of the national team Jiang Quan convened all the members of the Chinese national team, held a small meeting, and began to prepare for the Olympic Games.

In this Olympic Games, the Chinese national team can be called the most prosperous national team in history, with Wang Zhizhi, Battle, Yao Ming 3 big forwards inside, and the big forward is China's best big forward Liu Yudong in recent decades, although Liu Yudong is plagued by injuries this season, but it is undeniable that the entire Chinese basketball community really can't find a better big forward than Liu Yudong. Hu Weidong, Sun Jun, and Li Nan are all first-class forwards in Asia, and Meng Xu is a player who has proven himself in the NBA. At the same time, there is also good news that the two pillars of the national team, Liu Yudong and Hu Weidong, have now recovered almost, as early as after the warm-up match with Japan, the two have begun to participate in the team's confrontation, and now both are in good shape. In this case, the National Basketball Association is also very optimistic about the prospects of the Olympic Games, and has set the goal of breaking through history to Jiang Quan, the head coach of the national team, that is, to protect 8 and fight for 4 in the CBA, and strive to enter the top 4 of the Olympic Games in this Sydney Olympic Games.

But at present, there are some disadvantages for the Chinese basketball team, in the grouping of this Olympic Games, the Chinese team was divided into the group of death, several opponents in the group stage, the United States team, known as the dream team, and the Italian team, the champion of the last European Championship, as well as the traditional European powerhouses Lithuania and France, and this French team is known as the hope of Europe, and the French team is also considered to be the biggest hope to break the domination of the American basketball team in the world basketball world, and even the weakest opponent in this group, the New Zealand team, The record of the Chinese men's basketball team in the World Series is also a mutual win.

Therefore, in order to ensure that the group can appear, head coach Jiang Quan has formulated a group stage strategy in advance, and at the same time communicated with the players under his command in advance. In the group stage, some games must be abandoned, while others must be won, and the rest must be fought for as much as possible. Among the 5 opponents in the group stage, the U.S. team is undoubtedly going to give up, and the Chinese men's basketball team has no hope of the U.S. team at all, and the best case is to lose more than 20 points. The game with New Zealand must be won, only by winning New Zealand, the Chinese men's basketball team can guarantee the hope of appearing, and the remaining Italy, France, and Lithuania, must fight hard, the group stage 6 teams qualify for only 4, that is to say, at least win two or even 3 games to ensure qualification, and at the same time, in order to be able to reach the top 4, it is necessary to avoid the strongest Russian team in the other group, that is, in addition to the game with the United States, The Chinese men's basketball team will need to win at least three of the remaining four games to secure a second or third place in the group, avoiding the strongest team in the other group, Russia.

After conveying the instructions of the National Basketball Association, Coach Jiang Quan began to explain to the players the tactics and strategies that the national team will implement in the group stage, and then each team member also gave a piece of moon cake as a benefit for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

"Da Yao, what are your moon cakes trapped?" Holding a piece of five-kernel mooncake, Meng Xu grinned, he didn't like to eat five-kernel mooncakes the most.

"Mine is jujube paste, what about yours?" Unlike Meng Xu, Yao Ming, who has never been far away, was melancholy for a while when he got the moon cakes, and it seemed that he should miss his family and girls far away.

"Let's change it, I don't like to eat five kernels." As soon as he heard Yao Ming say that his moon cakes were made of jujube paste, Meng Xu went up and grabbed them without saying a word.

"Wuren mooncakes are authentic mooncakes, and other jujube mud mooncakes are heretical." Some helplessly took the five-kernel mooncake that Meng Xu forcibly stuffed into his hand, Yao Ming said helplessly, in fact, he didn't like the five-kernel mooncake either: "Meng Xu, you said that these melon seeds, peanuts, sesame, almonds, walnuts, if they are separated, they are all a delicacy, why are the five delicacies kneaded together, but some of them can't be swallowed?" ”

"It's too difficult for me to answer you." After taking a bite of the moon cake, Meng Xu continued: "These five moon cakes, I think it's similar to playing basketball, if these five players are all Jordan when they are separated, they may all win the championship." But if 5 Jordans form a team, not to mention winning the championship, I'm afraid they will all fight first. After finishing speaking, Meng Xu was somewhat persuaded by his own fallacies, but Meng Xu's statement was borrowed from Popovich. When Meng Xu first entered the Spurs, Popovich once asked himself, do you think 5 Jordans can win the championship together? Meng Xu's answer is naturally yes, don't say one, even ten are possible.

