First in scoring

Chapter 532 531. Returning to the normal sense of imbalance
Durant in his third year, like Zhang Yang in his third year in the 07-08 season, has become a strong contender for the scoring title;
Rose, who showed brilliant talent in his rookie year last season, has made significant progress.

The two led the team to become a playoff contender in the wild Western Conference, making the Thunder the most watched young team.

The Thunder faced the defending champion Bobcats at home. The media and fans had extremely high expectations for the twin stars and wanted to see this young team defeat the defending champions, gain entry into the mainstream, and truly join the ranks of first-tier teams.

It just so happened that the Bobcats were in a period of fatigue at that time. It was the second game of a back-to-back game. They almost lost to the Raptors the night before. People felt that the Thunder had a great chance of winning.

In addition, Durant and Zhang Yang are both among the four major contenders for the scoring title. This game attracted a lot of attention and had high ratings. On TNT Sports alone, the audience signal for the entire 48-minute game exceeded 300 million.

Just as the media predicted, the Thunder had the upper hand against the Bobcats... and then we saw Zhang Yang score 60+ in a single game, defeating Rose and Durant in a one-on-two fight!
Zhang Yang got back the highest single-game score of the season that was taken away by Jennings at the beginning of the month in a more wild way!
After the game, the media's reporting direction immediately changed, from praising the twin stars to praising Zhang Yang.

As for the media, they must hype up hotter topics. Before the game, if they wrote news like Zhang Yang VS Gemini, Gemini challenge the defending champion, Gemini challenge the new generation big daddy... etc., there would definitely be popularity, but it would definitely not be as attractive as 'Twin Stars use the defending champion led by the bad boys as a stepping stone'.

After this game, Zhang Yang's average points per game soared from 29.5 points to 30.6 points, directly rising from fourth place in the scoring list, surpassing James who averaged 29.8 points, Durant who increased his average points to 39 points after scoring 29.9 points, and Anthony who averaged 30.2 points, to top the scoring list!
This is not the first time that Zhang Yang has scored 60+ in a single game. In the 07-08 season, he scored 60 points in a single game when he competed with Iverson and Anthony. After tonight, he became one of the few players in NBA history who has scored 60+ in a single game more than once.

同时，这也是他职业生涯第10次单场50+，成为继张伯伦、贝勒、里克-巴里、乔丹、艾弗森、科比之后第7位至少单场10次50+的球员！
He is also the second fastest player in history to score 10 50+ points in a single game after Chamberlain!
...

Winning all 5 games in 4 days, Zhang Yang made a big splash in the last game, taking more than half of the team's shots and scoring nearly two-thirds of the team's points... becoming the focus of the league.

But the Bobcats were also severely damaged by this schedule.

After returning to Charlotte on the 21st and resting for a night, the team faced the Celtics at home on the 22nd. Felton, Millsap and Perkins were absent due to injuries.

Even Felton, who is so tough, was shaken by Rose and pulled his thigh muscle during the matchup. Carlisle had to recall Matthews from the Development League and put Tyronn Lue on the active list.

There were 5 games in 4 days this time, and O'Neal did not play in the second game of two back-to-back games. There were 4 players rotating in the inside and 7 players rotating in the outside, so the manpower was sufficient, but in the game, even Zhang Yang's performance was very poor.

Collison tried to take the lead...but was beaten by Mayo.

Entering his sophomore year, Mayo's scoring average declined to 20.1 points.

This is related to the Celtics' reinforcement of their outside line. This summer, they traded for Nate Robinson from the Knicks, traded for Marquis Daniels from the Pacers, signed Finley who was abandoned by the Spurs, and added Tony Allen, Josh Smith, Eddie House, and Farmar. The Celtics' outside line is far more complete than last season.

Mayo's number of shots therefore dropped from 17.1 per game in his rookie year to 15.6 per game, but his hit rate improved a lot, from 43% to 45.3%. The most obvious improvement was in three-pointers, from 36% shooting and 1.7 three-pointers per game to 38% shooting and 2.1 three-pointers per game.

