Did Howard learn any practical techniques from O'Neal, Wang Chao had reservations.

But O'Neal's arrival has boosted Howard's confidence considerably.

After all, he was the super center who was the leading brother and ruled an era, even if he was 38 years old, O'Neal still has the pride of being the first center in the league, and with the departure of the center player, he firmly believes that the center is still the main or even direct factor for a team to win the championship.

Although he didn't say this in front of the Magic team's shooters, especially Wang Chao, after having some similar feelings with Howard, I am afraid that he poured chicken soup on the other party in private.

O'Neill's statement is fully substantiated.

The past two championships of the Magic team, Howard himself is the strongest center in the league, and going back further, the Lakers defeated the Magic in the 07-08 season to win the championship. Before Gasol joined, Kobe Bryant could only lead the team to one round every year.

Moving forward, the '06-07 championship Suns were a special case, as they were playing against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who also didn't have a super center, and Stoudemire's style of play, although biased towards a front-line player with a frame, was also a cameo center.

In the 05-06 season, it was the Heat team led by O'Neal and Wade who won the championship, in the 04-05 season, it was Duncan's Spurs, and in the 03-04 season, Ben. Wallace's Pistons, going on to be the OK pair's triple crown, Duncan, David Robinson's Spurs, and Olajuwon's Rockets are two consecutive titles.

With the exception of Jordan's two triple championships, throughout the league for so many years, there has been a pillar of interior player behind every season championship.

Howard has already done a lot for the team before, and in the new season, he will have to show more luxurious statistics and pursue more individual honors as he polishes new techniques.

O'Neal's meal of chicken soup made Howard dizzy and excited.

Seriously, he's also a little tired of always being seen as a super blue-collar player, obviously he is already the No. 1 center in the league and holds two championships, but there are always people who treat him as a blue-collar player, what are you kidding?

On September 28, the preseason begins.

As always, Wang Chao, Howard and other key players only played a dozen symbolic games in the preseason, just to allow the body to adapt to the rhythm of the game after a long vacation.

This is of little use to Wang Chao, who participated in the World Championships, but it is still important for players such as Howard who have been stinky for several months in the summer.

In several preseason games, Howard played an average of 20 minutes per game, and could get 18 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks, as efficient and strong as ever.

But in the process, Howard showed some behavior that he hadn't done in previous games, that is, frequent back-to-back singles in the low post.

On the offensive end, Howard will use his outstanding mobility among interior players to pull to the outside to block and cover Wang Chao, Nelson, Turkoglou and other ball handlers to block and cover and then cut inside.

As long as the opportunity is ripe, Howard can take off and take advantage of the situation to pull out the mountains and rivers with an empty two-handed dunk.

But in the preseason stage, Howard's coverage became significantly less, and he began to increase the number of back-to-back singles, but because the level of opponents encountered in the preseason was generally not high, and no one defended seriously in the preseason, Howard's offensive efficiency on the inside was very high, and the back-to-back skills he showed were also praised by various media.

"The Magic team's approach to signing O'Neal in the summer is very correct, although the old shark is no longer capable of fighting on the court, but his rich experience and skills under the basket will help the Magic Beast grow faster, and the 25-year-old Monster should also develop more offensive skills and take a solid step in the direction of a top center!"

"The Magic already has the ability to attack from the outside, and if Howard can develop his offensive ability from the inside, then who else in this league can stop the Magic? Will the Miami Heat of the Big Three work? ”

At the end of ten preseason games, the Magic had a 9-1 record, which was very good, and in the league power rankings after the preseason, the Magic ranked first, and the Miami Heat, who had the strongest big three in history, were second.

And on the odds list before the start of the regular season, the Magic team also ranked first by a narrow margin, slightly higher than the Heat.

The reason for this situation is mainly due to people's expectations for Wang Chao and Howard's internal and external science pairing.

