CHAPTER 1316: CHAPTER 531: THE DISBALANCED FEELING OF RETURNING TO NORMAL (PART 2)

Zhang Yang, who barely counts as middle generation, veteran Yao Ming; veteran Kobe, barely counts as veteran James; the new generation Rose, Durant, Harden, the league arranged all the most popular players from the old, middle, and new generations during the offseason schedule.

Zhang Yao Ke Zhan have been All-Star starters for many years, each having been vote king at least once.

Rose and Durant are in small markets, and their popularity purely stems from their performance.

Harden is quite special; in terms of personal ability, he currently can only be considered fourth in the 2004 class. Mayo, Rose, and Westbrook are all better than him, and even Billis purely from a personal ability standpoint is still not inferior to him right now, yet he is the most popular from the 2008 class because he’s a genius from the Big Apple City, his exposure is just unmatched.

After less than a season and a half, NBA fans everywhere know he grows a beard to get into nightclubs, and that he likes women with big backsides and curvaceous figures.

At 5 p.m. New York time, the Knicks at home against the Thunder game started first, where Durant and Rose as a duo scored 61 points, giving a heavy blow to Harden and Kobe’s new stars who scored a combined 31 points, leading Thunder Team to win 114 to 106 on the road.

At 8 p.m., the Chicago Bulls home game against the Bobcats continues.

Felton and Millsap remained absent, Perkins returned, Carlisle fielded a duo of towers Okafor and O’Neal, with Tyronn Lue, Zhang Yang, and Afflalo as the starting lineup outside.

The Bobcats showed continuous sluggish performance in the first half, trailing by 19 points at 31 to 50. Although the second half saw some recovery, Zhang Yang, Hill, and O’Neal teamed up to score 26 to 19 in the third quarter; in the final quarter, Zhang Yang, Afflalo, and Okafor also led the team to score 24 to 18, recovering 13 points in the half, once making the Chicago Bulls feel the crisis in the middle of the final quarter. But Hinrich led the teammates to stabilize, controlled the pace, used terrain battles, steadily securing victory until the end.

At 10:23 p.m., the final whistle blew, Yao Ming got 19 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks; Luol Deng got 15 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals; Hinrich got 20 points, 6 assists. The Chicago Bulls defeated the Bobcats 87 to 81, ending the two-game Christmas Day battle loss streak to the Bobcats!

The final match Lakers home game against Cavaliers.

Kobe got 28 points, Kidd got 11 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists, Garnett got 18 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists; the Three Giants performed outstandingly.

But on the other side Mo Williams against Kidd’s defense scored 13 out of 9, including 5 out of 6 three-pointers, plus 5 out of 5 free throws, blasting 28 points;

Jamison also had a big explosion, scoring 24 points from 10 out of 18 shots;

James scored 26 points with 9 assists by hitting 19 out of 9, plus 8 out of 11 free throws.

Cavaliers’ three scorers collectively soared, defeating Lakers on the road 114 to 107!

...

The next day, at noon on the 26th, Zhang Yang, along with his parents, brother, and girlfriend who came to the away game guest, went to Yao Ming’s house for lunch, teased by Yao Ming saying it’s because they lost the game and felt unsatisfied so they want to eat him poor.

For the first time losing in a Christmas Day battle, Zhang Yang was still feeling very upset last night, but the game, winning and losing is common. After sleeping, it’s another new day... mainly after knowing the elementary player and the old Ironsmith also lost, he felt much more balanced.

Early this morning, the NBA website and various partnered online platforms have already started the Dallas All-Star Weekend starter voting, indicating the early stage of the season has come to an end, and the mid-phase has begun.

Currently, Bobcats have played 29 games, with 21 wins and 8 losses. Zhang Yang looked at the early-stage standings this morning, his team’s performance is actually not bad. Although the ranking is fifth in the East, the record difference compared to Cavaliers’ 25 wins and 5 losses, Chicago Bulls’ 23 wins and 7 losses is slight, Magic Team is ranked third in the East though their record is 21 wins and 9 losses, Bobcats is actually the team with the third-best record in the East.

Counting the sixth place Hawks’ 20 wins and 10 losses, the record difference among the top five in the East is a maximum of 5 wins.

Even if Bobcats recently achieved 6 wins and 4 losses in the last 10 games, it’s still akin to the winning percentages of teams like Thunder Team, Nuggets Team, Hornets that are in the Western Conference playoff competition.

Right now their winning percentage, converted to 82 games, is 59.3 wins. Maintaining this winning percentage, aiming for 60 wins is actually a normal performance.

He wasn’t satisfied with this record from his personal standpoint, mainly because last season’s record was just too good. Returning to ’normal’ now, he couldn’t avoid the unease in psyche, leading to anxious gameplay in some matches.

Anxiety sometimes helps, like the game against Thunder Team, he played uncontrollably and scored over 60 points; but most of the time it’s not so good, like against Chicago Bulls being face-to-face with Sefolosha and Luol Deng’s rotation defense shooting 30 out of 10, marking the second time this season of scoring 20 irons in one game, the fifteenth of his career, facing Tony Allen with Celtics also nearly hit 20 irons.

Zhang Yang is now more impressed with Jordan’s 96-97 season, the first year getting 72 wins, and the next year still having the chance to achieve 70 wins, finally securing 69 wins of terrifying record.

The Spurs Team, with those years of consistent 50 wins, sometimes achieving 60 wins especially when team lineup or state exceptionally well, is actually a more rational way for maintaining long-term competitiveness.

But also having Duncan yields such reasonability, letting people accustomed to a team always being a title-contending team, indeed a very incredible thing.

Even if it’s Mackenzie, Big Bird, Jordan, OK these players who won titles multiple times often had multiple seasons completely unrelated to championships.

In the entire NBA history, only three could convey such an impression—Russell, Magician, and the most recent being Duncan.