Basketball's No. 1 Anti-Fan

Chapter 121 [Classical Masters]

97:85.

The Grizzlies eventually defeated the Lakers at home.

赛后的数据统计方面，湖人队科比35中14，怒打21铁，砍下41分7板5助攻4失误。

Odom scored 15 points, and no other Lakers player scored in double digits.

For the Grizzlies, Randolph made 13 of 10 shots, contributing a team-high 28 points, plus 13 rebounds and 4 assists, playing an All-Star level performance.

盖伊15投7中拿到18分5板6盖帽（封盖刷新生涯记录），小加索尔10分9板，康利13分9助攻。

韩森今晚主要精力都在和科比缠斗上，全场11中5只拿到11分，除此之外还有4板3抢断。

After the game, Hansen and Randolph attended the post-match press conference together.

"Defense was the key to our victory tonight. Han's defense on Kobe set the tone for us." Randolph answered while adjusting his headband, unable to hide the smile on his face.

Ever since their meeting in the coffee shop, he has liked Han Sen more and more.

"We all know that the Lakers are strong inside, but Zach dominated them. He looked like 'Shaquille O'Neal tonight." Hansen also praised Randolph.

The two of them are praising each other in the business.

"Han, you only scored 11 points tonight, which is far below your season average. Does this bother you?" This is a reporter from ESPN.

"What's the point of me scoring 30 points if the team can't win?" Han Sen asked with a smile.

He has seen too many situations in Cleveland where he doesn't count the number of times the team loses.

"Does beating the Lakers tonight mean that the Grizzlies have the strength to compete for the championship?" The reporter obviously set a trap for Hansen.

"No." Han Sen shook his head.
"I said before the season started that our goal is to win a championship."

After coming out of the press conference, Hollins wanted to say something to Hansen, but looking at Hansen, he couldn't utter a word.

In the end, he could only turn around and leave.

It was obvious that he was speechless about Han Sen's big mouth.

"Good job." Joerger patted Hansen on the shoulder and went after Hollins again.

After taking a shower, Han Sen returned home and directly entered the black fan system.

He defended Kobe very well in the first half tonight, but Kobe still scored a lot of goals in the second half after he found his touch.

It's not that his defense has declined, but after Kobe got his touch back, his mid-range shots can really ignore the defense.

But fortunately, after today it will no longer be exclusive to Kobe, he can have it too!
Entering the system interface, Han Sen found the first-level mid-range talent and directly exchanged it for [Classical Master].

[Classical Master]: Greatly improves the coordination of waist, abdomen and body, and at the same time greatly improves the softness of mid-range touch.

Like [steel bones], it is a description with adverbs of degree.

And there is one thing here that overlaps with [Giant Killer]: body coordination.

This means that if he trains the [Classical Masters] to a bottleneck, his throwing ability will continue to improve.

He had to kill two birds with one stone. He had to hurry up and train. The sooner he reached the bottleneck, the better.

Han Sen did what he said. He was supposed to rest, but he couldn't contain his excitement and ran straight to the training hall for more practice.

His training intensity was already high enough, and he was physically tired after just finishing a game.

But at this moment, his mind was full of the image of Kobe making a mid-range shot in front of him, and he felt like he had endless energy in his body.

And even though he had just started training, he could already feel that his shots were becoming easier.

The first level of talent is indeed powerful enough.

……

Time flies and it is already late December.

The league had been in operation for two months at this point, and Stan once again updated his strength rankings.

Because of his bold ranking of the Heat and the fact that he would correct his mistakes immediately, the credibility of his list is rapidly increasing and has been truly regarded as the Bible by many fans.

In this list, the Bulls retained the top spot.

In the latest MVP list officially released by the league, Rose also topped the list for the first time.

The Heat also rose back to the second place since the first issue of the list.

After a dismal 9-8 start, the Heat have won 16 of 15 games in the past month.

Spoelstra was indeed not lying. After that conversation between the two, the Heat's tactics changed a lot.

Wade began to make more off-ball cuts, and also began to increase the frequency of low-post singles, and his shots began to shift significantly inward;
Bosh's situation is the opposite of Wade's. He began to move to the 16-foot position, taking more mid-range shots and becoming the team's offensive point.
James began to hold the ball more and play the role of connecting the team.

The biggest change brought about by this adjustment is that James' efficiency began to improve significantly, and he began to return to his familiar playing mode.

And after being scolded twice, Stan learned his lesson.

