(Happy fifteen, everyone.) ）

Of course, Wang Chao didn't agree to the other party to assist him in the slam dunk contest because Howard wanted to introduce a beautiful star to him, but everyone is a brother, and it is supposed to help each other between brothers.

All-Star Weekend doesn't start until mid-February, and it's just early in January, so Howard has plenty of time to think about what to do for the other dunks.

Wang Chao can also give more suggestions for his "good brothers", after all, in the next ten years, there will be many good dunk ideas and actions in the league's dunk contest.

With Howard's talent, even if he can't do it like LaVine and Aron. Gordon's flashy dunk moves, but there's still a chance to emulate McGee's dunk double dunk and three-shot dunk ideas.

Once these moves are successful, they must be a proper 50 perfect score, and there is no difficulty in helping Howard win the championship.

In fact, even without Wang Chao, Howard would have won the slam dunk contest with his excellent dunk skills and creativity in '08, and his advice was just the icing on the cake.

The All-Star Poll and the action ideas of the Howard Slam Dunk Contest are just episodes.

It's January, and the next schedule is a tougher challenge for the Magic.

Compared with the schedule in December, the schedule in January is more difficult for the Magic, not only to fight the Rockets again, the Celtics' two big three combinations, but also to meet the direct rival Pistons twice, these games are extremely difficult, even one more loss may be opened by the Pistons to win the gap.

But what you are afraid of often comes.

On January 2, the Magic played at home against the New Jersey Nets.

The current Nets are no longer the Eastern giants who competed with the Lakers in the Finals a few years ago. Jefferson still has it all, and even if it's not competitive enough, when the three are in good shape, it's still a terrifying team.

In this game, the Nets showed strong offensive ability, and all 7 players in the team scored double-doubles, although none of them scored more than 20+, but there were too many double-doubles, and the Nets still beat the Magic 109-103 to win the game.

The Magic's loss to the Nets followed with a 94-96 loss to the Rockets on Jan. 4.

Howard was beaten again by Da Yao, who scored 26 points and 10 rebounds and shot 67% from the field, while Howard only had 16 points and 8 rebounds, shooting 45%.

As soon as it entered January, it was a wave of two consecutive defeats, allowing the Magic to be directly overtaken by the Pistons, falling from second place in the East to third place in the East.

In fact, even if it falls to third in the East, the Magic's performance this season is amazing enough, after all, the 24-11 Magic team, the current winning rate is still 68.5%, and only the Celtics, Pistons, New Orleans Hornets and San Antonio Spurs in the West have a better record than the Magic, and in addition to the Celtics, the records of the other three teams are also very close to the Magic.

For a team that went 40-42 last season and barely made the playoffs with less than 50 percent wins, that's a huge improvement.

Therefore, even if the second place in the East is temporarily lost, no Orlando fans will complain about anything.

Wang Chao's average points per game are stable at about 25 points, Howard's personal data has also risen from 17.6 points and 12.3 rebounds last season to 21 points and 14 rebounds, and even Turkoglu currently has an average of 18.2 points, 4.8 rebounds and 6 assists per game, just like the third big man of the Magic team.

The Magic are getting better and better, and there is nothing to find fault with the Pistons, except for a little more urgency in the fight with the Pistons for the second spot in the East.

The only thing that made Wang Chao a little regretful was that Ariza was still traded away from the team.

Wang Chao, who knew Ariza's potential, also tentatively suggested to the team to keep him.

For Wang Chao's suggestion, Magic general manager Smith is more important, so he also talks to head coach Stan. Van Gundy discussed it seriously and then gave Ariza some opportunities to play in the circle.

But unfortunately, Ariza did not respond to Wang Chao's expectations, and did not play any performance that could dazzle the management of the Magic team in the limited playing time, and even sprained his ankle and recuperated for half a month.

This also made the general manager still make up his mind to trade Ariza to the Lakers in exchange for Bryan. Cook and Morris. Evans.