The number of assists also increased from 4.4 per game to 5.1 per game.

However, this rate of improvement is far lower than people's expectations of him during the offseason. Compared with four guards of the same class, including Rose, Westbrook, Harden, and DeRozan, who made leaps and bounds in their sophomore seasons, his stamina is obviously much worse.

Of course, Mayo's strength is enough to beat the rookie Collison, and he plays very hard every time he plays against the Bobcats.

梅奥19投9中拿到全场最高的27分外加4助攻，艾尔-杰弗森场均21分12板稳如老狗，约什-史密斯14分7板7助攻也保持着平均水平。

Led by these three players, the Celtics handed the Bobcats their biggest loss since the start of the season with a score of 108 to 90, ending the Bobcats' five-game winning streak!

Far away in Oklahoma City, Rose almost vomited three liters of blood when watching the live broadcast. He and Durant fought hard with Zhang Yang the night before, but ended up making wedding clothes for the damn Mayo?
After two rest days, on December 12, the Bobcats came to the United Center in Chicago to play against the Bulls on Christmas.

This is the third consecutive year that the two teams have faced off on Christmas. Like the OK battles from 3 to 05, the Yao-Zhang showdown has become a "traditional program" on Christmas.

But this is the first time at the Bulls' home court.

There are only three Christmas games this year, with the Bulls facing the Bobcats at home, the Lakers facing the Cavaliers at home, and the Knicks facing the Thunder at home.

Zhang Yang, who can barely be considered a Mesozoic generation, and veteran Yao Ming; veteran Kobe Bryant, and James, who can barely be considered a veteran; Rose, Durant, and Harden, who are from the new generation. When the league arranged the schedule during the offseason, the most popular players from the three generations of old, middle, and new were all included.

Zhang, Yao, Kobe and James have been All-Star starters for many years, and each of them has won the most votes.

Rose and Durant are in a small market, and their popularity is purely based on their performance.

Harden is quite special. In terms of personal ability, he can only be considered fourth in the 08 class at most. Mayo, Rose, and Westbrook are all better than him. Even Bills is not inferior to him in terms of personal ability. However, he is the most popular one in the 08 class because he is a genius in the Big Apple and his exposure is amazing.

Less than a season and a half later, fans across the NBA knew that he grew a beard so he could go into nightclubs and that he liked girls with big butts and curvy bodies.

At 5 pm New York time, the Knicks' home game against the Thunder started first. The twin stars of Durant and Ross scored a total of 61 points, beating the duo of Haku and Arnold who scored a total of 31 points. The Thunder won the away game 114 to 106.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, the Bulls' home game against the Bobcats will start.

Felton and Millsap continued to be absent, Perkins returned, Carlisle sent out the twin towers of Okafor and O'Neal, and sent Tyronn Lue, Zhang Yang and Afflalo to start on the outside.

The Bobcats continued to perform poorly in the first half, trailing the Bulls by 31 points at 50-19. Although they recovered in the second half, Zhang Yang, Hill and O'Neal led the team to a 26-19 score in the third quarter. In the final quarter, Zhang Yang, Afflalo and Okafor also led the team to a 24-18 score, recovering a 50-point difference at halftime with 37-13. The Bulls felt a sense of crisis in the middle of the final quarter, but Hinrich led his teammates to steady their footing, control the tempo, and fight positional battles, firmly securing the victory to the end.

晚上10点23分，终场哨声响起，姚明拿到19分9板3助攻2盖帽、罗尔-邓15分7板2助攻2抢断、辛里奇20分6助攻，公牛队以87比81击败山猫队，终结了在圣诞大战上对山猫队的两连败！
In the final game, the Lakers faced the Cavaliers at home.

科比拿到28分、基德11分7板8助攻、加内特18分8板2助攻，三巨头表现都在线。

但对面莫-威廉姆斯迎着基德防守13投9中，其中三分球6中5，加上5中5的罚球，狂轰28分；
Jamison also exploded, scoring 18 points on 10-of-24 shooting;
詹姆斯19投9中外加11中8的罚球拿到26分9助攻。

The Cavaliers' three top scorers collectively went on a rampage, defeating the Lakers 114-107 on the road!
...

