Chapter 47: Kuban's Evaluation

The Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets battled in the West until the middle of the fourth quarter before the winner was gradually decided.

As the game drew to a close, the young Timberwolves players began to show signs of physical exhaustion, slowing down their feet and not following as quickly as in the first few quarters, and gradually getting more opportunities from the Nuggets.

The advantage established in the third quarter once allowed them to chase the score to within 3 points, but after the fourth quarter, these young boys finally suffered a slump after the madness, and were defeated by the Nuggets' strong offense and defense.

In the case of poor teammates and insufficient physical storage, Li Shihao scored eight points in a row through individual singles, but still did not stop the trend of expanding the point difference.

In the end, the moment the whistle blew, the Nuggets defeated the Timberwolves at home, 103:92, an eleven-point difference, which made the young players of the Timberwolves have some regrets in their hearts.

Almost, as long as they grit their teeth and hold on until the end of the game, they can get another victory!

However, they still lost this crucial game in the end.

Li Shihao looked at the bright red score, felt a little bitter in his heart, and turned around and left the court alone.

The loss of this game is not unjust, the team suffered altitude sickness in this game, coupled with the home atmosphere of Denver, the opponent is still last year's Western Conference Finals team, this game suffered a defeat, it can be said that it is not an exaggeration. But Li Shihao still felt a wave of helplessness in his heart.

He's still not strong enough, and if he's stronger in this game, then this game won't be lost so easily.

At the end of the fourth quarter, Li Shihao scored eight points in a row by himself, breaking the Nuggets' outside defense into a sieve, but he still lost.

Even if the performance in the fourth quarter is excellent, the performance of "stealth" in the third quarter makes Li Shihao's heart full of remorse, and the third quarter of the game is the key time to decide the outcome of the game, but he did not stand up and help the team reverse the score, but played the role of a spectator, watching his teammates fight.

This made him feel very guilty in his heart!

At that time, he had a poor hand, and in the face of Chauncey Billups' defense, his shooting gradually lost his crosshairs, and his 1-of-5 shooting percentage kept him from attacking again, and instead tried to create opportunities for his teammates to attack.

But it cannot be denied that as the core of the team, his sluggish state at the critical moment of the third quarter was one of the reasons why the Timberwolves lost this game.

This cannot be denied!

When the battle in the Northwest Division came to an end, the media rushed to report on the outcome of the game, and many media outlets outside of Minnesota responded with cynicism, gloating at the Timberwolves' defeat.

The reality of missing the playoffs and the management's poor draft vision have made the Timberwolves a laughing stock in the mouths of many media, and they are often one of the targets of criticism.

This season, after the Timberwolves selected the Chinese rookie Li Shihao, many mainstream media in the United States expressed their disbelief, and even thought that this would be a significant representative of high picks and low ability, and that the Timberwolves management who was incompetent in the draft was once again stupid.

However, when the new season began, what stunned countless people was that the Timberwolves' No. 11 rookie Li Shihao not only did not become a parallel commodity in the mouth of the media, but played an extremely amazing performance, averaging 27 per game. 6 points 7. The performance of 2 assists made many people realize that this is a very strong rookie.

His strength is far underestimated, after Crazy March, maybe he had special training, maybe he hid his strength in the NCAA Championship once, or he received an alien experiment, all kinds of speculation swirled in the minds of media reporters, these reporters couldn't wait to dig out Li Shihao's brain to see the structure inside, he should be a parallel rookie, why did he have such an amazing performance?

If it's just good data, it will not make these uncrowned kings so excited, what really makes media reporters lose their minds is that the Timberwolves played an excellent performance in the first two weeks of the new season, and the fish belly team that missed the playoffs last season actually showed great strength this season and was able to rank seventh in the West, which is a surprising result.

And all of this was brought by that Chinese rookie!

His arrival has changed the entire Timberwolves team, and this fish belly team actually played a triangle offense, and they played well! Their offensive and defensive system has actually been established, although it is still very simple and immature, but anyone can see the terrible lineup of the Timberwolves!

After entering the Timberwolves, this Chinese rookie repeatedly hit the basketball cognition of American mainstream media reporters with his performance, and these outstanding performances have been turned into real data with the technical statistics of each game in front of these noble and arrogant reporters.

What a nasty statistic, and why isn't such a great stat from a league star? Why is it the strength of a "parallel import" rookie who has just entered the league?

The excellent average data per game, coupled with the excellent ability to lead the team, made American media reporters speechless.

At the beginning of the new season, Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, laughed at the Timberwolves' draft vision, and he even sarcastically said: "Even if Isaiah Thomas comes, he will do better than him!" ”

As soon as these words came out, they were immediately touted by the local media in Dallas, and soon most of the United States knew about the Mavericks owner Cuban's disdain for the strength of the Timberwolves' rookie, and by the way, Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas was shot lying down after this comment.

However, two weeks after the start of the new season, the Dallas media that had been the most popular dancer began to disappear, and they had nothing to say about the performance of this Chinese rookie!

If the Timberwolves can maintain this state this season, even if they break into the playoffs, they are very promising, not to mention that this team is still young, and their future is obviously bright!

Under such circumstances, many American media, which were originally indifferent or even hostile to Li Shihao, began to pinch their noses and write about the outstanding performance of this Chinese rookie.

This is an era of supreme interests, and it is obvious that this Chinese kid has a lot of news value, and it is worth their attention!

Many mainstream media reporters secretly scolded the Chinese boy in their hearts, and at the same time endured impatience and wrote a large paragraph of repeated reports about Li Shihao.

After this game with the Nuggets, many media reporters breathed a sigh of relief, the Timberwolves failed miserably in this year's championship favorites, this is definitely a news worthy of in-depth "interpretation", at least you can hack the sluggish performance of the Chinese rookie in the second half, and the opportunity to make these media reporters feel quite happy with the opportunity to be angry in their hearts!

However, there are people who can't wait more than they can!

Mavericks owner Cuban was in a red-faced disparaging remark of the Timberwolves' No. 11 rookie at a press conference that night, and tonight the Mavericks once again reaped a hearty victory, which obviously carried the rich owner who loves basketball a little.

"Bruce? No, no, no, his performance is only temporary, and this year's rookie of the year is far from his turn! ”