Chapter 048 vs. Clippers (1)

Staples Arena, located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, is nicknamed the Stapler Center by fans.

Usually you can look from afar, and you can see the three buildings side by side in the center of the stapler with huge portraits of Lakers centers Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and current O'Neal, intuitively promoting the Lakers' proudest center tradition.

Today will be the home of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Staples in Los Angeles is the only arena shared by two teams in the entire league. The Clippers and Lakers take turns to play here, but no matter what time it is, the Clippers will always be like a child who is disliked by their stepmother, whether it is the price of tickets or the popularity of each game, the Clippers will always be behind the Lakers' butt. When it comes to Staples, people will immediately think that this is the place where legendary center Chamberlain, Skyhook Abdul-Jabbar, and Magic Johnson played, and it is also the home of Kobe and O'Neal now.

Even if the Clippers now have stars like Elton Brand, that doesn't change the fact that they live forever in the shadow of the Lakers. Now the Lakers' KO combination is in the limelight, even with Brand's luxury data of 20+10 per game, it can't be rewritten, and this situation has been continuous until the Clippers have superstars like Griffin and Chris Paul, which has been gradually changed.

Walking into the stadium, you can see the large TV screen hanging on the top of the stadium, every wonderful picture of the game can be replayed in slow motion in time, and the entire stadium is divided into more than 400 blocks, with nearly 200 passages in and out.

After Liang Xiao and Wang Dazhi met, they came to familiarize themselves with the court with the Knicks players, and then returned to the training hall where the Knicks began to start pre-game training.

Head coach Van Gundy has targeted the rotation of players, striving for more rotation of substitutes and youngsters to ensure that the main players are not so tired.

Liang Xiao was thinking very hard about how to find a means of his own on the training ground at this time, because in the previous Pistons game, he obviously felt that his offense was not smooth in many places, just like a person who rushed to kill in the enemy camp, he did not have a weapon in his hand, he could only rely on hand-to-hand combat, if the opponent was weaker than himself, then he could knock the opponent to the ground, but in the face of a strong opponent, there was no way, he could only stare at it.

Liang Xiao learned Sprewell's swing pass on his talent training ground a few days ago, and now he is slowly using it in the game, and he is still not so skilled in the first game against the Pistons, and now Liang Xiao continues to practice, but it is not an overnight thing, but this is not his own weapon, foreign products can only be borrowed and borrowed, and it is best to have a nirvana.

Talking and laughing with Sprewell practicing shooting practice, everyone seems to have no pre-game tension in today's game, I don't know if the Clippers are not afraid of this youth army, or the back-to-back games here do not have much chance of winning, so that everyone has a little taste of giving up in their hearts.

After an afternoon of training, the team returned to their hotel for dinner and final preparations.

It was eight p.m. local time, and the Knicks began to enter Staples Arena for the final preparations before the game.

"Oh, I love the locker room here, we were in the Pistons locker room yesterday like we were stuffed with a can of sardines, and here I feel like I can breathe freely." Sprewell entered the visiting dressing room and began chattering.

The away locker room at Staples Arena is the largest and best in the league, and the away locker room at the Pistons yesterday was one of the few cramped locker rooms in the league, which made the free-for-all Sprewell feel aggrieved when he entered the Pistons' locker room. The visiting dressing room here is only slightly smaller than the home team, and there is not much difference in terms of facilities except for an ultra-thin LCD screen, which makes it rare for the visitors to enjoy the same treatment as themselves in the league.

Some of the Knicks' veteran players are doing pregame physiotherapy, while some of the more physically fit people like Sprewell are watching the Clippers' game footage. Liang played a game with the Knicks, and there was nothing else to do, and he also sat on the sidelines to study the players in the Clippers team who might be in the opposite position with him, analyze their technical characteristics, and make himself better prepared to play at his current level.

The Clippers are the obvious youth guard, only three of their 15-man roster are over the age of 30, and most of the main players entered the league in '99, which has to be said that today's Clippers are a serious physical challenge for the Knicks.

Liang Xiao looked at the Clippers on the video, holding the roster of players for tonight's Clippers game. In these lists, Liang Xiao immediately found many players he was familiar with. In the past, Liang Xiao watched the NBA when he had time, and even if he fell, he would make up for it. For him, from the golden generation of players, to a group of players who rose in 2003, and then to the new generation of players, there are no two players he is not familiar with. The Clippers' Elton Brand, Kurt Margetty, Ramar Odom, and Quentin Richardson are all very familiar to Liang Xiao.

If the NBA's champion does not have parallel goods, then the current lineup of the Clippers can be said to be a very luxurious lineup. Because the champion of '98 and '99 here, there are many first-pick players in '99.

The champion show in 1998, Michael Olowokandi from Nigeria, the champion show with the title of "Olajuwon II", slapped the Clippers owner Donald Sterling in the face in the first performance, and the high-profile Sterling spoke boldly before the game, but when it came to the game, the fans and the media ridiculed for 48 minutes, but they didn't expect that this guy who couldn't even dribble coherently was actually the champion show, and became "Olajuwon II", which could only give the boss a belly of anger.

The 1999 champion pick was Elton Brand from Duke University, a prestigious American school, who was a well-deserved big star when he was in college, and last season, the Clippers made a deal with the Bulls with their top picks in exchange for Brand, a fierce player.

If Olowo Candi could play half of his big dream, the Clippers would have risen quickly, but there is no if in the NBA, and if Brand will not come here.

Regardless, with Brand, Odom, Margety, Andre Miller, and a group of young bench gangsters like Ah Q, the Clippers are still favored by many.