The next day, at noon on the 26th, Zhang Yang, his parents, younger brother, and girlfriend who were on the road with the team went to Yao Ming's house for lunch. Yao Ming joked that they were so angry about losing the game that they wanted to eat him out of money.

It was the first time that Zhang Yang lost a game on Christmas. He was in a very bad mood last night, but after all, winning and losing are common in a game. After a good night’s sleep, it was a new day again… Mainly because he learned that the elementary school student and the old blacksmith also lost, he felt much more balanced mentally.

Early this morning, the NBA official website and major cooperating online platforms have begun voting for the starting lineups of the Dallas All-Star Weekend, indicating that the early stage of the season has come to an end and the mid-term stage has begun.

The Bobcats have played 29 games so far, with 21 wins and 8 losses. Zhang Yang got up in the morning and looked at the previous record table. Their performance is actually not bad. Although they are ranked fifth in the Eastern Conference, their record is only slightly worse than the Cavaliers with 25 wins and 5 losses and the Bulls with 23 wins and 7 losses. Although the Magic are ranked third in the Eastern Conference, their record is 21 wins and 9 losses. Their Bobcats are the third best team in the Eastern Conference.

Including the sixth-placed Hawks, with 20 wins and 10 losses, the biggest difference in record between the top five teams in the Eastern Conference is only 5 wins.

Even if the Bobcats have 10 wins and 6 losses in their last 4 games, that is the winning rate of the Thunder, Nuggets, Hornets and other Western Conference playoff contenders.

Their current winning rate, converted to 82 games, is 59.3 wins. Maintaining the current winning rate and striving for 60 wins is actually a normal performance.

He is personally not satisfied with this record, mainly because last season's record was too good. Now that he has returned to "normal", his mentality is inevitably a little unbalanced, and he will play anxiously in some games.

Being anxious is sometimes a good thing, like when playing against the Thunder, he shot wildly without any regard for the consequences and scored 60+ points; but most of the time it is not a good thing, like when playing against the Bulls facing the rotation defense of Sefrosa and Luol Deng, he made 30 of 10 shots, the second time of the season that he missed 2 shots in a single game, the 20th time in his career, and when playing against the Celtics facing the defense of Tony Allen, he almost missed 15 shots.

Zhang Yang now admires Jordan in the 96-97 season even more. He won 72 games in the first year, had a chance to win 70 games in the second year, and finally achieved a terrifying record of 69 wins.

The Spurs' consistent 50-win season and occasional 60-win season when the team's lineup or form is excellent is actually a more reasonable way to maintain long-term competitiveness.
But it also takes Duncan to make it so reasonable and make people get used to the fact that a team has always been a championship team. In fact, it is a very incredible thing.

Even players who have won multiple championships, such as Mikan, Bird, Jordan, and OK, had several seasons when they had nothing to do with the championship.

There are only three people in the entire NBA history who can give people this feeling-Russell, Magic, and the most recent one is Duncan.

Zhang Yang is quite concerned about the statistics. After two consecutive games with high production and less than 30 points, his score, which had just risen to 30.6 points, dropped to 30.3, and was caught up by Anthony. He is not a comprehensive player. Only his scoring and steals are good. Compared with other top forwards and guards, he has always been at a disadvantage. Last season, his average of 25 assists per game was already a career high. This year, with a backup point guard who can pass the ball better and Afflalo who can also pass the ball, his assists have dropped back to just over 4.1.

He finally got back to the top of the scoring list, but fell down again after only a few days. He felt sad just thinking about it.

After taking his family to eat at Yao Ming's restaurant, Zhang Yang returned to Charlotte with the team in the afternoon. Before dinner in the evening, he couldn't wait to practice a few more sets of shooting.

On the 19th of last month, after he collected 10 shooting points, he received the reward for the last of the three tasks in the previous round, and his experience level was randomly increased.