Wang Chao is also quite helpless about this, no matter how much the Magic team attaches importance to him, he is only a player after all, and he is not qualified to dictate the decision-making of the team management, not to mention that he has just arrived and has only been in the team for a few months, and it is not a good thing to be too high-profile.

If you can't stay, you can't stay, Wang Chao also understands the thoughts of the Magic team management, Ariza came to the Magic team for two seasons, low attendance, low efficiency on the court, Ali rooted at this time has not developed three-point ability, in addition to defense can also be worth mentioning, there are almost no advantages, at this time Ali rooted did not develop three-point ability.

And Ariza, who can't even get into the normal rotation lineup, has an annual salary of $3.1 million.

The Magic team signed Wang Chao and renewed Howard's contract ahead of schedule, and they have already paid a lot of salary price, and this unnecessary money can naturally be saved.

In fact, even after Ariza joined the Lakers, he behaved like that.

In the 07-08 season, he played only 24 games with the Lakers, averaging 6.5 points and 3.5 rebounds per game, and in the 08-09 season, he played 82 full games, and averaged 8.9 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, which can only be regarded as a qualified role player.

It wasn't until the 09-10 season that Ariza switched to the Rockets and really began to show the characteristics of a high-quality 3D player, averaging 14.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game, and the three-point shot was finally developed, averaging 5.7 shots per game and hitting 1.9 shots per game.

If Ariza really has to wait until three seasons to play, then there is really nothing to be sorry for letting it go, and even Ariza in his prime, after all, is just a role player.

……

Let's move back to the regular season.

After losing to the Rockets in the second game in January, Wang Chao, who returned to the locker room, heard the sound of the system in his ears.

"Ding-Now start to release system tasks, surpass the Pistons before the end of January, regain the second place in the East, and reward a random talent skill for task completion, the following is a list of the original Pistons team's records as of February 1, for reference only."

Wang Chao was stunned, and then he was overjoyed.

There is actually another system task released! And the reward is also an important talent skill!

But when he entered the space of consciousness and saw a glance at the Pistons' original record as of February 1, his heart suddenly sank.

As of February 1, the Pistons have a 33-13 record, a 71% win rate! In the whole league, only the Celtics are better than them.

Obviously there is no more Ben. Wallace, the core of the defense, the Pistons are still so strong!

Wang Chao is a little cold, because the current record of the Magic team after two consecutive losses is 24-11, if they want to overtake the Pistons before the end of January, it means that they can only lose 2 more games in the next 12 games!

In those 12 games, the Magic will face the Pistons twice in a straight matchup, and at the end of January, there will be a clash with the Celtics Big Three.

If you want to complete the mission goal in such a schedule, it is difficult! It's so hard!

"No wonder there is a reward for a natural skill, the system is ruthless enough, the previous tasks were as simple as welfare, but suddenly the difficulty was raised to the hell level......"

Spit and complain, but since the system has given the task and has such a rich reward, it would be a pity not to fight.

However, Wang Chao never expected that less than a day after the system released the task, the Magic team almost overturned in the away game against the Sacramento Kings.

At the end of the first half, the Magic trailed by 15 points at 46-61, and by the third quarter, they were behind by more than 20 points.

This situation, no matter how you look at it, is a wave of three consecutive defeats waiting for magic.

Seeing this scene, Wang Chao was really anxious.

There is only a two-game buffer period for the system task, and if it is wasted on a team like the Kings outside of the playoffs now, how will this task be completed later?

Wang Chao, who lost the red eye, completely took over the ball in the second half of the third quarter, made 9 crazy three-pointers in just 5 minutes, and hit 4 times, and scored 12 points in 6 minutes, forcing the difference from 20 points to 10 points.

In the fourth quarter of the game, Wang Chao continued to take over the game, leading the Magic team to play a score of 38:26 in the fourth quarter, and finally reversed the king 114:112 and won the game with difficulty.

