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Chapter 477 Stop 26 consecutive victories

Chapter 477 Stopping the 26-game winning streak

The Knicks' winning streak ended at 26 consecutive wins.

After defeating the Pistons, the Knicks won two consecutive home and away games against the Heat.

However, on February 19, in the Knicks' home game against the Rockets, the team eventually lost with a score of 117:122, and the winning streak was finally fixed at 26 consecutive victories.

Knicks fans are still a little disappointed that they failed to break the Lakers' 33-game winning streak, the first in history, but even so, the team has surprised them.

For other teams in the league, the end of the Knicks' winning streak also gave them a sigh of relief.

No matter in which era, the birth of a super strong team means that other teams are reduced to background.

This was true for the Bulls who won 72 games in the 1996-97 season, and it will also be true for the Warriors who won 73 games in the next 15-16 season.

There are many reasons why the Knicks lost the game against the Rockets.

First of all, the Rockets have recently successfully acquired the glider Drexler through a trade. Olajuwon has upgraded the configuration of the single-core team to a dual-core driver, and the combat effectiveness has made a qualitative leap.

Secondly, the Knicks' winning streak has also made all the players in the team more and more tired. Everyone does not want to lose and wants to continue the winning streak, so they go all out in every game and do not want to give up. This is a physical and psychological pressure.

It’s been constantly accumulating and superimposing.

In this game, Ewing was in poor condition due to the recurrence of an old ankle injury, and was completely at a disadvantage against Olajuwon.

The Rockets also felt very good in the game, especially on the bench. Sam Cassell scored 23 points and 10 assists with a 63% shooting rate, Tracy Murray scored 13 points, and Chucky Brown scored 11 points.

, even the substitute rotation lineup easily scored in double figures, especially the starting lineup.

Olajuwon had 27 points and 9 rebounds, and Drexler had 22 points and 10 rebounds.

On the other hand, for the Knicks, Wang Feng scored a team-high 33 points, and Ewing scored 26 points, which seemed pretty good, but Ewing's 25 points took almost twice as many shots as Wang Feng.

In this game, facing Olajuwon's defense, Ewing took 28 shots and hit 11 goals, with a shooting percentage of only 39.3%.

It was precisely Ewing's large number of singles with the ball on the court that caused the Knicks' overall offense to be extremely unsmooth, and ultimately lost the game.

He was obviously affected by an old injury, but he was still facing a strong opponent like Olajuwon. Why was Ewing so obsessed with taking action?

Wang Feng just thought about it for a moment and understood the whole story.

The reason is actually very simple. Ewing wants to compete for the regular season MVP.

Originally, at the beginning of this season, the Knicks had a poor record, which seemed to prevent Ewing from being awarded the regular season MVP early on.

However, with the end of the Christmas Day game, the Knicks got the help of Wang Feng, starting a magnificent 26-game winning streak. The team's record has skyrocketed and is currently second only to the Spurs in the league.

The team's outstanding record also made Ewing's mind come alive. Regular season MVP is really important to a professional player, and many people fail to win it in their lifetime.

In the past few years, this award has been monopolized by Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. With the two men retiring one after another in recent years, and even Jordan chose to retire and play baseball, other stars finally got it.

Opportunities for the Awards.

Last season, Olajuwon won this honor, and one season further back, it was Barkley.

Although Ewing is still facing the dilemma of being the only one among the four major centers without a championship and regular season MVP, given this rare opportunity, Ewing can't help but be tempted.

This can be seen from recent games. Ewing is consciously increasing his possession of the ball and the number of shots because he wants to make his statistics more beautiful.

At present, Ewing's biggest opponent on the road to MVP is David Robinson, the leader of the Spurs and one of the top four centers. Not only does his Spurs have the best record in the league, but his own personal data is also better than Ewing's.

More gorgeous and outstanding.

Ewing has averaged 24.4 points, 11 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game so far, which was already quite outstanding data in the 1990s.

However, David Robinson's average data per game is 27.5 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists, almost fully covering Ewing.

Whether it is personal performance or team record, the Admiral is the better one. No wonder Ewing feels anxious.