He didn't get the ball-control rhythm of Son of Wind, the back-to-the-basket rhythm of Bird, and the Grim Reaper that he wanted most. Fortunately, he didn't get the experience of 'I age slower' that is of no use now. What he got was the improvement of core strength from the beginner to the intermediate level.

The 'slightly' mark in the effect is gone, but the effect is still quite obvious. The little bitch said that his waist strength seemed to have become stronger... Most of the time, you can't feel the change. His waist was already good, but after his physical strength declined, when he forced himself to lean back, or pulled up during a confrontation, you could feel the difference. He felt more powerful than before in the same situation.

For example, when playing against the Thunder, he broke through at the last moment and was defended by Rose, but he was still able to use his height advantage when striding for a layup, all because of the improvement in his core strength.

After receiving this reward, a new round of tasks came, which was still 3 tasks with 10 shooting points.

He had wanted to hurry up and collect $10 before the mid-season to get another round of experience, but failed. Starting from the three-game road trip to Texas, his training time was reduced, especially starting with the four games in five days. He had almost no personal training. In the last six games, he averaged 5 minutes per game. Even with his recovery ability, he couldn't bear it.

The team has had very little training during this period. Before the three-game road trip to Texas, his shooting value was 5. Nearly 6 days later, his shooting value has just reached 20.

After the Christmas game, the Bobcats have three days of rest. Their next game will be on the 3th, at home against the Raptors, an easy game. Before entering the difficult schedule in mid-January, they only have six games until January 29th.

After the schedule slowed down a bit and he accepted that the results had returned to 'normal', he relaxed a lot, felt less tired, and wanted to practice shooting, trying to save up a few hundred points.

But after practicing a few sets of mid-range shots and three-pointers, he stopped training. When he has rest time, he needs to let his body get enough rest.

He rested for another day on the 27th and only did a few sets of three-pointers during morning exercise. On the training day on the 28th, when he got up in the morning, he felt refreshed and full of life.

After a day of preparation, on the 29th, the Bobcats' first mid-season game day arrived. Felton and Millsap both returned after resting for nearly 10 days.

Yesterday was the training day, and the two participated in a full training session and seemed to be fine, which made Zhang Yang put his worries aside.

Their overall health status has been ideal since the start of the season. Of the 14 players on the team, nine have missed games due to injuries, and one has been repeatedly demoted to the Development League and recalled.

Only Zhang San, Okafor, Afflalo, and... Hill have not been injured. To be precise, only Hill has not been injured. The three of them have sprained or pulled their muscles, but not to the extent that they need to rest due to injuries.

The injuries of other players are not serious, and once the time comes when they need to be suspended, Carlisle will choose to force the players to rest.

From Vincent, Zhang Yang learned that Carlisle used to be the type of coach who advocated "not leaving the front line even if he was slightly injured". This was a habit he developed from watching Bird play many years ago.

But after coaching the Pacers for a few years, he began to change his mind after seeing O'Neal Jr.'s minor injuries turned into major injuries and his athletic ability was destroyed in his golden period of 26 or 27 years old.

Now that 70 wins have been achieved, Carlisle is no longer obsessed with the regular season record and is very strict with injuries.

At 7 pm, the Bobcats will face the Raptors at home.

张杨出场33分钟，18投10中、其中三分球7中4，加上4中4的罚球，高效拿到28分5板2助攻3抢断！

Under his leadership, the Bobcats easily defeated the Raptors 103-94, improving their record to 22 wins and 8 losses!
Felton, who had just recovered from injury, came off the bench and played for 18 minutes, making 7 of 3 shots, scoring 8 points and 4 assists, which was pretty good overall.

Millsap's performance was more aggressive. He played for 28 minutes, made 7 of 5 shots, plus 5 of 3 free throws, and scored 13 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists. Okafor only played 17 minutes tonight and clocked out at halftime.

However, the two teammates who returned from injury played very well, and the performance of the healthy Collison surprised Zhang Yang.

