The Knicks' winning streak ended at 26 in a row.

After the victory over the Pistons, the Knicks won two consecutive home and away games against the Heat.

But on February 19, the Knicks lost 117-122 at home against the Rockets, and the winning streak was finally fixed at 26 consecutive wins.

Knicks fans were a little disappointed not to break the Lakers' 33-game winning streak for the first time in history, but even so, the team had already surprised them.

And for the rest of the league, the Knicks' winning streak ended as a relief.

No matter what era it is, the birth of a super-strong team means that other teams are reduced to a backdrop.

The same is true for the Bulls, who won 72 in the '96-'97 season, and the same is true for the Warriors, who will win 73 in the next 15-16 season.

And there are many reasons why the Knicks and Rockets lost the game.

First of all, the Rockets have recently passed a trade and successfully obtained the glider Drexler, and the configuration of the Olajuwon single-core team has been upgraded to a dual-core drive, and the combat effectiveness has made a qualitative leap.

Secondly, the Knicks' winning streak has also made the players in the team more and more tired, everyone doesn't want to lose, and wants to extend the winning streak, so they go all out in every game and don't want to give up, and the physical and psychological pressure has been accumulating.

Ewing was out of form in this match due to the recurrence of an old ankle injury, and was completely at a disadvantage against Olajuwon.

The Rockets also had a very good feel in the game, especially on the bench. Cassel had 23 points and 10 assists on 63 percent shooting. Murray 13 points, Chakey. Brown scored 11 points and even the bench rotation scored in double figures, even more so in the starters.

Olajuwon had 27 points and nine rebounds, and Drexler had 22 points and 10 rebounds.

On the other hand, on the Knicks' side, Wang Feng scored a team-high 33 points, and Ewing scored 26 points, which seems to be quite good, but Ewing's 25 points and the number of shots are almost double that of Wang Feng.

In this game, in the face of Olajuwon's defense, Ewing made a whopping 28 shots and hit 11 goals, with a shooting rate of only 39.3%.

It was Ewing's large number of ball-holding singles on the court that caused the Knicks' overall offense to be extremely unsmooth and ultimately lost the game. ，

Obviously affected by an old injury, facing a fierce opponent like Olajuwon, why is Ewing so obsessed with making a move?

Wang Feng only thought about it a little and then understood the reason.

The reason is actually quite simple, Ewing wants to compete for the regular season MVP.

Originally, at the beginning of this season, the Knicks' poor record seemed to make Ewing miss the regular season MVP early.

However, with the end of the Christmas War, the Knicks won the airborne macho Wang Feng, starting a magnificent 26-game winning streak, and the team's record has skyrocketed all the way, and it is now second only to the Spurs in the league.

The team's excellent record also made Ewing's mind begin to liven up, the regular season MVP is so important for a professional player that many people have not been able to get it in their lifetime.

In previous years, the award has been won by Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry. Bird has a three-man monopoly, and with the retirement of black and white in recent years, even Jordan chose to retire to play baseball, and other stars finally had the opportunity to win the award.

Olajuwon won the title last season, and a season back then it was Ross Barkley.

Although Ewing is still facing the dilemma that he is the only one of the four centers who does not have a championship and a regular season MVP, Ewing can't help but be moved by this rare opportunity.

This can be seen in the last few games, Ewing is consciously increasing his possession and shots, because he wants to make his stats more pretty.

At present, Ewing's biggest opponent on the road to MVP is the leader of the Spurs, David Brown, who is also one of the four centers. Robinson, whose Spurs have the best record in the league, is also more spectacular than Ewing's.

Ewing has averaged 24.4 points, 11 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game so far, which was quite a statistic in the 90s.

But David. Robinson's average data per game is 27.5 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists, almost covering Ewing.

Whether it's his individual performance or team record, the Admiral is the better one, and it's no wonder Ewing is anxious.

You must know that at this time, most of the regular season schedule has passed, and there are only more than 30 games left, if it continues like this, Ewing will most likely lose to Robinson and miss the regular season MVP.