"Rejecting three consecutive defeats, Wang Chao scored 29 points in the second half, slashed 44 points in the whole game, and led the Magic to reverse the 20-point difference to defeat the king to end the losing streak!"

"The explosive scoring output, 12 points in a row in 5 minutes in the third quarter, Wang Chao's three-point shot has the lethality and deterrence of a strategic nuclear weapon."

"Wang Chao's average points per game rose to 26 points, surpassing Carmelo Anthony, who averaged 25.8 points per game, ranking fourth in the league, and officially squeezing into the league's first-line scorers."

This is just the beginning.

On January 9, in consecutive back-to-back away games, the Magic defeated the Los Angeles Clippers 113-106, Wang Chao shot 9 of 18, cut 28 points and 6 rebounds, and carried the game again.

On January 11, the third consecutive away game, visiting the Denver Nuggets, Wang Chao and Anthony staged an offensive battle, no one could prevent anyone during the game, and finally Anthony shot 11 of 20, 8 of 10 free throws, and cut 32 points, 11 rebounds and 2 assists, while Wang Chao shot 13 of 24, 7 of 12 three-pointers, got 33 points and 4 rebounds, with Howard's 20 points and 13 rebounds and Turkoglou's 17 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists, defeated the Nuggets 114-112 and won three consecutive victories.

On January 12, for the fourth consecutive away game, the Magic team welcomed a strong opponent to the Utah Jazz.

Wang Chao was affected by Kirilenko, and his fiery state finally dropped a little, with 18 points and 3 rebounds on 7-of-15 shooting, and Howard stepped up in this game, scoring 29 points and 15 rebounds, including 6 offensive rebounds, and he alone grabbed the total number of offensive rebounds of the Jazz team.

At 119:115, the Magic team won all four consecutive away games, and the four consecutive wins were achieved!

After defeating the Jazz, the Magic's devil's schedule finally ended, and the next opponents were relatively friendly in terms of strength and home-and-away arrangements, and the Bulls, Bobcats, and Trail Blazers won all three games smoothly, and unknowingly won seven consecutive victories.

In these games, Wang Chao has always maintained a very hot state, and the average points per game are also improving, gradually approaching the third "answer" Allen in the scoring list. Iverson.

The outstanding performance is also reflected in the results of the subsequent All-Star vote.

A few days ago, the All-Star voting officially ended, and the All-Star starters in the East and West were all decided.

As in the original history, Garnett was elected the All-Star vote king with 2.3 million votes due to his super popularity, and James with 2.1 million votes was relegated to second place, and both became the starting forwards of the Eastern Conference All-Stars.

Howard was second only to the two in terms of votes, and he was the best at center, far behind O'Neal, the big shark in the East, and became an All-Star starter in the East.

As for Wang Chao, although he failed to compete for an All-Star starting position in the gap between Garnett and James, he finally received 1.6 million votes, which is not a lot at all, because the voting results of Eastern defenders, the first and second are Wade with 1.6 million and Kidd with 1.24 million.

If Wang Chao is a defender, he can even beat Wade by a very narrow vote margin to become the player with the highest vote rate in the Eastern Guard, but unfortunately, Wang Chao is a forward, not a guard, so he can only play in the 08 All-Star Weekend as an All-Star substitute.

The All-Star vote in the West was significantly worse than in the East, with the only player with more than 2 million votes being Kobe Bryant, along with Cameron the others. Anthony, Duncan, Da Yao and others also only have about 1.7 million votes, and in addition to Kobe Bryant, who was selected as an All-Star starter on the guard line, the other is Allen who has only 1.2 million votes. Iverson.

It is worth mentioning that as a first-year rookie, Huaguo player UAE has not performed very well this season, and Wang Chao's suggestion has not changed the dilemma faced by UAE in the Bucks, after all, many things can not be solved with a mouth.

Halfway through the regular season, the average data of the UAE is only about 8+5 per game, and there are already many media discussing whether the UAE's draft ranking has been inflated too high?

