First in scoring

Chapter 469 468. Halfway through the battle
After playing for more than 4 minutes, Zhang Yang and Wade had very low hit rates and scores. The two played in a dog-eat-dog style, and both of them made the other side suffer a lot.

During this period, Zhang Yang scored 4 points and 1 assist, and Wade scored 5 points and 1 assist. It seemed that the latter performed better, but the score was... 12 to 7, the Bobcats led the Heat by 5 points!
In addition to Zhang Yang scoring 4 points and Felton cutting in to close range and making a jump shot to get two points, the Bobcats' remaining 6 points were all scored on second offense!
Marion, who was self-doubting and whose body was rapidly deteriorating due to psychological influence; Haslem, who played wildly, was aggressive in rebounding, and had excellent athletic ability, but whose physique was poor in the interior and whose weight was not as good as Millsap; Joel Anthony, who averaged only 17 points and 2 rebounds in 3 minutes per game and relied purely on the center position and no one was starting... When Marion and Haslem needed to guard against Zhang Yang's breakthrough and stood relatively high, they were overwhelmed by Millsap and Okafor!

When Wade broke through and missed the shot, the basket was surrounded by Bobcats players. It was not that Haslem didn't want to get the ball, but he just couldn't squeeze in.

Cheek: Despicable Zhang San is plotting against me!
Why did Wade keep going for several rounds, and only realized he was being tricked when the score difference narrowed to 5 points?
Because Zhang Yang did not do any deep double-teaming to attract the defense in the past few rounds, he has been trying to create the best conditions for shooting.

In one round, Marion and Haslem were defending downwards, and Zhang Yang broke through to the elbow area and made a quick stop jump shot, which scared the two players so much that they had to move up to defend in the next round.

From the perspective of Zhang Yang's playing style, he really had no tactical intentions. He just wanted to compete. Millsap and Okafor grabbed 4 offensive rebounds, 3 of which were converted into points. Millsap and Okafor made active adjustments based on their tacit understanding.

When the Heat attacked, Wade received the ball and advanced slowly, crossing half court with an 8-second violation. He used this time to adjust his mentality and calm himself down.

He is currently facing the first critical point of tonight's game:

The best case scenario is that they will have a small climax next time to narrow the gap or even overtake;

The worst case scenario is to maintain the status quo. They are used to falling behind by 5 points and start competing with the opponent around this point difference.

The situation he least wanted to see but was the most likely one was that the opponent would take advantage of the victory and widen the gap.

If it were any of the top teams or even first-rate teams, they wouldn't care about this, but he can't. Their strength is weak. If they want to defeat the Bobcats, the top team in the league, they have to pay attention to every key point, seize every opportunity, and try their best to counterattack every time they are at a disadvantage.

Moreover, they have to compete with the top team in the league. They cannot back down because the outcome of each game may affect whether they can finally enter the playoffs.

What annoys him the most is that only one of the three situations is good, and the worst situation is the most likely to happen. This is the sadness of a weak team. In the past two years, he has truly felt the same way as Kobe did back then.

After calming down, Wade advanced to the top of the arc. Facing Zhang Yang's close defense, he took half a step back and prepared for a pick-and-roll!

Haslem pulled out to block Zhang Yang, and Wade broke through with the help of the screen!
Zhang Yang retreated directly, and Millsap, who was defending the pick-and-roll, chose to defend tacitly, so Wade had to change direction and move sideways to advance.

Zhang Yang took the opportunity to chase after Wade. Although he failed to catch up with him, he, Millsap, and Okafor under the basket formed a siege on Wade. The only shooting options left for Wade were to take the quick stop and mid-range shot, which he was not good at, or to make a strong shot under the basket while being double-teamed.

Wade chose to go deeper, and was double-teamed by Zhang Yang, Millsap, and Okafor... Wade grabbed the ball and threw it to the left before the opponent completed the encirclement!

Okafor reacted quickly and moved to the right immediately, but he was still a little slow. Haslem received the ball, took a step outside the reasonable collision zone, and made a close-range shot...and it hit!
Big Cheeks gave up the fight and started to play as a team, while Zhang San...still chose to play alone!

As long as the Heat don't double-team him in the high post, he will shoot!

Wade has excellent defensive awareness, good basic skills, good enthusiasm, and the league's top explosive lateral movement ability. When he is sure that Zhang Yang will choose to shoot from a high post, he can always limit the confrontation when Zhang Yang jumps.