Wang Chao is good at three-point shooting, and Howard can now hold the ball inside again, judging from the rationality of a team's lineup structure, it is still much more scientific than the Heat.

After some excitement and excitement, the fans, who gradually calmed down, began to think about a question.

Bosh aside, how will James and Wade solve the problem of ball handling?

Last season, James and Wade were the absolute core players of their respective teams, with a big core of the ball, Wade's use rate of 34.9%, James's 33.5%, ranking the top two in the league, and even Wang Chao, who won the scoring title and averaged 8.5 assists per game, only had a ball use rate of 32.4%, ranking fourth in the league.

It can be seen that James and Wade are both players who need a lot of ball possession to play their strength, of course, this is also nonsense, last season, all players who averaged more than 25 points per game had a usage rate of more than 30%, and the difference of a few percentage points is not big at all.

Wang Chao, Kobe, James, Wade and others are not much different, and they all represent the absolute ball-holding core and main offensive initiation point of their respective teams.

But the problem is that the Heat team now has both James and Wade, which will inevitably affect the performance of the two, and how to deal with the problem of the two top superstars holding the ball and offense will be a problem that the Heat coaching staff needs to seriously consider and solve in the new season.

This is also the reason why the Heat were slightly underestimated before the start of the regular season and relegated to second place in the power rankings and championship odds lists.

After all, compared with the old Big Three of the Celtics, the new Big Three of the Heat are obviously different in terms of age, technical characteristics and game experience, and they may not necessarily be like the Celtics, who immediately showed enough tacit understanding and strong combat effectiveness as soon as the team was successful.

This seems to have been confirmed by the start of the regular season.

As if to fill the gimmick, the first game of the Heat's regular season was a clash with the Celtics' old triumvirate, played at Boston's North Shore Garden Square Arena.

The old triumvirate of the Green Army educated their juniors well on their home court, 88:80, giving the Heat their first defeat of the new season.

James made his debut with the Heat, scoring 31 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists on 10-of-21 shooting, but he obviously didn't know enough about his new teammates and lacked tacit understanding, so he had 8 turnovers in a single game.

James played well, but Wade and Bosh had 13 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists and 6 turnovers on 4-of-16 shooting, and only 8 points and 8 rebounds on 3-of-11 shooting.

On the Celtics side, Ray. Allen had 20 points, Pierce had 19 points and 9 rebounds, Garnett had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Rajan had 4 points, 5 rebounds and 17 assists. Rondo, the Celtics seem to be using this game to tell the Heat how the Big Three should be used.

If the loss to the Eastern Conference giants Celtics is still reasonable, then the Heat lost to the Philadelphia 76ers on October 27 and suffered two consecutive defeats at the beginning of the regular season, which made Miami fans feel like a basin of cold water poured on their heads.

In this game, the Heat team was Wade, who shot 10 of 20 and cut 30 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists, and then it was James' turn to pull his hips, shooting 5 of 12 from the field, scoring 16 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 9 turnovers.

Obviously, the Heat team failed to figure out the problem of two ball-holding nuclear offenses, and their playing styles were not compatible.

As for Bosh, he had 15 points and 7 rebounds on 6-of-12 shooting, becoming the only injured one in the two games.

Bosh: "??? ”

With the two of you and one god, one ghost and one ghost, let me pull my crotch and carry the pot all the time?

The Heat, who lost two in a row, returned home on October 29 to face the Orlando Magic.

This is the Heat's third regular-season game and the Magic's second.

Unlike the Heat's somewhat bad situation, the Magic started smoothly as always, winning the first game at home against the Washington Wizards, winning 112-83 and winning by 29 points.

There are a couple of points worth mentioning about this game.

First up is Howard, who continued his preseason style of play, and in this game he frequently played inside singles with the ball, and the Wizards' interior center was Javier. McGee, like Howard, can run and jump, has strong explosiveness but is unstable in the lower game, and McGee does not have Howard's tendon flesh, so his confrontation ability is insufficient, even Howard, who is also weak in lower limbs, can easily squeeze him around.