But Popovich told Meng Xu that a team with 5 players of Jordan's level will never win the championship, basketball is a team sport, since it is a team, someone has to sacrifice and pay, from the former Celtics, to the Lakers and Bulls, and even the current Spurs, the team will always be easier to win the championship than the individual. In fact, Popovich's main meaning is to let Meng Xu understand that he must have the determination to sacrifice for the team, but Meng Xu seems to have some thoughts.

"Maybe you're right." I don't know why, a small talk with Meng Xu, but it strengthened Yao Ming's idea of winning the championship in Shanghai, in the past, the Shanghai team faced the Bayi team, always being beaten by all kinds of hanging, and even the fledgling Yao Ming cried about it, Yao Ming used to think that it was because of the many stars in the Bayi team, but now after listening to Meng Xu's words, Yao Ming has changed his mind a little, Bayi is a basketball team with soldiers as the main body, compared with ordinary players, they have more team spirit and dedication, That's why they have a group of big players together, but there is no infighting for the ball and status like other teams.

On September 17, 2000, in the first round of the group stage of the Olympic Games, the Chinese men's basketball team will face the strongest American team in the group, Liu Yudong and Hu Weidong, who have recovered from injury, did not start, but like Meng Xu, only played for a few minutes, familiar with the rhythm of the game, and finally in this game, the Chinese men's basketball team also lost to the United States team 72-119 by as many as 47 points, this game is also to show the world the strength of American basketball, The Chinese basketball team, which suppressed everything in Asian basketball, did not have the slightest power to fight back after meeting the American team, and the game entered garbage time from the second quarter.

On September 19, China's second opponent in the group stage, New Zealand, Liu Yudong and Hu Weidong started the game, and although Meng Xu only played 12 minutes off the bench, he also contributed 8 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists. In the end, the Chinese basketball team also easily defeated the New Zealand team 75-60.

However, the commentator of CCAV, Mr. Zhang Lili, publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with Coach Jiang Quan on live TV, as a famous player in the Chinese basketball world, who once served as the head coach of the Huaguo basketball team and was the predecessor of Coach Jiang Quan, Mr. Zhang Lili, who was quite critical of Coach Jiang Quan's use of Yao Ming and Meng Xu.

"In this game, there is a problem with the personnel arrangement of Coach Jiang." This is the remarks of Mr. Zhang Li after the Chinese team's starting list was released, after seeing that Meng Xu and Yao Ming did not enter the starting lineup.

"Alas, a player like Meng Xu, how can you use it like this, it's unreasonable? Popovich didn't even dare to use it. When Mr. Zhang Li saw Jiang Quan's tactical arrangements for Meng Xu, he shouted that the winning streak was unreasonable and unreasonable, and Meng Xu came off the bench in this game, returning to his old job to defend the outside offensive core of the New Zealand team, and at the same time, on the offensive end, Meng Xu basically had no chance.

"Is this right, is it reasonable to play like this, you look at Meng Xu's 3 points, this is the level of the NBA 3-point king." In the fourth quarter of this game, Meng Xu hit two 3-pointers in a row to stifle the momentum of New Zealand's counterattack, and Mr. Zhang Lili continued to be reasonable and reasonable in the live broadcast of TV, just throwing, just throwing, and amusing countless Chinese fans.

On September 21st, the third game of the group stage, the Huaguo men's basketball team played against the French team, this game Coach Jiang Quan also continued the layout in the previous game, several main players of the Huaguo basketball team played very well, and led the French team by 15 points at the end of the third quarter, but the outstanding performance of the Huaguo basketball team did not win the praise of Mr. Zhang Li, who still expressed his dissatisfaction with Coach Jiang Quan one after another as in the previous game.

During the live broadcast of the last game, Coach Jiang Quan also knew about Zhang Lili's dissatisfaction with himself the next day, but Jiang Quan had nothing to do about his big-mouthed predecessor, as the former scoring champion of the World Championships, the No. 1 striker in Asia, and Zhang Lili, who also served as the head coach of the national team, has a very high status in the entire Chinese basketball world, so Jiang Quan can only pretend not to hear Zhang Lili's criticism.

Some book friends suggested that I increase the number of words in each chapter to about 3,000 words, which is more enjoyable to read, so I will try it these days, and try to update it as much as possible on the premise of ensuring 6,000 words per day. Well, I still owe Svenke Nangong a chapter of hatred.