However, the United Arab Emirates, which did not perform well on the court, still received more than 450,000 votes in the All-Star vote, ranking sixth in the Eastern Conference forward position behind Garnett, James, Wang Chao, Bosh and Pierce.

This is the bonus effect brought by the huge number of Chinese fans behind the Chinese players.

Even in 2008, the penetration rate of computers and the Internet in Huaguo was far from reaching a sufficient number of proportions, but it still cannot be ignored, Da Yao, Wang Chao and the United Arab Emirates undeniably enjoyed the dividends of being Chinese players.

Of course, although the number of votes in the UAE is good, there is basically no possibility of being selected as an All-Star substitute, after all, below him is the Wizards forward Caron, who averages 20+6+5 per game. Butler, Prince of the Pistons, and Turkoglou, who is currently averaging 18+5+5 per game for the Magic.

At this moment, Wang Chao doesn't care much about the results of the All-Star vote, he cares more about the next regular season games of the Magic team.

After seven consecutive wins, the Magic team is about to usher in the biggest challenge in Wang Chao's mission.

The Magic have five games left in January, including two at home and on the road against the Pistons' bayonet games, as well as a tough home challenge against the Celtics.

And on Jan. 21, the team will be the first to take on the Pistons at home.

Prior to this game, the Pistons had reached a 30-11 record, and the Magic, who had reached 31-11 after a seven-game winning streak, regained the second place in the East.

But this is not enough to make Wang Chao breathe a sigh of relief, after all, the original historical Pistons team, the final record after January is 33 wins and 13 losses.

If the Magic lose more than three of the remaining five games, the final record will come to 33-14, and the Pistons will lose one more game if the win is the same as the Pistons, and then the Pistons will still lose the second place in the East, considering the relationship between the two sides.

In that case, Wang Chao's system task will fail!

What's more, the Pistons' 33-13 record is just the original historical record.

The situation is different now, with the Magic team as a strong rival pressing, the Pistons may not necessarily have a 33-13 record as in the original history, maybe 34 wins or even 35 wins, which is even worse.

Therefore, the next two games with the Pistons must be won no matter what, and the Pistons will be forced to score 13 losses first, so as to be invincible.

Fast forward to January 21.

The Magic host the Pistons in January at their home stadium in Orlando.

The Magic's starting five, Nelson, Morris. Evans, Turkoglou, Chao Wang, Howard.

The Pistons started five Tigers, Billups, Hamilton, Prince, Rashid. Wallace, Antonio. McDyce.

As soon as the game began, Wang Chao discovered the Pistons' defensive strategy against him.

Prince, who is still the team's best defensive ability inside and outside, marks him, and like other teams, he can shoot with the ball, but don't easily shoot three points from the outside.

Not only that, when Wang Chao really broke through with the ball, the Pistons would immediately have nearby players come to help defend and pester Wang Chao to prevent him from having a chance to shoot easily.

Although this kind of defense will make other positions on the court empty, the Pistons can quickly make up for the missing positions with excellent defensive rotation, and even if it is really too late, the rest of the Magic team will score better than Wang Chao's score.

This defense led to Wang Chao taking only four shots in the first quarter, hitting two shots and scoring only five points, and the Pistons took a 30-26 lead in the first quarter.

"Do you value me so much?"

This kind of treatment should usually be used when facing super scorers such as Kobe and Iverson, and it seems that in the eyes of everyone on the Pistons, he is already a scorer worth targeting with a bag.

This can be regarded as a recognition of Wang Chao's strength.

But this kind of tactical defense is obviously not wise to use against the Magic, at least not a long-term solution, because the current Magic has a star-studded prototype, and almost all players on the court except for Howard can shoot three-point shots.

In the first quarter of the game, this situation did not have much impact, but as Wang Chao gradually adapted to the Pistons' defensive strategy, whenever he was trapped, he could pass the ball out as soon as possible, even if his ball strength and angle were not particularly good because of the lack of passing ability, but the other players on the outside of the Magic team could still easily find an opportunity to shoot as long as they conducted the basketball a little.

