The seven-game game was just a minor episode in the regular season for the Pistons, and they had more games to play. Under the tutelage of Brown and Chang Wei, this grassroots team has gradually completed its metamorphosis, becoming the top defensive powerhouse in the league that everyone fears, and no team will dare to say that they will win the game when facing them.

However, this year's Christmas game did not have a part of the Pistons, and the three games arranged by the league were 76ers vs. Spurs, Lakers vs. Kings and Raptors vs. Nets, and the Pistons became the only team in the top four in the East that did not participate in the Christmas war. Of course, there is one team in the top four in the West who shares their woes, and that is Cuban's Dallas Mavericks, but the Mavericks, with Nowitzki, Nash and Finlay at the core, are undoubtedly much better than the Pistons' dull style of play.

The Pistons didn't feel any regrets about not being able to participate in the Christmas game, they have always been a low-key team with almost no presence, and the style of play that pursues defense and physical confrontation is difficult to be loved by neutral fans, and it is almost predictable that they will not be arranged by the league to participate in the Christmas game. You must know that the Pistons have not had many live broadcasts in the country this season, at least not worthy of their second place in the East, which is also a bad influence of their style of play.

But no one complains about not being able to show their faces in front of a national audience, and the Christmas game is just a little special regular season game in the end, and if you win, you won't add two wins, and if you lose, it won't be the same as two defeats, so what's the difference between it and the regular season? The Pistons players are more concerned about whether they can continue to maintain the second place in the East.

However, sometimes luck can't stop it, and the 76ers unsurprisingly lost to the more vetering Spurs on their home court, leaving only one win in their lead over the Pistons, who just need to work hard and have every hope of overtaking their rivals to become the first in the East. Of course, the game introduced fans across the country to a long-haired, eerie No. 20, with Ginobili coming off the bench to score 18 points and six assists, and his European layup made Durham Porter suffer.

Among all the insiders who followed this game, only Chang Wei knew what kind of height this Argentine young man would grow to. He will be an important guarantee of Spurs' longevity, the super sixth man in the GDP combination, the spiritual leader and benchmark of all Argentine players, and he will also get a well-known nickname - Demon Knife!

After the Christmas War, the 2003 Atlanta All-Stars began voting, another project that seemed to have nothing to do with the Pistons. All-Star is in a sense an exhibition game that brings together some of the league's top stars, and the more famous you are, the more gorgeous your style of play, and the more fans you support, the easier it is to be selected. The Pistons' roster has little advantage in that regard, and they've made All-Star Weekend an extra vacation.

But after the results of the first round of voting came out, the whole league gasped, and they even thought that the official statistics were wrong, because the first center in the East was the Pistons' starting center Ben Wallace!

What's more, his lead is very clear. What the? You say it's because there's no great center in the East? Coupled with the West, Big Ben's first-round votes are second only to Yao Ming, who has all the Chinese standing behind him, and the current league's No. 1 center Shark O'Neal, and he and O'Neal's votes are quite close, only a few thousand votes behind his opponent.

When a local reporter in Detroit called Big Ben's phone, he thought someone was joking with him, but when the league announced the results of the first round of voting, Big Ben froze. In fact, not only him, but the whole Pistons team felt incredible, when did their completely unfancy style of play attract fans? Although it is only Big Ben who is on the list, he represents the entire Pistons team, and even means that the fans recognize the overall style of the Pistons!

Chang Wei didn't feel anything special, but Brown was a little tearful. In fact, when he left the 76ers and chose to coach the Pistons, many people questioned his quality, especially when he turned the Pistons into a pure defensive team. Sometimes Brown wonders if he's on the right path, is he really going to make the Pistons an offensive team like he did in Philadelphia?

But now that Big Ben is the center in the East in the All-Star first-round voting, he can hold his head high and fight back against the others, and relying on defense to build a team is rare, but it doesn't mean it can't be successful. Judging from the current lead, Big Ben's selection to the Eastern Conference All-Star starting lineup this year is basically a certainty, which also gives Brown more confidence.

To Brown's excitement, no other Eastern Conference center in the second round of the All-Star voting could match Big Ben's vote, and the gap between him and second-place Ilgoskas is growing. Such a situation naturally caused a burst of exclamations from the media, and they didn't expect Big Ben to continue to occupy the first place in the center of the East, but most of their brushstrokes focused on the current situation of being strong in the west and weak in the east, otherwise wouldn't it encourage everyone to be a pure defensive player like Big Ben?

Brown scoffed at their reporting, arguing that Big Ben's selection represented a victory for defensive basketball. Looking at his red face every day, Chang Wei couldn't laugh or cry, in fact, it may only be useful for a pure defensive center like Big Ben in this era, and it will be difficult for the same type of player to eat in the league ten years later.

But ten years is still a bit too long, just focus on the present. Aside from the spectacle, Big Ben's selection as an All-Star is actually well deserved, his strength in protecting the rim is not at all comparable to other centers in the league, and he is also the core of the Pistons' defensive system, although the offensive ability is average, but the defense is absolutely no problem.

As Chang Wei expected, until the final voting results were released, Big Ben was not squeezed out by other centers, and he naturally became the starting center in the East in the 2003 All-Star Game. This result has made many insiders sigh with emotion, they all think that this year's All-Star is quite strange, and the main game, which is known for its gorgeous and entertaining, actually mixed in a blue-collar player, is there anything more bizarre than this?