After some team rankings that may cause controversy, he directly provided his own analysis.

The reason why he still didn't rank the Heat first is that the Heat's performance in the past month was largely due to the schedule.

Among the 16 opponents the Heat played against, only 4 were playoff teams. The opponents were too weak, which made the record a bit inflated.

The Spurs reached the third position for the first time.

The Spurs' performance this season has once again verified Texas' three illusions. There has been basically no major changes to the lineup, and they are one year older on average. Now they are at the top of the Western Conference, surpassing all the other teams.

The Celtics are fourth.

The Lakers dropped to fifth place for the first time.

They first lost to the Grizzlies in early December, and then lost to the Heat by 12 points in the just-concluded Christmas game. The successive defeats in strong dialogues show that the Lakers are facing unprecedented difficulties this season.

The Grizzlies' ranking continued to improve, reaching sixth place for the first time.

The Grizzlies are still ranked fourth in the Western Conference, but in the past month they have defeated championship contenders such as the Lakers, Magic, and Bulls.

The Mavericks slipped to seventh place.

奥尼尔在11月27日对阵篮网队比赛中打出25分11篮板的数据，成为自1986年以来完成25+10年龄最大的球员。

But shortly after that game, he began to miss games due to an Achilles tendon injury.

It was at this time that the annual All-Star voting began again.

Hansen was also included in the selection as one of the four candidates for the Grizzlies.

和上赛季在骑士队相比，他赛季至今19.6分3.4板2助攻2.3抢断（联盟第二），投篮命中率48.5%，三分命中率41.2%的表现明显更值得入选。

And shortly after the voting officially opened, Swift publicly campaigned for Hansen on social media.

After being photographed in the hotel last time, Swift admitted her relationship with Hansen in front of reporters shortly afterwards.

It was only natural for her to campaign for Han Sen now.

A week later, the results of the first round of All-Star voting were released.

Hansen ranked second in the Western Conference guard votes, only behind Kobe.

If the All-Star Game started at this time, he would directly be the starting guard for the Western Conference.

This result instantly plunged Han Sen into a whirlpool of public opinion.

You should know that there are many more popular guards in the West than in the East, such as Nash, Deron, Kidd, Parker, Ginobili... each of them is very famous.

Of course, the most important one is Paul. As the top point guard in active service, he is extremely popular in the United States.

"Letting fans vote for All-Star players? That's cheating!" "This is another challenge to the All-Star voting system! Those fans won't even watch the All-Star Game!"

"How can you compare to Paul? Just because you are more handsome than him? Taller than him? More popular with women than him?"

……

Han Sen instantly gained a large number of haters.

As the person involved, he was naturally asked by reporters about canvassing for votes.

"Is there any problem with my girlfriend canvassing for me? If you have the ability, you can go and date one!" Han Sen's retort left the reporter speechless.

After all, canvassing for votes is a matter of ability. For example, Pachulia of the Hawks called on the whole country to vote for him.

You are really more capable than him, you can even ask the US President to campaign for you!

It is now early January, and the Grizzlies are about to travel to challenge the Spurs. This is the first time the two teams have met this season.

The Spurs have been an unexpected team this season, and they have been special to Hansen.

The worst game of his career so far came against the Spurs.

Especially the All-Star Game put him in the spotlight. If he had his worst performance of the season against the Spurs, he would definitely be criticized.

Han Sen didn't have any thoughts about this wave of black fans.

Because he had just exchanged for [Classical Master], training would take time, and even if he got new black fan points, he would not exchange for other new talents for the time being.

So compared to the number of anti-fans, he now wants to prove himself more.

Especially after the hard training in the past month, although he has not reached the bottleneck yet, he can already feel that his mid-range level has improved greatly.

It would be most appropriate to test the knife against the old rival, the Spurs.

On the day of the game, the Spurs conducted their daily open training.

After the training, Popovich was interviewed by reporters on the sidelines.

The core of the Spurs team is GDP, but the three of them don't like to be interviewed by reporters, so Popovich usually comes forward.

In addition to the game issues, the All-Star voting will naturally be involved, especially since Han Sen's vote-buying incident has been hyped up so much.

"What do you think of Han's off-site canvassing incident?"

"Who is Han?" Unexpectedly, when the reporter asked this question, Popovich actually started to play dumb.

"So you're talking about that Han. You know I'm an elderly person and I don't have a cell phone, so I don't pay much attention to that." After the reporter finished explaining, he seemed to suddenly realize something.