科里森休息了3天像是休息过头一样，首发登场打了25分钟，11投3中加上5中3的罚球拿到9分2助攻。

During the game, Collison's performance annoyed Zhang Yang. However, after the game, looking at the dejected Collison, Zhang Yang suddenly remembered that this old high school rival with complete physical development and mature skills was still a rookie!

Nearly 30 games were played in two months, which in the NCAA is sometimes as many games as a team plays in an entire season!

Moreover, in the two games before the three-day break, facing Mayo and Hinrich, Collison's playing time exceeded 3 minutes. His playing time suddenly doubled. Not only was he tired, but he was also beaten by the two... Now, is it likely that he has hit a wall?

This is a process that most rookies have to go through. Zhang Yang also went through it in his rookie year, and he had no experience to offer Collison. The situation of the Bobcats at that time was completely different from what it is now. No matter how badly he played or how badly he shot, even if his shooting percentage was less than 40% for several games in a row, old Bickerstaff would give him more than 20 minutes of playing time per game and let him throw the ball more than a dozen times.

However, the coaching staff seems to be very patient with Collison...

After a day's rest, on December 12, the Bobcats played their last game of 31 at home, against the Heat, who also had the No. 2009 superstar.

张杨延续了上一场的出色表现，20投11中，其中三分球7中4，加上9中9的罚球，拿到35分4板2助攻2抢断。

韦德表现也非常出色，22投11中，加上14中11的罚球，拿到33分6板6助攻。

But for the Heat tonight, apart from Wade scoring in double digits, there was only Beasley's 14 points and Big Q's 10 points. There was no fourth player scoring in double digits.

O'Neal, the only "pillar" in the interior, was defended and only got 10 points and 3 rebounds with 6 of 5 shots.

107-91, the Bobcats defeated the Heat and won their 23rd victory of the season.

Wade did not play as hard this season as he did last season. It might be the arrangement of the Heat coaching staff or it might be a matter of personal wish. He averaged 26 points, 4.2 rebounds, 7 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.1 blocks per game. Except for assists, the other 4 statistics were the lowest since his sophomore season. However, his shooting percentage suddenly reached a career high of 50.8%.

The number of shots is also the lowest in the past few years, averaging 18.2 times per game.

He would only try hard when playing against opponents he cared about, such as tonight when facing Zhang Yang. He went all out, but in the end lost on long shots.

As for Zhang Yang, during the game, he was fully focused on competing with Wade. When he looked at the detailed data after the game, as he expected, Collison returned to the bench tonight and still got 22 minutes of playing time, and Felton, who had just returned from injury, still played less than 30 minutes.

As for his performance, it was still not that great. He made 6 of 2 shots and got 6 points and 3 assists. But the good points can also be seen - he still dared to shoot and his passing was very stable. The basic skills he practiced in the four years of college were not in vain.

After Zhang Yang calmed down the night before yesterday, he thought that he might have set too high a standard for his old high school rival because Collison was a "complete" player who entered the NBA after graduating from his senior year.

If it were players like Harden and DeRozan last season who played one year in college and then entered the NBA and became the main rotation players in a championship-contending team, you can imagine how badly they would play. If they can perform as well as Collison when they are in good shape, they would be very lucky.

At least Collison's shooting performance was inaccurate. With his skillful passing and controlling skills, he still completed the ball distribution work assigned by the coaching staff very well.

However, it may also be because another rookie is too outstanding - Cunningham!
This guy really doesn't make mistakes. As the third choice for the three or four positions, he is consistently stable when he comes on the court...

After playing against the Heat, I rested for a night, and the next day, 2010 arrived as scheduled.

In the first nine days of January, the Bobcats played four away and home games. Their opponents were all weak teams, and the Bobcats won all of them. After defeating the Wizards at home on January 1, their record came to 9 wins and 4 losses. Relying on this easy schedule, they surpassed the Bulls again and moved up to second place in the Eastern Conference.

After returning home in the evening, Zhang Yang opened the door to experience. During the extra practice this morning, his shooting value had already reached 10. After wavering for a day between the two options of talent points and upgrading the experience gain level, he stopped hesitating and chose C to start the experience!
(End of this chapter)