That's why in this game, he was obviously at a disadvantage but still kept shooting, and forced his data to 26+10 Ewing.

In Wang Feng's feeling, if in this game, Ewing has a poor hand, and he controls the ball and organizes the attack, it is not difficult to win the game.

The combination strength of Olajuwon + Drexler is really strong, but Wang Feng is not a vegetarian, and even if Ewing is suppressed by Olajuwon, he still has the strength that a top superstar should have.

But apparently, in the course of the game, he did not get such treatment.

It's not that until now, the Knicks still don't know Wang Feng's strength.

In fact, now the team from the head coach to all the players know very well how strong Wang Feng is, even if he still has a lot of things that have not been shown, such as the organizational tandem ability of the league's top point guards.

But the more this is the case, the more the Knicks don't want Wang Feng to play too well.

For the team's management and coaching staff, Wang Feng has only signed a one-year short-term contract with the team, which has made the team regret it now, and they are very worried about renewing Wang Feng's contract this summer.

It is entirely conceivable that with Wang Feng returning to free agent status, there will definitely be a large number of teams in the league squandering money to pursue Wang Feng.

The better Wang Feng performs, the lower the likelihood that the Knicks will renew Wang Feng's contract.

Therefore, even if Wang Feng has the strength of 100 points, for the Knicks, he only needs to play 80 or even 60 points now, because the Knicks themselves are a team strong enough to compete for the championship, and getting an All-Star level player is enough for them to open a huge gap with other teams in the league.

For Ewing, the team's boss who aims to compete for the MVP of the regular season, the better Wang Feng performs, the more it shows that the Knicks' excellent record has nothing to do with him.

In fact, there are many people in the outside world who think so.

After all, before Wang Feng joined the Knicks, the Knicks were only ranked around seventh in the East, and they lost to the Bulls without Jordan in the Christmas War, and no one thought that the Knicks would be as invincible as they are now to win 26 consecutive victories.

If all this credit is taken by Wang Feng alone, even if Ewing's personal data is not inferior to Robinson, it is impossible to win the regular season MVP.

The Knicks are Ewing's team, and all the players in the team are on Ewing's side except for Wang Feng, including the team's main guard Starks, and it is easy to concentrate the ball more on Ewing.

The above is Wang Feng's own speculation, and there is no evidence.

But as a player who has been in the league for many years, Wang Feng is also an old fritter, and he is no stranger to the intrigues in these teams, and his guesses are all inseparable.

He wasn't angry or angry about it.

Because he chose to join the Knicks at the beginning, he just used it as a springboard.

The Knicks are Ewing's team, and in an era of center supremacy, no one can shake Ewing's position in New York unless it's Jordan.

This is no longer a matter of strength, and this is really not a game, whether it is a professional scout, or the head coach and general manager of the team, they cannot directly watch the ability value and potential of all players, and the judgment is bound to be biased.

After all, Wang Feng has not won any substantial honors in this era, and even if he has played a phenomenal performance in the past month, it will not make the Knicks management choose to give up Ewing and choose him.

So even if he didn't get enough balls and shots, Wang Feng didn't complain too much, and didn't ask the team's head coach or general manager for more.

Anyway, as soon as the season is over, he will leave the Knicks, and then it will be clear who the joker is.

Moreover, before finding his favorite team, Wang Feng didn't want to leave a bad impression to the outside world that he was that kind of problem player.

……

The streak was ended and didn't affect the Knicks' rhythm too much.

There is no such thing as an undefeated team in this world, even if it is as strong as Jordan's 72-win Bulls, they also lost 10 games in the regular season, and the Warriors with 73 wins were overturned by the Cavaliers in the Finals.

After losing to the Rockets, the Knicks immediately started to win again, defeating the Cavaliers and Kings on the road to win two in a row.

Then, the league's main event, the annual All-Star Weekend, began.