When the game entered the second quarter, the Magic's outside began to fire gradually, Nelson, Turkoglou and others all hit three-point shots, while Howard was also turning over the Pistons inside. Wallace's Pistons, interior defense has also become a problem, and Rashid. Although Wallace has a height of 2.11 meters in height, which belongs to the height of a standard interior center, he is a power forward, and his weight of 104 kilograms cannot withstand Howard's impact.

The Magic started to get better in the second quarter, scoring 29 points in the quarter while successfully limiting the Pistons' scoring to just 21.

Then came to the third quarter of the game, Wang Chao also began to exert his strength.

The tiger is not powerful, do you think I am a sick cat?

The Magic team has the ball, Wang Chao ran past half court, came to the bottom corner of the three-point line, looked at Prince who was following him, and thought to himself.

Indeed, with his current offensive level with the ball, he does not have the ability to break the bag at all, once he is caught by the opponent, he can only be forced to stop the ball, and then the pass or mistake is broken.

But the problem is that he can not only attack with the ball!

Bag clip: I'm right? Then don't blame me for not talking about martial arts.

Glancing at Prince, Wang Chao directly shook a shot, slipped the bottom line and ran towards the three-point corner on the other side.

Prince was stunned for a moment, this extremely familiar scene made him subconsciously keep up with Wang Chao's footsteps immediately, and he didn't dare to slack off in the slightest.

But alas, he was still half a step slower.

At the same time that Wang Chao quickly passed through the inside line, Howard just crossed half of his body and slightly blocked Prince's footsteps, and ran to Wang Chao in the bottom corner of the other side to stand in a fixed position, and Turkoglu's pass had already come to him.

"Sure enough...... It's a lot worse than Nash's passing quality. ”

The moment Wang Chao received the ball, he couldn't help muttering in his heart, and then raised his hand to shoot the basketball.

Prince, who was too late, could only watch as the basketball crossed a parabola in the air and then went into the net.

Running without the ball, the previous Wang Chao relied on this trick to play enough prestige and strength in the Suns to get the Magic's top salary offer contract.

At that time, no one expected that Wang Chao, who came to the Magic team, would quickly transform from a player who mainly played off-ball tactics to a ball-handling offensive master, so that the regular season lasted for nearly three months, and many people had forgotten what Wang Chao's old job was.

When Wang Chao returned to his old job, the Pistons' bag and clamp tactics were self-defeating, after all, the premise of the bag is that at least the players must have the ball in their hands, otherwise it would be a lonely?

Facts have proved that Wang Chao's off-ball running ability is still as sharp as ever, especially in the third quarter of the game, even if Wang Chao didn't run much in the previous game, just the turnaround run of offense and defense on the field also guaranteed to activate the first stage of the long-distance runner's talent.

After all, with the blessing of long-distance runner talent, there may not be any obvious feeling in the first half, but in the second half, the advantage of physical fitness and the bonus of running speed will make Wang Chao's off-ball running extremely difficult to defend.

On the one hand, the Magic team itself lacks a strong ball-holding offensive starting point, although Nelson and Turkoglu both have a certain ability to hold the ball, but the offensive effect at critical moments is obviously not good, and Wang Chao's ball-holding offense is needed to lack the team's tactical deficiencies.

On the other hand, Wang Chao also hopes to hone his ball-holding offensive skills as much as possible during the regular season, the value only represents Wang Chao's basic ability value, and the situation on the field is changing rapidly, not that the ability value alone can show 100% of the ability value due effect.

Wang Chao needs to gain more experience in attacking with the ball through a large number of ball-handling attacks on the court, so that his ball-handling skills can continue to grow and eventually surpass his off-ball skills.

Under this premise, if the battle situation is stalemate or more critical, Wang Chao does not reject returning to the identity of off-ball offense and becoming a key part of turning the tide of the game, such as now.

