NBA: Back to 97, to be the Jagged Bishop

Chapter 196 The Shameful Failure

The game on the field started, and Combe couldn't help but laugh when he saw the Nets' lineup.

Van Horn, whom he was more optimistic about, was placed in the third position by Scott. A player in the third position with a height of 208 cm looked extremely awkward.

The newcomer Martin was placed in the starting fourth position, which caused the Nets to be not as tall as the third position in the fourth position.

The center is Jamil Faik of the golden generation in 96. Although he was born in the golden generation, Faik is not golden at all. The offense is at the level of a big book, and the inside defense is at the level of Lewis. The only thing worthy of praise is the rebound. ability.

His rebounding ability is still good, maybe slightly stronger than Yao Ming.

In the opening game, after Ratliff succeeded in jumping the ball, the 76ers began to attack, but Iverson still held the ball and charged towards the penalty area.

When he rushed near the free throw line, he saw that Yao Ming had already circled in front of Faik, with a good shot space, so Iverson passed the ball directly.

After receiving the ball, Yao Ming directly turned over and hooked his hand, and easily scored points on Faike's head.

When it came to the Nets' offensive round, Marbury, the main player of the Nets, also played singles with the ball. An emergency stop jumper inside the three-point line in the frontcourt scored two points on Iverson's head.

Lao Ma is still at the peak of his golden age, and his offensive ability is much better than that of the previous two years, but his defense is still not active enough, and he puts more energy on the offensive end.

After scoring, the old horse looked at Iverson playfully, even if he didn't say anything, that disdainful look was enough to drive Iverson crazy.

There are three first-class first-position players produced by the 96 golden generation, namely Iverson, Lao Ma and Nash.

Nash has not played in the past few years, so various experts and media have been comparing Iverson and the old horse.

In the records of the two sides' matches, Iverson scored more points, while Marbury had more assists and field goals, and the old horse had a higher winning percentage than Iverson.

Even Iverson had an embarrassing matchup record of 17 of 2 in a single game and only scored 6 points in the end.

Of course, Lao Ma does not feel that he is inferior to Iverson. Whether it is the winning rate or the statistics, he is superior. Why is Iverson so popular?

So he looked down on Iverson very much.

At the beginning of the game, Marbury directly provoked him. He wanted to make tonight the ultimate showdown between himself and Iverson.

Maybe the old horse is also very clear that if he does not seize this opportunity tonight, he will not find a sense of superiority in front of Iverson until Combe completely reconciles the 76ers.

Iverson is also a violent temper, facing the provocation of the old horse, he directly started to fight back.

In the offensive round of the 76ers, he dazzled with all kinds of tricks and singled out the old horse, but unfortunately he missed the shot and the rebound was also snatched by Faik.

Yao Ming's rebounding is not strong, and Ratliff's rebounding is also not strong, he is actually not as good as Yao Ming.

On the other hand, the Nets, Faik is weak, but he can rebound, and rookie Kenyon Martin, that is a well-known jumper, they are a pair of inside partners who seem to be very silly, rebounding ability It is indeed better than the 76ers.

Kong Bu could only sigh secretly, what is this called?
It has been three years since he entered the league, and he has coached the Raptors for three years, and he has never worried about his own rebounds in any game.

Because my team always has the best and most rebounders.

Now he has a deep understanding of what it means to be able to cook without rice, and he has begun to sympathize with those weak team coaches who were hammered by him before.

It was the offensive round of the Nets again, and the old horse continued to single Iverson with a provocative face.

This time it missed, but the rebound was picked off by Martin who rushed to the basket, and then passed back to Van Horn outside, who made a three-pointer.

At the beginning of the game, the 76ers were outplayed by a team like the Nets.

The advantage is not big enough to allow Kumbu to call a timeout, but this situation still makes Kumbu anxious.

Not far away, Byron Scott had a wicked smile on his face.

Iverson continues to play singles with the old horse, which is of great benefit to the Nets. The Yao Ai combination that the 76ers could hang against the Nets is no longer available. The game has become a competition between Iverson and Marbury. , and the competition between the rebounding abilities of the two sides.

With such a fight, the Nets can directly erase the lineup gap between the two sides.

Halfway through the first quarter, the 76ers were already behind by five points, and Kumbu still didn't call a timeout.