The ratings of the All-Star Weekend in the past two seasons are actually not high, and the reason is very simple, Jordan's retirement is a heavy blow to the NBA.

Although Jordan will return this season, it will not be until after mid-March, so this All-Star weekend is still starry and does not receive much attention.

For Wang Feng, this All-Star has little to do with him, because when he signed his contract with the Knicks, the first round of the All-Star voting was over.

Now is not the world of extremely developed information technology in the future, the all-star voting has not even opened the voting channel overseas, Wang Feng has neither a local fan base, nor can he get the support of Chinese fans on the other side of the ocean, and the second round of voting is only ranked outside the top ten in the east, so naturally he is not qualified to participate in the all-star.

NBA commissioner Stern also seems to be quite unhappy with this, and he is quite looking forward to a Chinese player appearing on the All-Star stage.

Therefore, after the All-Star voting was counted, it was convenient for the All-Star to be held and someone contacted Wang Feng through the team channel, hoping that Wang Feng could participate in the three-point contest, the dunk contest, and if Wang Feng was willing, he could also participate in the rookie challenge as a first-year rookie.

Faced with such an invitation, Wang Feng refused without thinking.

For the attributes of the system's rewards, he didn't want to experience the experience of participating in single-person events for many years.

At present, Wang Feng's three-point shooting ability value has been strengthened to 99 full value, and he will not be rewarded if he continues to participate in the three-point contest and win the championship.

As for the slam dunk contest, if you win the championship, you can indeed get a reward for dunk or bounce ability.

But one thing to say, no matter which of these two ability values is +1 point, it seems a little insignificant to the current Wang Feng, and there is no need to run the all-star host Phoenix again for this.

Finally, there's the Rookie Challenge.

Although according to the rules of the league, Wang Feng, who only joined the league this season, is indeed a first-year rookie, but let the 30-year-old run to play with a group of little kids...... Stern didn't feel embarrassed, he Wang Feng still felt ashamed.

Wang Feng understands Stern's eagerness to promote the NBA in China as soon as possible, but he is not prepared to lower his value for this reason.

To sum up, there was no Wang Feng in this year's All-Star Weekend, and many Chinese fans who were looking forward to Wang Feng being able to play in front of the TV were quite disappointed.

"Didn't you say that Wang Feng was quite powerful? Why can't you participate in the All-Stars? ”

"Are those Mi Guoyans discriminating against our Chinese players?"

"Come on, Wang Feng! Try to get better results in the NBA and slap those guys in the face! ”

It's just that in the 90s, when there was no network platform as a carrier, and even a TV set was not available to every household, these voices could only sound in their own homes.

……

Stern: Second All-Star Weekend without Jordan, miss him.

The situation of the West being strong and the East being weak made the All-Star Game lose suspense not long after the opening, and the Western All-Star quickly established a lead and maintained the lead until the end of the game.

The whole game process has neither magnificent Jedi turnarounds nor passionate fierce confrontations, and it is only lethargic to watch, and although the ratings are a little higher than Jordan's first All-Star weekend when he retired, that is, in '94, they are still far less than in '93.

Such a result also strengthened Stern's determination to bring Jordan back to the NBA.

All-Star Weekend is over, and it also marks the final sprint to the playoffs for the league.

The top teams will need wins to secure their current position, while the teams with the bottom will need to fight for a valuable playoff spot.

Only those salted fish teams at the bottom of the league are still lying flat waiting for a fateful draft and then changing their lives.

The Knicks won their final two games in February against the 76ers and the Magic, with the team winning the game against the 76ers but losing to the Magic on the road with a score of 118-106.

O'Neal avenged his previous revenge, slashing 44 points and 17 rebounds, while Ewing was not to be outdone, returning the favor with 32 points and 13 rebounds.

The battle between the two super centers made the fans excited, and the Magic fans were satisfied to see O'Neal successfully suppress Ewing and win the game.

It is worth mentioning that in this game, O'Neal and Ewing had exactly the same number of shots, both 29 times, but one scored 44 points and the other 32 points......

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