However, after attacking several times, Zhang Yang has gradually adapted to this point, and has been adjusting the shooting angle and force movements. The "concept of shooting in confrontation" that he learned from Kobe in the last training session, which sounds outrageous, is now really used...

Under Wade's confrontation, Zhang Yang turned left and then turned right to shoot a fadeaway jump shot... and it hit!
From 6 out of 2 to 7 out of 3, Zhang Yang's singles hit rate returned to over %!

After Wade finished the confrontation and Zhang Yang jumped, he immediately turned inward. His teammates couldn't protect the defensive rebound well, so of course he had to help as both a father and a mother, and then he saw the ball fall into the frame!
Thinking of Zhang Yang's continuous turning and jumping with obvious greater confidence, Wade groaned in anger. He had felt something strange before, and now he was sure - the damn Zhang San was using his big cheeks to practice his skills!
He was very familiar with this move, the old West Coast blacksmith's back-to-the-basket and consecutive turnaround mid-range shots.

But he actually still has a bit of pride in this. In his early years, he also liked to practice his skills when facing top defensive players in order to hone his abilities. Zhang San uses him to practice his skills. Doesn't this mean that Zhang San thinks that he, with his big cheeks, is a top defensive player?

What makes Wade even more uncomfortable is that he can't stop Zhang Yang from shooting. He can only influence his jumping, rhythm and confrontation. This cannot be changed - the disadvantage of height and wingspan.

When the Heat attacked, Wade continued to cooperate with Haslem in pick-and-roll.

This time it was Marion who received the ball from the left side of the three-second zone and shot it in from close range.

Wade played hard on both ends of the defense, facing Zhang Yang on defense and fighting hard on offense. Under his leadership, the Heat kept the score close in several rounds before and after the official timeout, maintaining a difference of about 5 points and preventing the Bobcats from continuing to expand their advantage.

This was the not-so-good situation that Wade analyzed earlier, but he had already tried his best. He could also feel that his teammates were also working hard. Even Marion, who was broken, was trying his best to score and defend.

On the other side, Zhang Yang maintained the status quo by doing only one thing, the simplest thing - shooting a single shot...

The game came to the end of the first quarter, with 9 minutes and 16 seconds left, the score was 23 to 19, and the Bobcats were leading by 4 points. In the past 5 minutes, they were tied with the Heat at 11 to 12, and now the Heat had the ball.

Wade attacked with the ball and continued to play pick-and-roll, and this time it was Marion who came out to provide screen.

After the break, Wade passed the ball to Marion at the top of the arc. Marion passed the ball to Haslem while running, took a step forward and made a close-range jump shot... He had made two jump shots from a similar position before, but this time he missed!
In fact, this is not his strong shooting point, but the opponent will not give him a better chance to shoot. If he takes another step, he will be covered by the opponent's inside line, and if he retreats to make a mid-range shot, Zhang Yang will switch defense and stick to him, and his chances will be even worse. The first two times he made the shot were due to good touch and good luck, but that kind of good luck obviously cannot last long.

The ball hit the rim and bounced out. Zhang Yang turned around, took a step and jumped, grabbing the defensive rebound right in the middle of the three-second zone!

Wade didn't get into position to steal the ball. When he saw Zhang Yang jumping up, he immediately turned around and retreated with Beasley and Marion.

Zhang Yang launched a counterattack, and after Hill and Brad Miller came on as substitutes, Okafor, who returned to the power forward position, followed up on both wings.

Beasley and Marion expanded to the two wings to block Hill and Okafor, while Wade faced Zhang Yang in the middle.

When Zhang Yang slowed down two meters outside the top arc, Wade, who was one step inside the three-point line to defend against him, rushed over... but was still too slow!
Zhang Yang took a step forward to grab the ball, jumped to a position more than half a meter away from the top arc, jumped up, and shot a three-pointer facing Wade's defense... and it went in!
Looking at Zhang Yang retreating with his arms outstretched amid boos, Wade felt the same powerlessness he had in his first Olympic game.

He has defended other three-point shooting masters - Terry and Billups, but those two are not as difficult to defend as Zhang Yang, and it's not just a matter of height difference.

Rather than a chase three-pointer, it would be more accurate to say that those two people simply made a counterattack and shot a three-pointer. He might still concede a goal to the opponent, but at least he was able to defend in place and create effective interference.

But as long as the guy in front of him chose to shoot a three-pointer, he felt that everything he did was in vain, and the other party seemed to ignore him at all...