In fact, he feels that if he loses tonight, it may not be a bad thing for the 76ers.

After the victory over the Magic in the opening game, the generals felt inflated, and they just borrowed a defeat to calm down the generals.

With the current strength of the 76ers, if they lose to the Nets, it will definitely be a humiliating failure.

The game passed minute by minute, until the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game, and the 76ers lost to the visiting team Nets by 82:88 at home by six points.

Of course, the loss is not much, but being able to lose to the Nets at home is a shame in itself.

After Combe shook hands with Byron Scott on the field, he returned directly to the locker room with a livid face, without speaking to any players in the team.

After a while, the players entered the locker room one by one like eggplants beaten by frost.

After the crowd gathered, Kongbu cleared his throat, "Congratulations, you lost to a team that is destined not to make the playoffs."

"Before the start of the game I said that we will rise again this season, and now it seems that I was too optimistic."

"We don't have the capital to rise at all. If we invite the Cardinal to play like this tonight, he can't lead the team to win."

Kong Bu spoke loudly, and said coldly to the generals.

All the generals didn't dare to take a breath, even old cunning guys like Barkley and Oakley were sitting obediently in the corner right now without saying a word.

Old people like them, of course, knew that Kong Bu was going to start making excuses.

Anyway, losing has nothing to do with them, they didn't play much at all tonight.

"Don't just keep silent, come on, tell me whose fault it is to lose tonight."

Combe continued to question.

Iverson was red-faced, and Kongbu didn't mention him, but he felt that Kongbu was talking about himself in every word.

"Coach, it's my fault."

Iverson stood up.

"It is indeed your fault. You are the leader of this team, but let's see what you did on the court?"

"Confront Marbury, tell me what it means?"

"Do you think you and Marbury are the same level of players? Then why did I come to Philadelphia in the first place, why didn't I go directly to New Jersey?"

"You can win or lose for Marbury tonight, and you can play for some other point guard tomorrow night."

"Do you want to win and win the championship, or do you want to take a vacation early this season to go fishing?"

Kongbu was very angry, and Iverson's performance tonight really made him angry.

He took 37 shots and scored 41 points. The score is not low, but if he gives half of these 37 shots to his teammates, the 76ers will never lose.

Poorly, Yao Ming only got 7 shots, of which [-] times he or Ratliff grabbed offensive rebounds and played a second offense.

Reid was put on the starting lineup tonight, and the tactic arranged before the game was that he ran without the ball and waited for Iverson's pass.

As a result, Reid ran pitifully all night without receiving a single pass. Unknown to him, he thought he was a long-distance runner coming to play in the NBA.

"Aaron, take a closer look at your teammates."

"Yao is the super center seed that everyone is optimistic about. He will be able to fight against Shaq in the future, but you treat him like air because of the momentary superiority."

"Your backcourt partner Reed, I can tell you this, he is the best shooting guard to enter the league from 99 to the next two years, not one of them."

"But you made him look like a joke. He ran the whole game and only got two shots."

"You are the leader of the 76ers, and I have found the most powerful helper for you, but your style of play is completely criminal, and it is a waste of your teammates' talents and time."

Kong Bu became more and more angry.

Iverson also has a violent temper, but at this moment, he can't get angry at all, let alone contradict Kong Bu.

Konbu is his dream coach, and he has been dreaming that Konbu can coach him so many nights.

Now the dream has come true, but because of his irrationality on the court, Kung Bu got so angry, he feels extremely guilty.

"Coach, I was wrong."

"I promise that this kind of thing will never happen again in the future. I want to win and win the championship."

Iverson's attitude made some 76ers veterans dumbfounded. They originally thought that Iverson would contradict Comb, and then Comb traded Iverson in a rage.

Unexpectedly, Iverson was subdued.

With Iverson's apology, Kong Bu's anger subsided a lot. He nodded and said: "It's good to admit your mistakes, at least you have the courage to face up to your own mistakes."

"McGrady's highest scoring average in one season in my hands is only 23 points. From now on, I need you to share the right to shoot. The number of shots per night cannot exceed 20."

"I don't care who the opponent is, no matter what the situation is on the court, you can't take more than 20 shots."

"Can you do it?"

Kong Bu asked with a drink.