"If what you said is true, then it's nothing, but I won't vote for him. After all, there are two guys on my side who deserve to be selected more."

That night, the AT&T Center had an attendance rate of about 80%.

Although the Spurs have achieved excellent results every year and even won the championship several times, their attendance has always been low.

This is mainly related to the Spurs' playing style. There are rarely any slam dunks in a game. Plus, it is a small-market team, so it is unlikely that the attendance rate can be high.

For tonight's game, the attendance is pretty good because of Han Sen's recent popularity.

During the pre-match warm-up, the camera kept focusing on Han Sen.

It is not known whether Popovich pays attention to Hansen, but the Spurs are obviously paying close attention to him.

After all, as Popovich said, the two Spurs guards and Hansen are in direct competition in the All-Star selection.

Han Sen practiced for a while and then sat on the sidelines to rest. Randolph also sat next to him, put his arm around his shoulder, pointed at their figures on the LED screen and said how "popular" he was at the moment.

Han Sen just smiled and looked at Conley and the others warming up on the court. He was curious and asked a question.

"Zach, why did you pick number 50?"

"This has something to do with my high school coach." Randolph now has a good relationship with Hansen and is happy to share his experiences.

"I was tall and big at the time, so Coach West Midley invited me to dinner to get me to join. I ate 50 of his chicken drumsticks."

Han Sen was stunned. He didn't expect it to be such a wonderful experience.

"Pity."

"what?"

"You should have eaten five more of his chicken legs."

Randolph still didn't understand.

Han Sen pointed at his jersey, then at his.

55 chicken legs, No. 55, the Grizzlies' starting lineup is all stacked numbers.

Randolph finally understood and couldn't help laughing.

However, he could sense that although Han Sen was caught in the whirlpool of public opinion and was always in the spotlight, his mentality was very stable.

After the opening ceremony, the starting lineups of both sides were announced one after another.

Grizzlies: Conley, Hansen, Gay, Randolph, Gasol

Spurs: Parker, George Hill, Richard Jefferson, Duncan, DeJuan Blair

The Spurs' improved record this season mainly comes from changes in rotation. Ginobili started for the team again after many years and performed well.

But tonight, Popovich put Ginobili on the bench and started Hill instead.

Duncan jumped to win the ball for the Spurs, who got the first offensive opportunity.

Parker and Duncan set a pick-and-roll, and then Randolph made a layup and scored.

Randolph is not very effective in defending pick-and-rolls, and Parker and Duncan's pick-and-rolls are precisely the Spurs' killer weapon.

Moreover, Hill directly adopted a front-circling defensive method against Hansen, not allowing him to receive the ball easily, and even not allowing him to launch tactics when standing on the three-point line.

It wasn't just Hill. Parker, who was defending Conley, also stood on the side where Conley passed the ball to Hansen.

Before the game, Popovich said that he didn't pay much attention to Hansen, but this arrangement clearly treated Hansen as the core of the Grizzlies' outside line and focused on defense.

Otherwise, why do people say he is the GOAT of this class?

Conley passed the ball to Randolph, then went around and took Parker away.

Randolph played one-on-one against Blair in the low post. Although the latter was only 2 meters tall, he had both the size and speed to be able to compete with him.

His turnaround shot went wide, but he followed it up with an overhead kick and scored on the second attack.

One thing that has been overlooked is that Randolph ranked only sixth among Western Conference forwards in the first round of voting, while Gasol ranked second.

In terms of performance, the two have almost the same season. This result is only because Gasol is on the Lakers team with higher exposure, which obviously makes him feel very motivated.

Five minutes into the first quarter, the score was 10 to 4, with the Grizzlies leading.

The pick-and-roll between Parker and Duncan was very lethal, but Hollins made adjustments on the spot, and Gasol Jr. let Blair retreat to the basket early, which had a good effect.

But the Spurs had no way to deal with Randolph.

Although Blair can compete with Randolph, his height disadvantage makes him be eaten alive by Randolph on the defensive end.

Popovich had to replace Duncan on defense, but after Randolph got into shape, he not only scored over Duncan's head, but also caused Duncan to commit a defensive foul.

That's why people say Randolph is a killer in the low post. When he is in good form, no one can defend him.

As a last resort, Popovich stood up, replaced Blair with Antonio McDyess, and made tactical adjustments to the team's defense.

The Spurs used their best weapon: the 2-1-2 zone defense.

(End of this chapter)