Chapter 380 379. Xiaofei: Although something is wrong, it seems like a good deal!
It was evening, at the Charlotte Turkish Airlines Arena, the referee notified the two teams’ starters to take the court, and the second game of the series between the Bobcats and the Hawks was about to begin.

Pierce called his teammates together. He stood in the middle with Bibby, Joe Johnson, Horford and Pachulia. After giving a mobilization speech, he shouted, “Kill the Bad Boys.”

Pierce’s teammates may not have listened to what he said before, but everyone joined in the last shout, even Bibby.

On the other side, Felton saw the opponent’s full of momentum and felt that the opponent did not lose fighting spirit because of the 23-point defeat in the first game. Instead, it seemed that the opponent had more anger because of the defeat.

For example, Pierce, who came with two star teammates to chat and laugh before G1, this time he just greeted them at the beginning and there was no smile at all.

Besides, Felton also felt that they were weaker than the opponent in momentum. No, he had to come too!
He called his teammates together and said a few words of motivation, but when it came to the last shout, he was stuck. Just as he was about to yell, a handsome face came up to him and said, “James is the strongest small forward.” He subconsciously followed suit and shouted, and his teammates who were waiting to shout slogans shouted without thinking.

But the teammates reacted as soon as they finished shouting and looked at the boss in surprise.

Felton was also confused. Why did he shout this? Did he seem to hear the younger brother’s voice just now?
Before he could figure it out, he felt a gaze that seemed to want to stab him. He looked across and saw Pierce looking at him with gritted teeth.

Four months ago, Pierce didn’t care at all about which new generation of stars there were. He was only motivated when he played against Iverson, Kobe, Ray Allen, Marbury, McGrady, Baron Davis… and other players who entered the NBA at the same time. It didn’t matter if he played against others.

Even in the early stages of this season, when he was competing with Ainge and leading the team to win games desperately in order to disrupt the management’s goal of tanking, he did not target anyone in particular.

But after he regained his spirit in the Eagles, things were different and he wanted to compete with everyone.

Originally, he just looked down on James, but after he made the buzzer-beater in the game against the Cavaliers to help the Hawks beat the Cavaliers 115-113, he was abused by some extreme fans… He began to hate James.

That group of people is a typical example of one fan out of ten haters.

If you look at the news about Pierce’s criticism of others after joining the Hawks, eight out of ten times he was criticizing James.

After the regular season ended, when the media predicted the best lineup, James, who was second in the scoring list, led his team to fifth in the Eastern Conference, and had made great progress on defense compared to previous years, once again became a hot favorite (the best lineup includes defensive performance).

In an interview before the playoffs, Pierce took the initiative to criticize, saying that players who couldn’t even get past the first round didn’t deserve to be on the first team.

When this was said, McGrady’s fans reacted even more fiercely than James’ fans. Of course, James’ fans also reacted fiercely…

Therefore, when Pierce heard Felton leading the shouting of “James is the number one small forward”, he gnashed his teeth in anger.

Before Felton could fully react to what was happening, the referee urged the starting players of both teams to come on the court. The live broadcast time was about to end, so he had to quickly follow Zhang Yang who was walking onto the court. The other three starting teammates were still Mike Miller, Okafor, and Brad Miller.

Felton quickly walked to Zhang Yang and asked, “Why did you let me shout like that?”

Zhang Yang: “I just said something, I didn’t ask you to shout it out… Ahem, you don’t have to feel ashamed for saying that. Think about it, James is the best small forward, but he has never beaten us. We have won 20 consecutive games against the Cavaliers. Praising him is the same as praising ourselves, and it also stimulated Pierce.”

Felton looked at Pierce again, and the other party was still staring at him fiercely. Although he felt something was wrong, he thought what the younger brother said made sense!
He boasted about himself and also provoked Pierce at the same time. Why did he feel like he had made a lot of money?

Never mind, he adjusted his previous thoughts – what he wanted was for Pierce to be angry and not calm. If Pierce started to fight recklessly because of this, that would be great, he had a little brother!

…

At 7 o’clock in the evening, with Okafor defeating Horford again to win the jump ball, the game began and the Bobcats attacked first!
Zhang Yang went to the frontcourt to receive the ball.

In the last game, Carlisle arranged for Zhang Yang to start without the ball, wanting to see how the Hawks would defend when they played team offense.

After confirming that the opponent really had no defensive system and poor basic defense, there was no need to let Zhang Yang start the game without the ball. He could just go straight in and attack with all his might! He wanted to gain an advantage right from the start!
Zhang Yang launched an attack alone. Pierce realized that he could not take care of both breakthroughs and shots, so he focused on defending the shots and left it to his teammates to double-team from behind.

Zhang Yang successfully broke into the inside and passed the ball back… Brad Miller circled to the high position at the right time, received the ball on the left side of the free throw line and made a mid-range shot… Hit!
After the offense and defense switched, Pierce initiated the Eagles’ first attack.