Fans who watched the live broadcast also had the same feeling as Wade through the replay - Zhang Yang seemed to ignore Wade's existence when he shot the three-pointer.

In fact, it is true. When Zhang Yang reached the deceleration point and saw Wade starting to jump out, he was sure that the opponent would not be able to interfere with him. His choice of the take-off point has taken into account the maximum distance that Wade can interfere with. If Wade retreats one more step to the outside, Zhang Yang will choose to stop and start quickly to play with a bad rhythm.

During the Olympics, experts analyzed this aspect of Zhang Yang and believed that being able to make accurate judgments, make offensive decisions and execute them instantly while moving quickly over long distances is a very rare talent.

Terry doesn't have this talent, and neither does Billups!
26 to 19, the score difference was 7 points. Zhang Yang's goal set off a fierce attack wave by the Bobcats at the end of the quarter.

In the next two minutes, the Bobcats scored 6 points, and Wade tried his best to lead the team to score 4 points, keeping the score difference in single digits.

It was the Heat's turn to attack again. Wade held the ball at the top of the arc. Zhang Yang took a big step back, trying to defend against the breakthrough but not the long shot. Wade hesitated for a moment, but still grabbed the ball and jumped, taking a three-point shot... and missed!
Okafor grabbed the defensive rebound, and the Heat tried their best to retreat and block the Bobcats' defensive counterattack, but they failed to stop the great Jack!

Jarrett Jack rushed into the inside with the ball and made a layup against Haslem who moved to the center position... When the ball fell, the red light came on, a long whistle sounded, and the ball went into the basket!

After the first quarter, the score was 34 to 23, and the Bobcats entered the intermission with an 11-point lead!
With 10 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and 1 block in a single quarter, Wade had done his best to perform against the Bobcats' top rotation defense and excellent inside double-teaming, but in the end the opponent widened the gap to double digits.

As for Zhang Yang on the opposite side, he only needs to do the simplest thing - score points.

首节打满12分钟，12投6中，其中三分球2中1，加上2中2的罚球，拿到15分3板1助攻，命中率硬生生从33%干到了50%。

Wade felt very tired, but he was somewhat used to it. This season was not the first time he encountered this situation. After all, his team was really weak. Beasley, the rookie No. 1 pick who was below expectations, and Marion, whose mentality collapsed and his strength collapsed, were already his two best teammates...

What really annoys him now is the progress of Zhang San on the opposite side.

He feels that he still has an advantage in personal ability, but compared with last season's advantage, it has been reduced a lot.

He felt uncomfortable because he had reached the limit of his room for improvement. What made him even more sad was seeing his competitors making great leaps every year!

...

After taking a double-digit lead in the first quarter, the Bobcats steadily suppressed the Heat in the following period. Wade did not give up and continued to look for opportunities to counterattack, but there was no substantial progress and he did not narrow the gap to a level that would allow for a comeback.

At 7:58 pm, the final whistle sounded.

114 to 101, the Bobcats easily defeated the Heat.

Wade puffed his cheeks as he looked at the game results displayed on the big screen, groaning for who knows how many times tonight, then hugged and greeted Zhang Yang, Felton, Okafor, Millsap and others, and then left the court dejectedly.

又是看开的一晚：对手实力那么强，自家最好的队友，对对方来说可能就是替补的实力，输了也正常……而且他23投11中、其中三分球4中1、加上10中7的罚球，拿到30分8板9助攻1抢断3盖帽，不比对面张三27投14中拿到36分10板3助攻3抢断1盖帽差。

In the opening game, he exploded with emotions after the game. In the second loss, his expression was still very grumpy, but much better than in the opening game. Now it is the last game in the middle of the season, and he has already learned to adjust himself. If he gets so angry every time he loses, his liver will explode.

Now, he can only believe what the fortune teller said. He will show his ability and attract stars to join in the next two years...

The next morning, Zhang Yang woke up early, took the car sent by the sponsor, and went to the event venue for the endorsement event. At this time, except for Okafor, Magloire, and Hill, all his teammates were still lying on the nightclub girls.

43 wins and 9 losses, 10 consecutive wins... With such a hot first-half performance, the fat boss took his teammates to a nightclub last night. He paid the bill and invited the whole team to enjoy the enthusiasm of the South Coast girls.

However, Zhang San and Little Duncan played around and went through the process before leaving, which led to their being teased by the Fatty Boss.

