First in scoring

Chapter 446 445. Xiaopang: Isn’t he just a better teammate than me?
The Bobcats came to Salt Lake City to rest for a night. On January 1, the last day of the third game month, their 31th game day of the regular season arrived.

At 12 noon, the NBA closed all major voting channels, and the 36-day All-Star starting voting came to an end. The voting results will be announced on February 48 after a 2-hour vote audit.

The number of votes has not yet been announced and the voting channel has just been closed, but major media have already been promoting that Zhang Yang has broken the vote record and won the title of vote king for two consecutive years.

The Olympics gave the Dream Team its only defeat, a tie with the superstar-studded Dream Team. He became the youngest scoring champion in history last season, and the youngest FMVP in history the season before last is still popular. In addition, his performance at the beginning of this season was average, but he counterattacked and rushed to the top of the league before the end of the second game month. At the beginning of the mid-season, he had a series of 50+ games, one of which was achieved in the holy land of basketball... He became the most popular NBA player in the mid-season of this season, and he also made headlines several times in January when the NFL playoffs dominated the screen.

During the entire 36-day voting period, he was not the single-day vote king on only 4 days!
Starting from the second stage, his daily vote count was rarely as high as in the first stage, but he was still clearly in the lead and was the only player to have more than 36 votes every day for 5 days.

Some media counted his unaudited daily vote totals for the entire 36 days, which was more than 309% higher than his record-breaking 50 million votes last season.

This exaggerated increase in votes is not a common phenomenon among popular stars. It's only him. Although the votes of other popular stars have increased compared to last season, it is a normal increase after the total number of votes has increased.

One of the important reasons why Zhang Yang is so popular in the middle of this season is his performance in the Olympics. The Olympic silver medal has helped him in terms of popularity and commercial value more than he thought!
His previous references in this regard were the star players of the former Yugoslavia men's basketball team, Argentina men's basketball team, Spain men's basketball team and other teams. Now he finds that he chose the wrong reference, or in other words, there is no reference for his situation.

The previous three World Series made Peja famous in 02, Ginobili emerged worldwide in 04, and Gasol became famous in 06, but these three people are fundamentally different from Zhang San - he has won the championship, the scoring title, and the All-Star vote leader. He is a true popular NBA superstar!

He was excited about the increase in his business income after the Olympics, but he still underestimated the impact of winning the silver medal.

During the afternoon break, Zhang Yang opened champagne in advance when accepting an exclusive interview with the media and expressed his gratitude to the fans for being elected as the All-Star vote leader again.

Also invited to be interviewed was Felton, but the reason for his invitation had nothing to do with the All-Star starter.

Last year, Felton had a very good chance of being selected as an All-Star starter. At that time, Kidd left the Eastern Conference, Carter's votes dropped, Arenas was ruled out, Wade was injured for consecutive periods, and the team's record was last... Felton had already caught up with Wade in the second stage, with only a difference of 5 votes. As a result, he was injured, and the vote gap quickly widened. In the end, he ranked third among Eastern Conference guards, losing more than 50 votes to Wade.

After Wade removed his meniscus this season, he is no longer troubled by knee injuries. He has played in every game so far this season and has been competing back and forth with Zhang Yang on the scoring list. When the team's rebuilding plan went bankrupt right after it started, he single-handedly played the role of both father and mother to lead the Heat to maintain playoff level strength... No guard in the Eastern Conference can compete with Wade for the second starting spot.

Felton became one of the protagonists of the interview because tonight's opponent is the Jazz, and his matchup with Deron is the hottest highlight of the game.

Since the two were born on the same day of the same month of the same year, and have similar body shapes and playing styles, they have been compared since they became famous in college. In terms of personal ability, Deron has always had the upper hand, but in terms of team honors, Felton has always crushed Deron.

In the 05 NCAA finals, Felton won; after entering the NBA, Felton first won the championship; when it came to competing for the Olympic quota, Coach K chose Felton, who had always been a winner...

In fact, normally speaking, after entering the NBA, due to the widening gap in talent and strength between the two, the topic relevance should become lower and lower, and the media and fans should gradually stop comparing the two together. Deron should be compared more with Paul, and even discussed together with Paul, Wade, and Zhang Yang.

But every time Deron was asked about Felton, he angrily said that it was just because Felton's teammates were better than him.