Iverson nodded quickly. He was also uneasy just now when he saw Kong Bu getting so angry.

He was really afraid that Kongbu would put himself on the shelf in a fit of anger, and then he would really be a joke.

The whole league is waiting for Comb to lead Iverson to win the championship. As a result, his protagonist was traded at the beginning of the season.

Fortunately, Kumbu didn't mention any trade at all, and gave him a chance.

Although his shots are limited, the average of up to 20 shots per game is quite a lot. There are only a handful of players in the league who can average 20 shots per game.

After Kongbu left, Iverson went to Yao Ming and Reid to apologize. After telling Kongbu, he also felt that his behavior tonight was too immature and selfish.

Especially Comb's evaluation of Reid also made Iverson look at Reid differently.

In the three drafts from 96 to 98, a lot of top shooting guards emerged. In the following ten years, most of the top shooting guards in the league were actually produced in these three drafts.

In the four drafts from 99 to 2002, there were actually only three shooting guards who could really make a move, Ginobili, Reed, and Parker who had not yet entered the league.

To say that Reed is the best shooting guard in this period, Comb is a bit exaggerated, but if Reed can have teammates like Duncan, his achievements may not be worse than Ginobili or Parker, that is true .

As soon as Combe returned to his residence, he immediately received a call from Old Wilkens.

Listening to his tone on the phone, it seems that taking over the job of the Raptors is not as easy as he imagined.

In the eyes of all coaches in the league, being able to take over the Raptors is like a pie in the sky. Even if McGrady and Payton are gone, the Raptors are still a big business and still have the ability to win the championship.

It's a pity that this is just the surface. With Combe's departure, the Raptors' current team atmosphere is already very bad.

Even a coach of Old Wilkens' level cannot reconcile the contradictions between the two factions.

"Kong, why don't you give them a call?" Old Wilkens was looking for Kong Bu to lend a helping hand.

"No, I've already left the Raptors, and I can't justify it emotionally or rationally if I care about these things."

"Old man, you should be able to understand my difficulties." Kongbu directly refused.

"I can really understand your difficulties. The atmosphere in the Raptors is too bad now. Bitov means to trade if it doesn't work."

"Trade one of the factions and uproot them."

"Kong, which faction do you think is more suitable for us to sell?"

The Raptors now have a positional faction and a fast-break faction in the team. Big Ben, Bus, Pierce, Carter and others belong to the positional faction, while Nash, Dampier, Marion, Lagabel and others belong to the fast-break faction.

"Then I can't talk nonsense, old man, just follow your own ideas."

If Combe is still at the helm of the Raptors, the choice he will make is to sell the fast break faction, that is, the faction of Nash, Dampier, and Marion.

"What a cunning little fox, it seems that I made this call for nothing."

"Well, our Raptors management will meet overnight tonight and quickly come up with a plan. This matter must be resolved as soon as possible."

"Continue to drag on, if the trouble really gets to the point of tearing apart, it will also affect the trading value of these players."

"Kong, is there any player you like in our team? How about selling some to you?" Old Wilkens said with a smile.

Kumbu was overjoyed, he really has a favorite Raptors player.

Like Pierce or Carter, Comb must have no idea, the price is too high to bear.

And someone like Lagabel, who doesn't get much attention, can really buy it with a gritted teeth.

In addition, there is Da Ben. If Ratliff can be used to trade Da Ben, it would be perfect.

"Can you sell Daben? We can use Ratliff to trade." Combe said hastily.

"Kong, are you kidding me? Do you think the value of this deal is equal? ​​Our team has countless top players waiting to renew their contracts. How could it be possible to waste 800 million annual salary on Ratliff?"

"Even if the big book is traded, it will only sell some draft picks or players with only one year left on the contract. Try not to lock up our salary space."

"And at present, my idea is to sell Dampier and the others, and Daben will stay for another year and strive for the fourth championship trophy this year."

The old Wilkens said with a smile, he now experienced the thrill of when Comb was the coach in the previous seasons, he had too many chips in his hand, and his room for manipulation was infinite.

Kumbu was very disappointed. Since Daben had no chance, he didn't want Lagabel much anymore. The main reason is that the 76ers now have two shooting guards, and they don't need Lagabel very urgently.

(End of this chapter)