As a result, Howard shot 8-of-12 from the field and 12-of-19 from the free-throw line for 28 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks.

The second point is that this game is another Chinese derby, the Olympic and World Championship champions, but it did not change the fate of the UAE in the NBA, he was still traded to the Wizards as in the original history.

The time of the Wizards will be the last time of the UAE in the NBA, even if he can join the Mavericks next season, he will still be eliminated because he cannot adapt to the NBA game and choose to return to China to play in the CBA.

Wang Chao played as always in this game, with 27 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists, although it was a slight decline from last season's data, but this was the first game, and the game lost suspense early, resulting in Wang Chao clocking out of work before the third quarter of the game, so there was no reference value.

It's just that in the process of the game, Wang Chao's concerns still appeared.

Increasing Howard, who plays alone with the ball under the basket, naturally reduces the number of times he pulls down the outside line to block and dismantle the screen, which is a matter of course, and there is an obvious conflict between the two styles of play.

Although Howard had an excellent lethal effect under the basket in the first game, making 19 free throws, only Wang Chao knew that this was not the norm, and if Howard kept playing in this way in the future, it would not be a good thing for the team's entire tactical system.

But now is not the time to say that.

Howard is on the rise, and the team has won the game, and more importantly, the team management and coaching staff are supporting Howard to play like this.

Howard's thoughts, Wang Chao is understandable, and he may be the same, after all, it is related to Howard's own status in the team and even the history of the league.

But with the encouragement of the Magic's management and coaching staff, Wang Chao can probably guess the reason, and they want to use Howard to further weaken their influence on the team.

If it were before, Wang Chao would definitely try his best to fight back immediately, but because he was not ready to stay in the Magic team after the end of this season, he didn't bother to pay attention to it, in order to win the championship this season, it was not appropriate to tear his face with the management of the Magic team now, just turn a blind eye and watch the other party mess around like a clown, anyway, with Howard's offensive ability under the basket, it won't take long to hit them in the face.

……

Apparently no one on the Heat team was able to sanction Howard.

Whether it's Big Z or Joel. Anthony can't stop Howard at all, which is another shortcoming of the Heat's Big Three, there are no qualified interior players.

Although Bosh has averaged 20+10 double-doubles per game in the Raptors, the nickname of the head of the board is by no means in vain, his style of play is biased towards the middle and long-distance frame with the ball, although he has been in the Raptors for a long time, he always roars loudly like a dinosaur, but the style of play is really soft, and don't expect him to be able to protect the frame.

In this game with the Heat, Howard slashed 31 points, 21 rebounds and 5 blocks, blowing up the Heat's interior line.

Bosh only had 7 points and 4 rebounds in the whole game, and this game James and Wade continued the principle of a super god and a super ghost, James scored 15 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists on 6-of-13 shooting, although the performance is not a super ghost in the strict sense, but for this regular season MVP-level superstar, this kind of data is a super ghost.

Wade scored 26 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists on 9-of-20 shooting, and the Big Three combined for 48 points and 16 rebounds, which was 9 points and 11 rebounds less than the 57 points and 27 rebounds of Wang Chao and Howard combined, and the game was naturally lost.

At 104:96, the Magic won two in a row by beating the Heat, while the Heat suffered three consecutive losses in the opening game, which surprised many.

"The Heat have to find a way to play with James and Wade as soon as possible, and at the same time, Bosh, one of the Big Three, has to get back into shape as soon as possible, the three of them are not put together to lose a game, and if they don't succeed, the Big Three will become the biggest joke in the league."

The situation of the Heat team is put aside for the time being, with James and Wade, two top superstars, even if they can't run in successfully in the short term, it is impossible to lose all the time just by relying on the individual ability of the stars.

After the Magic defeated the Heat, they began to replicate the start of last season and ushered in a wave of winning streaks.

(End of chapter)