Chapter Seventy-One: The Race to Lose
On April 13, the regular season entered the final stage, and all eight playoff teams in the East had been born, and the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz were still fighting for the final playoff ticket in the West. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info
There were two things that got the media eye on this day, one was whether the Golden State Warriors could beat the Memphis Grizzlies with 73 wins, breaking the Bulls' record of 72 wins in '96, and superstar Kobe Bryant will face the curtain call of his career at the Staples Center.
The Knicks' home game against the Miami Heat was a bit more uneventful, but Wang didn't think so, as this game would determine who the Knicks would face in the first-round series.
In yesterday's game, the Raptors deliberately lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, slipping from the original second place in the East to the third in the East.
The Raptors and the Heat are only half a win away, if the Knicks beat the Heat at home, then relying on the regular season Raptors and the Heat's battle record, the Raptors can return to second in the East, if the Knicks lose to the Heat, the Heat will be firmly in second place, and the first round opponent is the New York Knicks.
Of course, the Knicks don't have to worry about falling to eighth in the East because the Pacers let the main team rest after losing to the Knicks, and lost to the Brooklyn Nets in back-to-back games yesterday, ending the regular season a day early.
The Raptors have grown in strength in recent seasons, with a decent record in the regular season, but they have been beaten down for two consecutive seasons and have been in the first round of the playoffs.
After the Heat returned home to James, the team underwent earth-shaking changes, and the strength also plummeted, relying on Wade's hard work and Whiteside's rapid growth, and returned to the top of the list, but unfortunately Bosh was diagnosed with a family genetic disease - a blood clot in the lungs, which led to the loss of the season.
Wang Zhuo carefully compared, and finally decided to play against the Miami Heat in the first round, first of all, all the players of the Raptors did not have injuries, and the core players were in their playing years, and they were eager for revenge.
Compared with the Raptors, the Heat's team soul Wade is no longer what it used to be, and Bosh's reimbursement has given the Heat a fatal blow.
To his surprise, Spoelstra was also obviously reluctant to meet the Knicks in the first round, which made the Hornets a favorite of everyone.
At the beginning of the game, Wang Zhuo sent substitutes to play, and the Heat team on the other side also made all substitutes, and the two sides got the orders of the head coach to try to lose the game, so the situation on the court was very ugly, all kinds of iron, mistakes, fouls, and the fans at home were drowsy.
"Phil is ahead of me everywhere, I didn't expect to compete with me now!"
In the arena of the American Airlines Center, Pat Riley sat in the president's office, his hair combed and shiny, looking at the game screen on the LCD screen on the opposite wall, extremely angry.
"Pat Riley, a cunning old fox, was not as good as me when he was the head coach, but I didn't expect that as the president of the Heat, he would say that LeBron would join, enter the finals four times, and win two championships, but he is a step ahead!"
In the Madison Square Garden arena, the Zen master stood in the fifth row of the fan seats, and a thought flashed through his mind in sync with the god Riley.
At the end of the half, the score on the court was pitifully low, 35:34, the Heat led by 1 point, seeing this situation, many fans began to leave the court early, and only some loyal fans were still barely holding on.
Throughout the first half, Wang Zhuo and Spoelstra didn't even bother to call a timeout, and there was no tactical arrangement at all, let alone speeches and roars that exaggerated the atmosphere.
After thinking about it, Wang Zhuo believes that it is necessary to take extraordinary measures, otherwise, this unsportsmanlike competition is likely to receive a warning from the league and even a fine.
At halftime, Wang Zhuo was not seen in the locker room, and no one knew where he went, and it was not until the start of the second half that Wang Zhuo stood on the Knicks' bench again.
Surprisingly, Wang Zhuo actually changed his hairstyle, and his shiny, well-organized back head was exactly the same as Pat Riley's.
Not only that, Wang Zhuo also learned the standing posture of Pat Riley, with his hands under his armpits, squinting his eyes, looking down at everything in the field, and he imitated it vividly.
"Pat is probably going to stomp his feet in anger!"
The Zen master stood in the fan seat, a subtle smile flashed on his face, obviously understanding Wang Zhuo's thoughts.
"None of the master and apprentice have any good things!"
The camera captured the smile of the Zen master, and when Pat Riley saw it through the LCD screen, he clenched his fists and slammed them on the desk, scolding him, but he was pounding on the ashtray, making his face dusty and extremely embarrassed.
When Spoelstra saw Wang Zhuo, a picture came to his mind, Pat Riley pointed at him, stared at him, and a wave of anger instantly hit his heart, and his whole face suddenly became gloomy.
When Wang Zhuo called a pause to arrange tactics, he still imitated Riley's tone and expression, the Knicks players wanted to laugh but didn't dare to laugh, and the Heat players turned their heads from time to time to observe Wang Zhuo, and the more they looked, the more angry they became, and they could see that Wang Zhuo was obviously deliberately belittling Riley's image.
Finally, when the Heat players were enraged, they played a wave of morale-boosting offense and completely brought the game into garbage time, in fact, in Wang Zhuo's view, the whole game was garbage time, and there was no so-called good or bad at all.
Two hours after the Knicks lost, the league went down in history with two remarkable events, as the Golden State Warriors defeated the Memphis Grizzlies to finish the season at 73-9, surpassing the Chicago Bulls for the best record of all time.
Kobe Bryant ended his 20-season on the court with a wild 60-point performance, capping off his career.
The end of the regular season heralds the arrival of the playoffs, and the first round of the series of Wang Zhuo's career is about to start. Black Seven?