The game with the Pistons must be won no matter what, after all, it is related to the progress of the completion of the system task, and if necessary, he will even use the "trick" at the bottom of the box.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be necessary to use a "trick", Wang Chao, who suddenly changed from holding the ball to not having the ball, the Pistons team was a little difficult to adapt for a while, and the result was that Wang Chao ran out of three vacant opportunities in a row and hit all of them, and scored 9 points in a row in 3 of 3 three-pointers, directly pausing the Pistons team.

The Magic's ferocious offensive also directly widened the difference to more than double digits.

"Damn...... That guy is so tough! ”

The Pistons will gather together, and their expressions are not very good.

For today's game, they have also prepared for a long time and made targeted arrangements, and even in their opinion, this is already a rehearsal matchup for the two teams to meet in the playoffs.

Obviously, whether or not he can successfully limit Wang Chao's play is the key to winning the game.

In the first half, they did a good job, even if the other Magic perimeter players were given some open shots, but the overall situation was still under their control.

But in the third quarter of the second half, now they have no way to control the game, Wang Chao, who has changed from holding the ball to not having the ball, is completely like another player with strong scoring ability suddenly appeared on the field, and the previous defensive strategy has become ineffective, and even become a drag.

It's not without players in the league who can seamlessly connect offense with offense off the ball at the same time. Allen is a typical player who can play both offensive with the ball and without the ball, and the current Celtics can lead the league with a unique record, because the Big Three cooperate tacitly without any problems in the distribution of the ball, especially as the outside of Ray. Allen, with Pierce's cooperation, can still provide 18+ points per game steadily even when playing without the ball.

Don't underestimate Ray. Allen's average of 18 points per game, the Celtics' offensive rhythm is already slow, and the Big Three only have about 13 shots, so the three of them are averaging less than 20 points per game this season. For Aaron, it's as simple as eating and drinking.

Wang Chao and Lei. Allen is different, although they both have a high voice in the field of three-point shooting, but the styles of the two are obviously very different, Wang Chao's lethality and threat are far more than Ray. Allen is bigger and his three-point shot is more accurate!

In the short period of timeout, the Pistons couldn't think of any good way to deal with it, so they could only force it to deal with it, if Wang Chao continued to run without the ball and threw off Prince, other players would help Prince fill the vacancy, and then Prince would go to fill the defensive void on the other players' side.

Such an approach is bound to make mistakes on the field, but what can be done?

The Pistons finally understood how much trouble Hamilton had to defend when other teams faced them, but the worst thing is that Hamilton's scoring hot zone is mainly two points, and three-point shooting is not his strong point, but Wang Chao's three-point shooting can really shoot alive!

At the end of the timeout, the Pistons, who trailed by double digits, began their final desperate fight, but the final attempt quickly failed.

Wang Chao is not afraid of supplemental defense.

The Pistons were able to complement him, except for Rashid on the inside. In addition to Wallace, substitute striker Jason. Mark Hill with Billups and Hamilton on the back line.

Mark Hill is 2.01 meters tall, and his arm span is only an ordinary average, so he can't defend Wang Chao's shots like Prince, not to mention Loops and Hamilton, under Wang Chao's 99 interference three-point shooting ability, even if they are standing in front of Wang Chao, he dares to force a shot directly against the defense.

As for Rashid. Wallace, 2.11 meters tall, and his mobility is also very good, he can indeed effectively limit Wang Chao's three-point shooting, but the problem is that if he assists in defense, what about the inside? Let Prince go inside to guard Howard?

The Pistons, who can't think of any good way at the defensive tactical level, have no way to limit the Magic's scoring, and can only hope to score more points than the Magic on the offensive end to overtake the score, which is tantamount to putting the cart before the horse for the Pistons, who are good at defense.

Until the end of the fourth quarter, the Pistons couldn't catch up with the score of 112-107.

At the home court of the Magic team, the Pistons lost this key game, and the records of the two teams advanced and retreated, and then as long as they beat the Pistons on the road three days later, the task of the Wang Chao system will be nine out of ten!

(End of chapter)