Such remarks always cause controversy and bring up topics for discussion, so the media naturally choose to hype this aspect. In addition, Deron is getting stronger and stronger and receiving more and more attention, and Felton is the leader of a popular team and also receives a lot of attention. The two are so deeply tied together that the topic of Deron and Felton's matchup is even hotter than that of Deron and Paul's matchup. Even though the topics related to the two are always the same and have been hyped repeatedly, fans just love to discuss this.

Deron's indiscreet words during the interview not only made him a "downgrade" to his peers, but also caused tensions between him and his teammates. Some media reported that he not only had a bad relationship with his Jazz teammates, but his college teammates also almost cut off contact with him...

When Felton was interviewed, he was asked about his handling of the key ball against the Nuggets the day before yesterday.

He replied: “My idea at the time was actually very simple - what the opponent wants to see is what I try my best to avoid.

Allen knew he couldn't steal the ball from me again, so he kept rushing to steal it. He must have wanted to scare me, to scare me, to rush the ball and make me turn it over. I didn't do anything special, I just protected the ball and passed it to Jack at the right time. Everything else was up to him. He never let us down..."

When Zhang San heard this, he had only one thought: The fat little boss is becoming more and more stylish. Is he planning to play in the CBA for a few years after retiring from the NBA?

...

At 8 o'clock in the evening, the Bobcats' away game against the Jazz started.

Just like the last time they met, the two teams started a fierce defensive battle from the beginning of the game.

It is not easy for Deron to play against Felton in singles. With a height of 191 cm and a weight of 95 kg, he has a dominant weight and strength advantage over most opponents at the point guard position. However, facing Felton, who is 185 cm tall and weighs 96 kg, he will basically get no benefit by forcing a breakthrough.

Deron is stronger than Felton, referring to their performance when facing other players respectively. When the two directly compete against each other, both sides perform worse than usual and restrain each other.

The Jazz's killer pick-and-roll offense was not easy to play against the Bobcats. Millsap and Okafor, as well as Hill and Ibaka on the bench, were all above average in their ability to defend against the pick-and-roll. Especially Okafor, who swapped positions with Millsap to defend Boozer tonight, was particularly good at defending the pick-and-roll. Combined with Zhang Yang and Pietrus' switching and backup defense... the Jazz's offense was once again blocked at the start of tonight's game.

The same is true for the Bobcats. The Jazz use Kirilenko as the connecting point between the inside and outside lines, Deron and Ronnie Brewer as the back line, and Okur as the inside line to protect the rim, which is a natural counter to the Bobcats' offensive system. But the difference is that last time, the head coaches of both teams did not want to see the situation of a deadlocked defense. Tonight, only Sloan looked anxious.

Because the Bobcats are actively playing defense tonight!

Carlisle originally wanted to find a way to break the Jazz's defense, but from the last match until yesterday, he had thought about how to deal with the Jazz's defense many times in his spare time, but he couldn't come up with a good solution.

The defensive system that Sloan built around Kirilenko can be said to be the most restraining defensive system for the Bobcats in the entire league.

Until yesterday when they arrived at the hotel in Salt Lake City and Carlisle called his assistant coaches and core players to his room for a small meeting, he still had no good idea to deal with the Jazz's defense, and the assistant coaches and core players naturally had no idea either.

Just when he was thinking about working overtime and staying up late to ask a few old men for help, Zhang Yang said, "If you can't think of a solution, just give up. Tomorrow is the last time we play against the Jazz this season anyway."

After Zhang Yang said this, Carlisle suddenly understood.

He found that he seemed to be dwelling on a dead end, and then he recalled that when he took over the coaching position of the Bobcats the summer before last and began to prepare the new system, he did not include "dealing with the Jazz's defense" in the requirements of the offensive system.

Just as the Bad Boys said, there are only two games against the Jazz in a season, and there is no need to increase the difficulty of building a system for this opponent. There is no other player like Kirilenko in the entire league, and no other team can replicate the Jazz's defense.

If the Jazz really made it out of the West in the playoffs and the Bobcats made it out of the East, and they met in the finals... Kawhi Leonard would be hoping for that. Even if he was restrained against the Jazz, he had the confidence to win the series.

Deron + Boozer are far inferior to Stockton + Malone. If they play 7 games, even if they send Zhang San to beat the Jazz to death, they can still beat the Jazz.

