Chapter 168: Detroit in a Recession
Detroit's economic crisis has caused the Pistons' ball market to not be very good, and the once terrifying home court of the Pistons no longer exists. Pen & Fun & Court www.biquge.info workers lost their jobs, and many left Detroit for other cities.
The lack of fans has also affected the Pistons, and it is strange that the home players can play well when they look at the stadiums that are not satisfied every day.
If one day Detroit really doesn't have people, the Pistons will definitely have to move. It's common for NBA teams to move, and the Hornets temporarily moved to Oklahoma a few years ago due to the New Orleans storm. Almost every team has moved, or changed its name, but no player wants their team to move.
However, the strength of the Pistons is as good as ever, and there are still four of the former five Tigers, Rasheed Wallace, Puslin, Hamilton, and Billups are all there, plus McDyce, which is now the starting lineup of the Pistons.
Mark Hill, Starkey, Jarvis Hayes, Afflaro and Amir Johnson are the main substitutes, and they are still among the top teams in the East.
However, when it came to playing against the Clippers, the Pistons found it still struggling. The powerful lineup was completely crushed by the Clippers, Artest defended Puslin, Liu Su defended Hamilton, and the two defended the two tigers, only Rasheed Wallace could play better than Loops.
However, Billups doesn't have much offensive ability, and his height is much taller than Rajon Long, but his shooting is not accurate, even if he is vacant, he can't guarantee the shooting rate, not to mention that there is a person standing in front of him! What is stronger than Loops lies in the organization and defense, he still does a good job of defending Rajon Rondo, Rajon Rondo can't break through him at all, he can only hand the ball to Liu Su and let Liu Su play Hamilton alone.
David Lee and Rasheed Wallace completed each other's explosions, David Lee couldn't defend Rasheed Wallace, and David Lee also got a lot of vacant seats because of Liu Su and scored a lot of points.
From the current point of view, David Lee really doesn't have much talent in defense, and he is not as good as Noah, who has just joined the NBA. There were some defensive flashes last season that I can't see now, and this season is a contract year for him and Ryan Gomez, and they both want to play well and get a good contract for next season.
McDyce was also blocked by Carman, and for a while the Pistons only relied on Rasheed Wallace to score, and he scored 20 points in the first quarter, while the Pistons only scored 28 points, and the other only 8 points were recorded.
On the contrary, the Clippers scored 45 points, a difference of 17 points in the first quarter. The Clippers blossomed more, and Carman singled out McDyce to score 7 points. Liu Su had 17 points and 7 assists, four of which went to David Lee, who scored 8 points. Two went to Artest, who also scored 8 points, and one went to Rajon Rondo, who scored 5 points.
In the second quarter, Liu Su was rested, and the Clippers still went up and down five times to come off the bench. Liu Su sat on the field and looked at the attendance rate in the stands around him, and found that it was only about 70%, which was too low.
You must know that this game is very popular with fans, and the battle between the strong teams in the West and the strong teams in the East is a game broadcast live in the United States. With only 70% attendance in such a game, it can be seen that Detroit has become lonely?
The Pistons didn't replace the four tigers, and it took another six minutes in the second quarter to replace the four tigers. In those six minutes, he recovered 13 points, and the difference was only four points.
But as soon as the Four Tigers came down, the Pistons' bench couldn't block the Clippers' attack, and was attacked by a wave of 8:0, which expanded the difference by more than ten points.
In the third quarter, the Clippers switched to the main force again, and after a break and halftime, their physical strength had already recovered to full. After coming up, everyone was full of spirit, and Liu Su broke through Hamilton more easily.
Hamilton switched positions with Puslin in two rounds, but Puslin couldn't prevent Liu Su. Liu Su unexpectedly broke out, and his physical strength was also off the charts, and he passed Puslin in one step.
After playing a few games, Liu Su's competitive state began to improve, and now it has exploded, and everything is falling into place. Originally, Liu Su was very strong, but after the outbreak, he was even more unstoppable, and after entering the inside line, sometimes Rashid Wallace and McDyce couldn't react, and Liu Su had already rushed up to complete the dunk.
The third quarter became Liu Su's personal show, La Jian Longdo handed the ball to Liu Su in the half, Liu Su broke through and shot everything, and Puslin's single defense was simply impossible.
Hamilton came over to wrap up, and the two defended Liu Su. However, Hamilton's defense is really bad, his body is not strong, and he is just a strengthened version of Capono, and what is stronger than Capono is that he can shoot strongly.
Liu Su can always find a breakthrough from Hamilton's side, and the two-person package fails. The Pistons immediately replaced Hamilton with Jarvis Hayes, who was better defensive, and Pusling to pack Liu Su.
Liu Su could only pass the ball out, but fortunately, Rajon Rondo answered on the side, and then passed it to Artest, who was in the vacant position. Although Artest's open three-point shooting is not very accurate, it can still reach a shooting rate of about 40%.
Although this hit rate is also very high, it is far worse than Liu Sulai. In the third quarter, Liu Su attacked 11 times, made all 7 shots, and got 4 assists in the remaining four times.
In the second half, Liu Su did not attack, but he was still the most eye-catching person in the audience. Even when you don't have the ball, there are faint two people who come over and pounce as soon as you get the ball. It can be seen how much the piston is afraid of Liu Su.
Rajón Rondo took advantage of this opportunity to get a lot of assists, and in the previous games, Rajón Rondo only got six or seven assists, and for the first time in this game, it reached more than ten. He is a point guard, and the assist is still not in the second position.
Although the Pistons fans at the scene were not full, they were very supportive of the Pistons and cheered for the Pistons loudly. From this point of view, Liu Su is still more envious of the Pistons, the cohesion of their fans is too high, and the only one in the league who can compare with the Pistons is probably the Spurs.
The fans in Los Angeles don't have such a high degree of cohesion, one is because Los Angeles has two teams, some Lakers fans, some Clippers fans, and some fans common to the two teams, so how can there be such a high degree of cohesion?
The second is that most of the fans in Los Angeles are white-collar workers or people in the entertainment industry, and they have to take care of their own image on the court, and it is impossible to be like this group of workers in the Pistons, shouting and shouting without any image.
In the sixth minute of the fourth quarter, the elder Dunleavy replaced the main force, and the current score difference is more than 20 points, which is enough to squander the bench.
After winning the Pistons, Liu Su attended the press conference and followed the team bus. The piston's arena is in the industrial area, and as the bus starts in the industrial area, Liu Su looks at the factory outside. There are too few factories with lights on, those are factories with people working, and the other factories are either not set up night shifts because of poor economic performance, or have closed down.
After the bus left the industrial zone, Liu Su had to sigh that Detroit was really in decline.