So I am the god of basketball?

Meng Lang's footwork under the basket disrupted the Philadelphia 76ers' defensive deployment
Next is Kobe's time to show his summer results.

After playing against Bryant during the closed training camp, he was not confident about his own growth. But when he played against the Philadelphia 76ers, he realized that he was not without improvement. It was just because Bryant's defense "happened" to be a little restrained against him.

This guy must have studied his videos to be so familiar with him.

Brian: I didn't study your tape, I studied Michael Jordan's tape!
For the "defensive stalwarts" of the 90s, studying Jordan's offensive videos was a compulsory course for them.

It is obvious that the Lakers no longer have the "inside and outside combination" tactics, but Meng Lang and Kobe still played with this feeling.

I believe that as long as Tim Duncan and Mutombo study Meng Lang's habits under the basket carefully, they will be able to interfere with Meng Lang to a great extent.

But the problem is...

No one said he could do the "dream steps" under the basket?

Meng Lang stood under the basket and "dealed the cards under the basket", exposing the Philadelphia 76ers' defensive weaknesses on the outside.

One of the main reasons why the Lakers lost the finals last season was:
They made Philadelphia's "Twin Towers" too comfortable under the basket.

Not to mention the offensive end, there is no height at the back. On the defensive end, they can easily run out to assist in defense without worrying about a "fire" under the basket.

After the finals, some media actually said: "If you want to beat Philadelphia, you must have a super inside player!"

Because only by continuously attracting the inside defense in this way can the Philadelphia 76ers' outside defense expose their weaknesses.

But some media also said: "Shaquille O'Neal is the strongest 'Big Shark' in the league, but he also lost to the Philadelphia 76ers!"

What this means is that if they even lost to such a top-notch inside player, where else can they find a top-notch inside player who can restrain the “Philadelphia Twin Towers”?
The Lakers' summer signings prove this point:
In this era, "super inside players" have indeed become rare and hard to find.

There is no way to find one with the Lakers' salary.

Who would have thought that the Lakers were not unwilling to look for him, but simply did not want to find him, and the "super inside player" was already in their lineup.

With the combination of inside and outside lines, the Philadelphia 76ers, who seemed so unattainable in the finals last season, collapsed. The Lakers took the initiative from the first quarter to the last quarter, and did not let the Philadelphia 76ers lead even once.

103 to 94, a difference of 9 points, the Lakers took away the victory from the home court of the Philadelphia 76ers and completed a small revenge by the way.

阿伦-艾弗森拿到了31分6助攻，蒂姆-邓肯拿到了24分13篮板4助攻2盖帽。

Their performance was not much different from that in the finals.

But just like Meng Lang averaged 50 points but failed to win the finals, some wins and losses cannot be judged solely by the players' data.

There were two obvious points in this game that the Philadelphia 76ers could not solve:
Meng Lang under the basket, and Kobe's singles after Meng Lang under the basket contained Philadelphia's inside defense.

Finally, in the first game of the new season, Meng Lang scored 36 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists. What was different from the past was that Meng Lang scored 20 points at the basket tonight, which accounted for more than half of his total score.

On the contrary, Meng Lang only took two shots from beyond the three-point line today and made one of them.

In Kobe's first game of the new season, he showed plenty of firepower and scored 25 points.

The two of them combined for 61 points.

His firepower is even more fierce than Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan.

In the first game after joining the team, Bryan scored 11 points, but the tactical diversity he provided was unmatched by Fox. Although the points were not high, as long as Philadelphia tried to leave him open, he would immediately punish them on the offensive end.

In addition to three-pointers, he also has open-cut layups.

His layup is somewhat similar to that of the future "Beast", both of which rely on muscle mass.

This is his offensive feature.

On the defensive end, he can sometimes play against the power forward position.

And the defensive attitude is positive.

The disadvantage is that as a power forward, his movement speed is a bit slow. When facing Allen Iverson in a mismatch, he can only bend his knees, lift his trouser legs, and then watch Allen Iverson float past him.

So Iverson scored more than 30 points in this game.

but……

Useless!
Divac and Ben Wallace scored a combined 18 points, with Divac scoring 12 points and Ben Wallace scoring 6 points.

This is what it’s like facing the Philadelphia “double team”.

And don’t think that Ben Wallace only scored 6 points in this game, but this was his highest score in a single game against the 76ers in the finals.

Fox also performed well as the sixth man, with 15 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists. He is back to his Celtics days.

Of course, for the Lakers, the happiest thing is not that all the players performed well, but that they defeated the Philadelphia 76ers.

As he left the arena, Kobe glared at the Philadelphians in the stands:
Why don’t you keep thanking me?
Ben Wallace even shouted directly: "Thank you, Philadelphia!"

Reporters asked Meng Lang to talk about his feelings about winning tonight's game. Meng Lang said: "I am just fulfilling what I said after the end of last season, and everything has just begun!"

The reporters recalled what Meng Lang said:

No one wants to face us next season.

So far, it seems that his words have come true.

Philadelphia, which seemed to be unbeatable last season, was defeated by the Lakers in the first game of the new season.

There hasn't been any drastic changes to their lineup this summer!

The Lakers' strength is not just in the game with Philadelphia.

After defeating the Philadelphia 76ers, they continued to defeat their next opponents.

The Lakers won all of their first 10 games, achieving a "10-game winning streak at the start".

The Lakers started so strongly that even the Los Angeles media was stunned, not to mention other media:
What year is this eve?
If you don’t know, you would think you have returned to the summer of 96.

But it is indeed the end of 99, and there is still more than a month until the millennium.

The Lakers have become that extremely strong team again.

Meng Lang turned a group of newcomers into the backbone of the team.

In just three years, some main players left and some retired, but Meng Lang still made the Lakers the top team in the Western Conference again.