Miami is a popular tourist city, and sponsors gave Zhang Yang 5 press releases on that day.

After a busy day, he came to Boss Joe's vacation villa in Miami and took a bath to relieve his fatigue.

The team has checked out of the hotel where they were staying, and most of the teammates have left Miami and entered vacation mode. Currently, there are only four people in this vacation villa: him, Felton, Okafor, and Hill.

This year's All-Star Weekend, the Bobcats only had three All-Star players participating, and no one else.

Sophomore Afflalo and rookie Ibaka were both eliminated from the Rising Stars Game.

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

There's nothing that can be done about it. The class of 08 is too fierce, with as many as 12 players averaging double-digit points per game so far this season. This is even more exaggerated than in the 14s and 10s when the draft was dominated by juniors and seniors. Especially in the lottery zone, of the rookies averaged double-digit points per game... Ibaka has no chance at all.

The 07 class didn't look that good last season, but they all took off in their sophomore year, and a defensive guard like Afflalo had no chance of that.

Except for Hill, who loves to join in the fun and will definitely go to the scene to join in the fun, everyone else wants to have a good rest during the All-Star break and may not go to watch the game in person. They have played very tired this season and they should rest as much as possible.

Like Mike Miller, he even rejected the invitation to the three-point contest.

After Zhang Yang came out of the bath, he found three people in the chess and card room. They were playing mahjong together.

Zhang Yang said in a surprised tone: "I didn't expect you guys would really like this. Play whenever you have time."

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Felton somehow learned about the "New Year's greetings" and brought a few people from the Big Boss Gang to his house early in the morning to deliver a bunch of gifts. His parents were bound to give them a warm welcome, and his mother saw that some people were bored, so she taught a few of his teammates how to play mahjong.

In the first few days, learning to play mahjong became a trend in their team, but most people just played for the novelty and lost interest after that period.

What surprised Zhang Yang was that Hill and Okafor, who were not interested in the game at first, became addicted to it after their teammates stopped playing.

Okafor responded: "Mahjong is a subject that contains clever mathematical knowledge and psychological negotiation methods, which can help me exercise my brain power and psychological logic."

Hill went on to say: “This is also a sociology game, and a good game for exercising game thinking.”

Felton: “Ah, yes, yes…”

As the best mahjong player in the team, Zhang San: Am I the only one who is vulgar? I only know how to gamble when playing mahjong... Eh? No! Little Fatty seems to be the same.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yang was no longer upset and joined in a few rounds... He decisively stopped after losing a few hundred dollars, and became even more upset. It seemed that he had never won a card game since he entered the NBA.

He returned to his room and checked the news for a while.

On the first day after the first half, there were many hot topics, the media hyped them up, and the fans were very enthusiastic about participating in the discussions.

With 43 wins and 9 losses, they are in first place at the halfway point and are naturally the focus of attention at the moment.

The three words Zhang Yang saw most frequently mentioned in topics related to them were: he, Kabalu, and new system.

His personal performance has been praised since the beginning of the season, while Carlisle and the new system started low and ended high.

At the end of the first month of games, the record was average, basically relying solely on the lineup to support the team. They couldn't even maintain the offense that was in the top four in the league last season. Carlisle was badly criticized and the new system was not favored.

Now, Carlisle is praised to the sky, and their new system is regarded as the "benchmark for future basketball."

Zhang Yang saw that the Los Angeles Times evaluated them like this - Jordan, Carlisle, and Jack are all very patient. They spent a year and a half slowly polishing and building a new system, and now it is finally blossoming. Their performance in the game against the Lakers impressed us. They played a very different kind of basketball from other teams. If Allen Iverson is the answer among basketball players, the current Bobcats may be the new answer to team basketball, and Jack is also the new answer.

Zhang Yang's favorite is the last sentence...

However, there is one team that is just as popular as them—the Spurs!

The Spurs, like the Bobcats, ended the first half of the season with 10 consecutive wins, bringing their record to 38 wins and 14 losses. They tied the Lakers' record in the last game and relied on a direct match against the Lakers with 2 wins and 1 loss to beat the Lakers and take first place in the Western Conference in the first half of the season!

On the 1st, after Duncan and Ginobili won the Western Conference Player of the Month award last month, the Spurs began to enter the public eye. People were surprised to find that the Spurs began to take off from mid-December. Looking at the second half of December alone, the Spurs' record was already the best in the Western Conference. In January, they even surpassed the Bobcats and had the best performance in the league.

