Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters-Chapter 1129 - 625: Don’t Stop Talking About LeBron_3
Chapter 1129 -625: Don’t Stop Talking About LeBron_3
Indeed, the Miami Heat adjusted their strategy in the second half, with James starting to lead the offense. However, the Clippers immediately changed their formation, using Spider-Man-like agility to block the area inside the three-point line. Combined with Yao Ming, the rim protector whom James fears the most, James was left with no options for his breakthroughs.
Unable to penetrate, James could only opt for shooting. His shooting was decent tonight, but not enough to turn the tide of the game.
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On the contrary, the Clippers unpredictably accelerated the pace of the offense.
Yu Fei brought the ball up the court, facing Curry, lightly lifted his hand, and shot an ultra-long three-pointer from two meters beyond the three-point line.
Then, Yao Ming came out after setting a screen, received the pass and also shot a three-pointer.
Curry tried to use his speed to counter Yao Ming, but in return, Antetokounmpo triumphed over James with his exaggerated footwork.
Yu Fei continued to mix up his play outside. He executed pick-and-roll plays with Yao, either passing the ball to Thompson on the perimeter, returning the ball to Yao, or directly driving towards the basket. The Heat were forced to switch defense, but Yu cleverly passed the ball back to Yao, resulting in a highly ironic moment:
The 1.9-meter-tall Curry was left defending the 2.23-meter-tall Yao Ming alone in the paint.
Even Yao himself found it amusing. He lightly tossed the ball over Curry’s head into the basket.
“Is not dunking your way of being gentle?” Yu Fei asked.
“I can’t dunk.” Yao shrugged and replied, “Don’t have the skill.”
The score widened, James grew anxious. This wasn’t the script he had envisioned; the Clippers, surprisingly, were not targeting Curry anymore in the second half.
To make the Clippers “come to their senses,” James turned into a true team player.
He started to concentrate on defense, continuously driving and passing the ball, hoping to restore Curry’s touch.
But touch in basketball is metaphysical; sometimes it’s there with a flick of the wrist, and sometimes it evades no matter how much one tries. Tonight, Curry had been artificially forced into that state.
Though James was very team-oriented, tonight, Curry really needed him to step up.
By the fourth quarter, with the Clippers leading by 20 points and their defense lax, James realized that only by breaking free could he have a chance at winning.
So, he started scoring.
For a while, Yu Fei just sat on the bench watching James make strong plays on the court, as if the victory was still uncertain.
Yu Fei was resting.
On the court, the one exchanging data silently with James was Antetokounmpo.
Antetokounmpo was still young; he needed to pad his stats and needed some classic moments to boost his reputation. Thus, he was justifiably racking up numbers during the game.
As for James, Yu Fei couldn’t tell if he wanted to make the team lose beautifully or merely wanted to pad his personal stats to look like he had put in all his effort.
Either way, the suspense of the game had ended long ago.
In the end, the Clippers won over the Miami Heat by 17 points. Yu Fei finished with 30 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists, whereas James garnered 27 points, 11 rebounds, and 9 assists.
Unquestionably, the biggest “sinner” of the game was Curry. With a 9-for-23 shooting performance, he failed time and again to rise to the occasion when his team needed him the most, thoroughly “betraying” James’s efforts.
This kind of incident is exactly what Nike would heavily promote.
But in this professional basketball public opinion field dominated by Reebok’s marketing agency, Curry won’t be the one to be criticized.
After the game, when reporters asked Yu Fei to comment on Curry’s performance, he deliberately changed the subject, mentioning Curry’s “good teammate”: “Why don’t you ask me about LeBron’s performance? I think Stephen tonight is not worth mentioning; the real topic should be LeBron.”
The reporters took the cue and asked, “So what do you think of LeBron’s performance?”
Yu Fei didn’t hesitate to speak: “When Stephen was being targeted by us, he kept passing the ball. When the team needed someone to stand out, he continued passing. After trying to score in the second_half but getting blocked, he went back to passing. But when the game was clearly decided, he started attacking. As a result, his final stats look even better than mine.”
The media quickly noticed that every time GOAT mentioned LeBron, his words were unmistakably aggressive.
After all, most players who had grievances with GOAT had already retired.
But LeBron was still around, and relatively young.
After evaluating James’s performance, Yu Fei bluntly stated, “Now, do you see why he hasn’t won a championship? He has too many thoughts, too many desires, too many distractions, and schemes. All these combined have created what you saw today. Simply put, he doesn’t deserve to win the championship. Whether it was back in the days alongside Kobe or now with Stephen, he just doesn’t deserve it.”
That day, many people realized something.
If you want GOAT to keep playing, don’t stop talking about LeBron.
Especially in his presence.