Of course, the new season has just begun and only 10 games have been played. We will have to continue to watch to know what the details are.

However, in these 10 games, we can see the changes in the Lakers:
Kobe has become more stable. In 10 games, he averaged 24.5 points per game. His best performance was over 30 points, and his worst performance was 21 points.

That is to say, from the beginning of the new season to now, Kobe has not scored less than 20 points in a single game. Such a result is undoubtedly gratifying.

Then there is the Lakers' "third point."

The Lakers' "third man" is not fixed. Facing teams that are not so strong in the interior, Divac and Ben Wallace can contribute 25 points and act as the "third man".

Even when facing teams with strong inside strength, with Bryant, they can still score "25+".

With this starting lineup alone, the Lakers can score more than 80 points.

As for Fox sitting on the bench, even if his entire mind was not on the court, his return to the substitute rotation stage was simply a dimensionality reduction strike. He also scored in double digits in 10 consecutive games, and when he was in good shape, scoring 15 plus points was easy for him.

As a result, the Lakers averaged 102 points per game in the new season, making them one of the most powerful teams in the entire league.

But at the same time, they can control their average points lost to around 85 points per game, which means that their net score in each game is as high as 17 points!
Of course, this is also because of the 10-game winning streak, so the overall data looks so terrifying.

However, they did have two or three games where they had a big score difference of 30+.

Several bottom-ranked teams in the league encountered their pure "delivery team".

In these games, Meng Lang continued to show his "dream footwork". Now he is one step away from the free throw line, and his threat to the basket has increased dramatically.

In the past, when he reached this point, he was actually the least threatening.

Because his ability to break through the basket is a weak link. Of course, this weakness refers to the comparison with superstars. Compared with ordinary All-Stars, his ability to break through the basket is not weak at all.

Now, with the blessing of "Dream Footwork", he can easily score the ball when facing the opponent's top inside players in this position.

This part of his growth caused a huge discussion in the outside world. No one thought that Meng Lang could still grow at this age.

It happened to be the 11th game of the new season, and the Lakers' opponent was none other than the Indiana Pacers.

Olajuwon, the creator of the "Dream Footsteps", chose to stay with the Pacers after his contract expired this year. When reporters asked him about Meng Lang's inside footsteps, he said, "I don't pay much attention to what's happening outside. All my energy is on our own team. The Pacers have a lot of good newcomers. These people are the hope of Indiana. My responsibility is to lead them well. This takes a lot of my energy!"

Olajuwon's contract for the new season is still as much as 1000 million, but his condition has actually been affected by injuries in the past two years and has completely fallen from his peak. It can also be seen from his data in the new season that he only averaged 10.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game.

This kind of performance definitely means he is no longer a top center in the league.

He also knows that he was able to get such a contract. In addition to his contribution of 18.6 points and 10.2 rebounds last season, more importantly, the team hopes that he can bring up O'Neal Jr., a newcomer with good qualifications.

A large part of the 1000 million was used to pay for O'Neal Jr.'s tuition.

It's not even just a one-year contract, but a three-year contract.

Such sincerity made Olajuwon feel respected.

Therefore, he took O'Neal's teaching very seriously.

When the reporter mentioned "Meng Lang's footsteps", his answer was not enthusiastic, because:

Meng Lang’s steps are indeed “dream steps”!
but……

Where did he learn this from?

Olajuwon is no longer at the age of wanting to win a championship. He already feels that his career is coming to an end. His biggest thought now is:

How will he make a living after retirement?

The best solution he could think of was to open a "Dream Steps" teaching class.

Specializes in teaching future superstars the "Dream Steps" to make money.

This is a one-of-a-kind deal.

I originally thought he could make a lot of money from this.

But who would have thought that now there would be a player who is also proficient in the "Dream Footwork", and from his use of it, it can be seen that he is very skilled.

If there really was a second person who could do it, then this skill wouldn't be so rare.

and……

Meng Lang is still an outside player...

Olajuwon had long discovered that he was different from the average inside player. Many moves that seemed easy to him were difficult to accomplish in their eyes.

However, the frequency and speed of the "Dream Footsteps" are beyond their ability to achieve.

Compared with inside players, outside players are more likely to learn the "Dream Footwork" and use it in more occasions!

In fact, Olajuwon was not wrong. Later, his most proud student of "Dream Footsteps" was none other than...

Kobe Bryant!

It wasn't until 2009, when his physical explosiveness began to decline, that he slowly noticed the benefits of his "Dream Footwork".

But there is another factor:
He doesn't see it every day, and since Olajuwon announced his retirement, the "Dream Footsteps" in this league have almost disappeared. Only Yao Ming's "Shanghai Tango" reminds people of the dream footsteps of the past.

But since Yao Ming gained weight, his flexible footwork has disappeared.

But originally he could turn a blind eye, but this time, he was...

You can see it every day!

In particular, Meng Lang often used his "dream footwork" to trick him during bullfights.

After a while, he saw the power of "Dream Footsteps" and thought: "Dream, can I learn footsteps from you?"

Meng Lang was not surprised by this. He knew that Kobe was just that kind of person. As long as it could enhance his weapons, he was not such a proud person. Instead, he could lower his status to learn these moves.

Meng Lang looked at him like this and said, "If you want to learn, it's not that I can't teach you, but you have to change the way you address me. In my hometown, if you want to learn skills, you have to call the other person Master!"

Kobe: “…”

Just thinking about it makes me feel ashamed.

"I can spend money..." Kobe said.

Meng Lang rolled his eyes: "You want to compete with me to see who is richer, right?"

Kobe: “…”

He still couldn't shout out.

Meng Lang waved his hands: "If that's the case, forget it!" (End of this chapter)