In the six games after Duncan and Ginobili won the monthly best players, the Spurs became the favorite after every game. They only had nine games scheduled for national broadcasts throughout the season, and they added three more in the first half of February.

Moreover, in just less than half a month, the Spurs have gained a lot of "team fans" across the United States and even around the world!
This made the media exclaim in disbelief. You know, the Spurs have been strong for more than ten years since they had Duncan. Duncan was the only popular player, and the Spurs have always been a rat crossing the street that everyone wanted to beat.

Zhang Yang was not surprised by this. It is always easy to attract fans by playing offense. Before last season, even though the Bobcats won the championship in the 06-07 season, the team did not have many fans. But last season, they played offensive basketball and the number of fans increased dramatically.

However, he also had some regrets - the change in the way information is disseminated was so sudden, there was almost no transition period from traditional media to online media.

Several local third- and fourth-tier newspapers in the Carolina area that he subscribed to went bankrupt. The owners of those newspapers probably had no idea why, and they did nothing wrong, but suddenly one day no one subscribed to their newspapers.

Those media that survive are those that are large in scale, transform quickly, and actively embrace the Internet.

The Spurs became so popular so quickly, which is closely related to the changes in the way information is disseminated. The explosive increase in home Internet bandwidth in the past two years has brought about an increase in the speed of information dissemination, allowing people to see their performance.

In previous years, the Spurs would have become popular much more slowly. If the traditional media wanted to target them, they would most likely end up like the Pistons in the 05-06 season. Even if they played beautiful games and had the best record in the league, people still ignored them and thought their games were still as ugly as before.

Zhang Yang read the news about the Spurs for a while, and had a new feeling - the difference between mass media and traditional authoritative media. When traditional media praise a team, they have to follow some "basic laws", but "mass media" is different. They praise without thinking, and even make up stories directly...

Taking his attention away from the news about his own team and the Spurs, Zhang Yang looked at other information.

半程战绩排名，西部，马刺队38胜14负第一、湖人队38胜14负第二、掘金队34胜18负第三、灰熊队33胜19负第四、开拓者队33胜19负第五、小牛队32胜20负第六、爵士队30胜22负第七、黄蜂队30胜22负第八、火箭队30胜22负第九、太阳队29胜23负第十。

东部，山猫队43胜9负第一、骑士队40胜12负第二、魔术队38胜14负第三、凯尔特人队28胜24负第四（赛区头名）、公牛队32胜20负第五、老鹰队31胜21负第六、热火队27胜25负第七、步行者队26胜26负第八、篮网队25胜27负第九……

The performance ranking list that Zhang Yang saw this time was different from what he usually saw. Usually, he would just look at the performance ranking, but this time he saw the real "ranking list" which included the division rules, and the playoff matchups were based on this.

He seemed to see Pierce, Bibby, Joe Johnson and others desperately trying to get fifth place in the second half of the season. There was not much difference between Yao Ming's team and the Magic, Cavaliers and Celtics, but the Hawks were different.

From his personal perspective, based on his own experience playing against those teams, he feels that the Hawks have a chance of winning against the Cavaliers, but it will be difficult to win against the Magic, but no matter who they play against, it will definitely not be as easy as playing against the Celtics.

In the half-time data list, he ranked first with an average of 31.67 points per game, surpassing Wade who averaged 31.3 points per game. They are the only two players who averaged more than 30 points per game this season.

In the assists list, Paul ranks first with 11.1 assists per game, Deron ranks second with 10.9 assists per game, Rondo ranks third with 9.4 assists per game, and Nash ranks fourth with 9.2 assists per game. They are all far behind, so it is basically a competition between Paul and Deron.

In the rebounding list, Howard is far ahead with an average of 14 rebounds per game, Bynum is second with an average of 12 rebounds per game, and David Lee is third with an average of 11.7 rebounds per game... This Bobcats team has players on the list, Okafor ranks eighth with an average of 10.7 rebounds per game.

In the block list, Howard ranks first with an average of 3 blocks per game, leading by a large margin.

Zhang Yang is on the steals list, ranking second with an average of 2.5 steals per game. The first is Pao Ge, who averages 2.8 steals per game.

Regarding the halfway predictions for the three major individual awards, Zhang Yang looked happy.

Mayo ranked first in the rookie list; Howard ranked first in the defensive list;

First on the MVP list... Zhang San: It’s me!
(End of this chapter)