The reason why he was so obsessed with this matter was purely because Sloan was one of his teachers when he was an assistant coach. He wanted to prove himself in front of this great coach and subconsciously wanted to do everything well. As a result, he forgot the reason why he excluded the Jazz from the initial preparation of the system.

After figuring it out, Carlisle no longer worried about how to break the Jazz's defense. This morning's preparations were almost all related to defense.

After the first quarter, the score between the two teams was 19 to 16, with the Jazz leading the Bobcats by 3 points.

In the second quarter, the Bobcats began to buck the trend and scored 19 to 17, narrowing the score to 35 to 36 before the end of the half, narrowing the gap to 1 point!
After the halftime break, the third quarter started. Zhang Yang's time was up. He made three mid-range shots and scored 3 to 6 on his own, helping the Bobcats to overtake the score 2 to 41!

In the next 10 minutes, the Bobcats, led by Zhang Yang, suppressed the Jazz and scored 20 to 17. After three quarters, the Bobcats expanded their lead to 6 points, leading the Jazz 61 to 55!
By the end of the quarter, the Bobcats had no chance to widen the gap. They were able to score 26 points in the third quarter, thanks to Zhang Yang's exaggerated performance of 8 of 5 mid-range shots, scoring 13 points in a single quarter. By the end of the quarter, he could no longer control the score.

However, the Jazz failed to substantially narrow the gap, not even to one goal. After all, the Bobcats were the side that was more prepared defensively. They were able to hold on to the score and prevent the gap from widening. Their defensive system alone did have a great restraint on the Bobcats.

With 11 minutes and 49 seconds left in the final quarter, Korver, who came on as a substitute, ran to a screen, received a pass from Kirilenko, turned around and shot a three-pointer... but the shot hit the rim due to the interference of Zhang Yang who was switching defense!
Boozer's attempt to steal the ball was in vain, and Hill used Okafor's position to protect the defensive rebound. The Jazz lost their last hope.

At 10:24:37, the final whistle sounded on time.

首节5分、第二节8分、第三节13分、末节8分，张杨28投13中，其中三分球6中1，加上7中7的罚球，拿到34分！
Thanks to Zhang Yang's 16 of 9 mid-range shots, the Bobcats narrowly defeated the Jazz 81-76!
Sloan is going to be introverted again tonight. Although he didn't see the detailed statistics, he counted that Zhang Yang made at least 15 mid-range shots and made almost 10 of them!
Judging from the defensive intensity and score tonight, it can almost be said that Zhang Yang single-handedly defeated the Jazz team!

In 84, Michael Jordan was born. In 96, Kobe Bryant was born. In 05, Zhang Yang was born. God must be against him, right? On average, there is a player who is his natural nemesis every 10 years?
Deron's mentality also exploded at this moment, but he was not staring at Zhang Yang, but Felton.

小肥今晚13投仅5中，其中三分球4中1，加上2中1的罚球，只拿到12分4助攻1抢断。

而他小胖，25投10中！拿到25分7助攻！虽然命中率也不咋滴，但命中率比爵士队全队的82投31中高多了，也比费尔顿高！
In the end, he was the loser!
Normally, in a nationally televised game, the post-game interview goes to the winner.

But when the Bobcats and Jazz were broadcast live nationwide and the Jazz lost, reporters always went to interview Deron first...

As expected by the reporter, Deron said sourly: "With a teammate like Pumpkin Jack, whoever plays point guard for the Bobcats can easily win the game."

When the reporter relayed Deron's answer to Felton's ears, Felton's emotions went from being stunned to speechless, and then he decisively responded: "Deron is right, our bad boy is the best in the world. I wish Deron can have teammates that satisfy him one day."

Onlooker Zhang San: Damn, the boss has improved in trash talking! But why does his tone and demeanor look familiar? Why can't I remember who spoke in such a sarcastic tone?

After defeating the Jazz, the next day, February 2st, a new month arrived. At noon, Zhang Yang flew with the team to the last stop of the four-game away game - the City of Angels, Los Angeles.

After arriving at Los Angeles International Airport and on the way to the hotel, the press officer told the players a good news - Zhang Yang and Okafor were both awarded the Eastern Conference Player of the Month last month!
However, Zhang Yang was surprised by the players of the month in the Western Conference - Duncan and Ginobili!

(End of this chapter)