He forced Zhang Yang to break into the inside, attracted the backup defense, and passed the ball to the left… Horford helped Joe Johnson to set a screen and then pulled away. Mike Miller and Okafor both chased Joe Johnson. Horford received the ball and made a mid-range jump shot outside the elbow with one step!
Pierce played very aggressively, but made his choices calmly. Zhang Yang was not surprised. This player became more courageous as the game went on, and the bigger the disadvantage, the more he could withstand the pressure.

It would be best if the trash talk before the game was effective, but it doesn’t matter if it is useless. It’s just the fat guy’s thing to talk about it. And just because it was useless tonight doesn’t mean it will be useless in the future. No matter how well Pierce can withstand pressure, there is a limit.

Putting this matter aside, Zhang Yang ran to the entire court and devoted himself to the attack.

After a few rounds, the Bobcats called a timeout, and the two teams were tied 11 to 13 at the start.

Both teams scored the same number of goals at the start, both made 7 of 4 shots, an efficient start with a hit rate of over 4%, and the free throws were also the same, both made 3 of .

But on the Hawks side, Bibby made a three-pointer and Joe Johnson made a three-pointer after receiving the ball from a long distance and stepping out of the three-point line. The Hawks led the Bobcats by two points and went into the timeout!

Just as San Shao analyzed yesterday, the disastrous defeat in the first game did not make the three opposing superstars lose their fighting spirit. Instead, the opponents played more aggressively tonight.

However, although they were behind, Carlisle was not annoyed. Instead, he was glad that he let Zhang Yang initiate the attack at the beginning of the game tonight, and used Zhang Yang’s threat to play better team cooperation at the beginning. Their start tonight was not as hot as in the last game. If Felton and Okafor had launched the main attack at the beginning like in the last game, the score difference would probably be even greater at this time.

The timeout was called for no other reason than that rotation time had come and the tactical coordination details were emphasized.

After the timeout, Carlisle replaced Mike Miller and Brad Miller with Hill and Muhammad.

The Hawks also made a rotation, replacing only one player, with Osela Hannington replacing Pachulia.

In addition to Pachulia, the other four starters of the Hawks all played more than 35 minutes, especially Pierce and Joe Johnson, who both played more than 40 minutes.

After the timeout, the Eagles continued to launch a fierce attack led by their three superstars, trying to take advantage of the momentum at the beginning to further widen the gap… but failed.

After the Bobcats rotated their lineup, their offensive firepower did not diminish. On the contrary, due to the improved athleticism in the interior, they did better in rushing and withstanding the fierce firepower of the Hawks!

After the Bobcats’ timeout, Zhang Yang still initiated the main attack. Carlisle’s adjustment further reduced Hill’s pressure on supporting. Zhang Yang could maximize the defensive attention by holding the ball.

The two teams entered a stalemate. At 9 minutes and 11 seconds in the first quarter, Hill received the ball and faked a breakthrough, then broke into the paint and made a layup. The score was 24 to 25, and the Bobcats narrowed the gap to 1 point!
Seeing that it was almost the end of the quarter and the team had failed to gain an advantage, Bibby prepared to get started and make a final push with his two teammates to gain an advantage.

But before they could make any move, the other side made the first move!
Bibby missed the two-point shot after a quick stop, and was run over by Felton when he turned around. Felton made a close-range jump shot, helping the Bobcats overtake the score! 26 to 25!

In the next round of the Bobcats’ offense, Okafor, who had rested for a few minutes, backed down Horford in the low post, turned around and dunked with one hand to score two points.

In the first 9 minutes, Zhang Yang was responsible for most of the tasks of launching the offense. Okafor played for more than 3 minutes before Carlisle called a timeout and replaced him, just for now!

Led by Felton and Okafor’s singles, the Bobcats scored 2 points in the last 49 minutes and 9 seconds of the first quarter.

On the Hawks side, Bibby wanted to lead the team to attack fiercely, but they were fighting hard from the start tonight. They had already started to fight hard in the middle of the first quarter because of the 2-point advantage at the beginning. At the end of the quarter, he wanted to exert his strength, but he had entered the slump after the highlight. The signal for a fierce attack he sent out made his teammates play more impatiently, and they only scored 5 points in the last two minutes.

After the first quarter, the Bobcats overtook the Hawks by 33 points with a score of 30 to 3 and entered the intermission!
After Felton and Okafor scored two goals in a row, Woodson saw the strategic intention of Carlisle.

In the middle of the first quarter, he really didn’t expect that the opponent would be willing to let Zhang Yang do the hard work to help Felton and Okafor save their energy.

The main thing was that I didn’t expect Zhang Yang to not resist such an arrangement, but to carry it out firmly!
Although Woodson envied and hated Carlisle, he had to admit that this competitor, who played in the NBA at the same time, served as an assistant coach in the NBA at the same time, and also started to serve as a head coach at about the same time, really had the courage to think and act.

Woodson also had a little more respect for Zhang Yang – the scoring champion! He actually helped out!
Seeing through the opponent’s game strategy tonight, Woodson couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t help but double-team that bad boy, right? Even their best defender, Pierce, couldn’t stop him!
In the current situation, he can only trust his players and leave the offense to the three superstars. All he can do is control the lineup and rotation time!

(End of this chapter)