You know, at this time, more than half of the regular season schedule has passed, and there are only more than thirty games left. If this continues, Ewing will most likely lose to Robinson and miss out on the regular season MVP.

That's why in this game, Ewing was obviously at a disadvantage but still kept taking shots, and he piled up his statistics to 26+10.

In Wang Feng's opinion, if Ewing had a poor hand in this game and took control of the ball to organize the offense, it would not be difficult to win the game.

The combination of Olajuwon + Drexler is indeed powerful, but Wang Feng is not a vegetarian. Moreover, even if Ewing is suppressed by Olajuwon, he still has the strength that a top superstar should have.

But obviously, he did not receive such treatment during the game.

It's not that the Knicks still don't know Wang Feng's strength until now.

In fact, everyone in the team, from the head coach to all the players, are very clear about how strong Wang Feng is. Even now, he still has many things that he has not shown, such as his organizational and linking ability that is not inferior to the league's top point guards.

.

But the more this happens, the less everyone in the Knicks wants Wang Feng to perform too well.

For the team management and coaching staff, Wang Feng has only signed a one-year short-term contract with the team. This incident has already made the team regret it. They are very worried about renewing Wang Feng's contract this summer.

.

It is completely conceivable that as Wang Feng resumes his free agent status, there will definitely be a large number of teams in the league spending money to pursue Wang Feng.

The better Wang Feng performs, the less likely it is that the Knicks will renew Wang Feng's contract.

Therefore, even if Wang Feng has 100 points of strength, for the Knicks, he only needs to play 80 points or even 60 points of strength, because the Knicks themselves are a team strong enough to compete for the championship.

Acquiring an All-Star caliber player for nothing is enough to put a huge gap between them and other teams in the league.

For Ewing, the team boss who aims to compete for the regular season MVP, the better Wang Feng performs, the more it means that the Knicks' excellent record has nothing to do with him.

In fact, many people outside the world think so now.

After all, before Wang Feng joined the Knicks, the Knicks were only ranked around seventh in the Eastern Conference. They even lost to the Bulls without Jordan in the Christmas game. At that time, no one thought that the Knicks would be as invincible as they are now and win 26 consecutive games.

If all the credit for this was taken by Wang Feng, it would be impossible for Ewing to win the regular season MVP even if his personal data were not inferior to Robinson's.

The Knicks are Ewing's team. Except for Wang Feng, all the players on the team are on Ewing's side, including the team's main defender Starks, who wants to focus more of the ball on Ewing.

It couldn't be easier.

The above are all Wang Feng's own speculations and there is no evidence.

But as a player who has been in the league for many years, Wang Feng can be considered a veteran. He is no stranger to the intrigues in these teams, and his guesses are pretty much the same.

He didn't feel angry or angry about this.

Because in the beginning, he chose to join the Knicks just as a springboard.

The Knicks are Ewing's team. In the era of center supremacy, no one except Jordan can shake Ewing's status in New York.

This has nothing to do with strength. Moreover, this is really not a game. No matter how professional a scout is, or the team's head coach or general manager, they cannot directly observe the ability values ​​and potential of all players, and their judgments are bound to be biased.

.

After all, Wang Feng has not won any substantial honors in this era. Even if he has performed at a phenomenal level in the past month, he cannot make the Knicks management choose to abandon Ewing and choose him.

So even if he didn't get enough ball rights and shots, Wang Feng didn't complain too much and didn't ask for more from the team's head coach or general manager.

Anyway, as soon as this season ends, he will leave the Knicks, and then it will be clear who the Joker is.

Moreover, before he finds his favorite team, Wang Feng doesn't want to leave a bad impression to the outside world that he is a problematic player.



The winning streak was ended, but it did not affect the Knicks' rhythm too much.

There is no undefeated team in this world. Even the 72-win Bulls, who are better than Jordan, also lost 10 games in the regular season, and the 73-win Warriors were even overturned by the Cavaliers in the Finals.

After losing to the Rockets, the Knicks immediately started winning again, defeating the Cavaliers and Kings on the road with big scores, winning two consecutive games.

Immediately afterwards, the highlight of the league, the annual All-Star Weekend, began.

The ratings of the All-Star Weekend in the past two seasons are actually not high. The reason is very simple. Jordan's retirement is a heavy blow to the NBA.

Although Jordan will return this season, he will have to wait until after mid-March, so this time the All-Star Weekend is still dim and does not receive much attention.

For Wang Feng, this All-Star Game has nothing to do with him, because when he signed the contract with the Knicks, the first round of All-Star voting had already ended.

This is not the world of the future with extremely advanced information technology. The All-Star voting has not even opened voting channels to overseas. Wang Feng neither has a local fan base nor can he get the support of Chinese fans across the ocean. Secondly,

He was only ranked outside the top ten in the Eastern Conference in the first round of voting, so naturally he was not qualified to participate in the All-Star Game.

NBA President Stern seems to be quite dissatisfied with this. He is looking forward to having a Chinese player appear on the All-Star stage.

Therefore, after the All-Star voting was completed, someone specifically contacted Wang Feng through team channels to facilitate the All-Star event. He hoped that Wang Feng could participate in the three-point contest, the slam dunk contest, and if Wang Feng was willing, he could also participate in the Rookie Challenge as a first-year rookie.

Faced with such an invitation, Wang Feng refused without hesitation.

For the sake of the attributes of system rewards, he no longer wanted to experience the experience of participating in solo events for many years.

At present, Wang Feng's three-point shooting ability value has been strengthened to the full value of 99. He will not receive rewards if he continues to participate in the three-point contest and win the championship.

As for the slam dunk contest, if you win the championship, you will indeed be rewarded with dunk or jumping ability points.

But there is one thing to say, no matter which one of these two ability values ​​is +1, it seems a bit insignificant to Wang Feng now. There is absolutely no need to go to Phoenix, the host city of the All-Stars, for this.

Finally, there is the Rookie Challenge.

Although according to the rules of the league, Wang Feng, who only joined the league this season, is indeed considered a first-year rookie, but to let the 30-year-old go play with a bunch of kids... Stern doesn't feel embarrassed, but he, Wang Feng, still feels embarrassed.

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Wang Feng understands Stern's eagerness to promote the NBA in China as soon as possible, but he is not prepared to lower his worth for this.

To sum up the reasons mentioned above, Wang Feng was not included in this All-Star Weekend. Many Chinese fans who were looking forward to Wang Feng's appearance in front of the TV were quite disappointed.

"Didn't you say that Wang Feng is very powerful? Why can't he participate in the All-Star Game?"

"Are those Americans discriminating against our Chinese players?"

"Come on Wang Feng! Work hard to achieve better results in the NBA and slap those guys in the face!"

It's just that in the 1990s when there was no Internet platform as a carrier and not even a TV set was available in every household, these sounds could only be heard in one's own home.



Stern: Second All-Star Weekend without Jordan, miss him.

The situation where the West is strong and the East is weak made the All-Star Game lose its suspense not long after the start. The Western All-Stars quickly established a lead and maintained the lead until the end of the game.

There was neither a spectacular comeback nor a passionate confrontation during the entire game. It was just drowsy to watch. Although the ratings were higher than those during Jordan's first All-Star Weekend in 1994, which was when he retired.

Some, but still far from what it was in 1993.

This result also strengthened Stern's determination to bring Jordan back to the NBA.

The All-Star Weekend is over, and it also represents the final sprint for the league to enter the playoffs.

Teams with a higher record need to win to stabilize their current ranking position, while teams with a lower record need to fight hard to compete for precious playoff spots.

Only those teams at the bottom of the league are still waiting for a fateful draft to change their fate.

The Knicks played the last two games in February against the 76ers and Magic respectively. The team won the game against the 76ers, but lost to the Magic on the road, with a score of 118:106.

O'Neal avenged his previous defeat, scoring 44 points and 17 rebounds. Ewing was not to be outdone, returning the favor with 32 points and 13 rebounds.

Fans were excited to watch the contest between the two super centers, and Magic fans were satisfied to see O'Neal successfully suppress Ewing and win the game.

It is worth mentioning that in this game, O'Neal and Ewing took exactly the same number of shots, 29, but one of them scored 44 points and the other 32 points...

(End of chapter)


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