Chapter 33: Los Angeles Derby War

  After a day of rest, the Lakers at home to face the challenge of the Golden State Warriors. "Zen Master" Jackson did not adjust the starting lineup due to Ye Feng's outstanding performance on the court.

  In the first quarter near the end, Ye Feng replaced Odom and took over the 4th position.

  Jackson's tactical arrangement is very targeted. Letting Yefeng play as a small forward, Radmanovic and Walton's playing time will be greatly shortened, these two still have some ability, don't waste too much. And after Odom and Bynum come off the court, Yefeng can take on the heavy responsibility of low-post offense, and the defensive pressure encountered by substitutes coming onto the court is also much smaller than that of the starters, so using Yefeng is like "Zi Ju's horse racing", able to bring out the maximum effect.

  The Warriors replaced starting power forward Harrison Barnes and center Festus Ezeli with Brandon Wright and Jeremy Tyler. The Warriors' front line has been plagued by injuries, leaving almost no one available, so the 6-10 veteran Jeremy Tyler had to play out of position at center. Jackson didn't hesitate to set up a pick-and-roll with Tyler as the primary scoring option, letting him go to work.

  Yue Feng's opponent is this year's No. 8 rookie Brandon Wright. In order to get this amazing big forward, the Warriors sent away dunk king Richardson, and now they are about to regret it. Wright is too thin and afraid of inside confrontation, averaging only 10 minutes per game in the new season, scoring 4 points and 2.6 rebounds.

  Before the game, the Warriors studied Rui Feng to make defensive deployments and let several inside players watch the Lakers vs Celtics game video. After watching it, they didn't come up with a defensive plan, and Lai Te was afraid. Ye Feng is a beast who dares to wrestle with Garnett, how can he defend? Moreover, Tony Allen's injury examination results came out today, and it turned out to be a testicular rupture, which will miss at least 6 weeks, the most bizarre injury in NBA history.

  After Wright came on, he found that Ye Feng was defending himself at a low position, and suddenly felt a chill down his spine, as if he had been stared at by a real wolf... The stadium is like a battlefield, and one person's heart has softened, how can the body be hard? Ye Feng, who is not good at confrontation, is difficult to defend against people who are stronger than him, and the outcome is predictable.

  Ye Feng used Divac's signature back-to-the-basket technique to score in the three-second zone, then turned around and hit a single-handed shot. After that, he turned around again and dunked with one hand, scoring easily. As long as Ye Feng got into the low post, Rait couldn't do anything about it, the physical difference between them was too great. When Croshere came to defend, he was too slow and couldn't jump high enough, so whenever Ye Feng approached the basket with a hook shot, Croshere could only watch him score or commit a foul. The Lakers' bench lineup quickly expanded their lead in the second quarter, while the Warriors' substitutes were perhaps the worst in the league, getting beaten without being able to fight back.

  The main players got a good rest and when they returned to the court, their advantage became even more obvious. With Ye Feng and Odom on the court together, their defense also improved by a level, and the Warriors' interior attack was almost non-existent, relying only on Davis and Ellis's outside "spray-and-pray" shooting.

  The Lakers turned the game into garbage time in three quarters, winning 114-86 over the Warriors by 28 points. Kobe had 24 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists, while Bynum got a huge double-double with 38 points and 21 rebounds. The Warriors' weak interior defense allowed the whole team to focus on defending Bynum, letting him score easily. After the game, he can go film a " Refreshing" commercial. He's just like a kid, very vain, and cares a lot about his stats. The more beautiful his stats are, the closer he is to the All-Star Game.

  Ye Feng played 27 minutes, with a beautiful data of 10 shots and 8 hits, 4 free throws and 2 hits, scoring 18 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 blocks and 1 steal, including 12 points in the second quarter.

  Due to the attacking area being close to the basket, Ye Jun's shooting percentage was particularly high. Although he only had 4 rebounds, anyone who watched the game knew that every time he went out to defend against the opponent's three-point shot after blocking, and left the rebounding work to Baynes under the basket. His defense also lowered the Warriors' three-point shooting percentage, which indirectly contributed to Baynes' stunning data.

  After two consecutive outstanding performances, Ye Fung, relying on his Chinese identity, became the most popular Lakers player after Kobe, surpassing Odom in popularity. Unfortunately, he only played two games in November and had too little playing time, so his name was not included in the starting All-Star candidate list.

  The first round of voting results for the 2008 NBA All-Star Game has been announced, with Kevin Garnett of the Celtics leading the league in votes; Kobe Bryant is temporarily leading the Western Conference in votes. Yi Jianlian of the Bucks ranked fifth among Eastern Conference forwards, showing the strength of Chinese fans' support. Even the popular Garnett was surpassed by Yi, and as long as he participates in the voting, even if he scores less than 10 points and has fewer than 5 assists, a large number of Chinese fans may still vote him into the All-Star Game, because they all want to see him dunk.

  Ye Feng was fortunate enough to participate in the rookie evaluation. Although he did not participate in the draft, according to league regulations, Ye Feng can still participate in the rookie evaluation. He relied on just two games to enter the top ten, temporarily ranking ninth. Experts believe that if he can maintain this momentum, his ranking will continue to rise.

  During an interview with reporters, Ye Feng specifically mentioned Baynam. He said that Baynam has made a lot of progress this season and is now an indispensable interior defense for the Lakers. He hopes fans can give him a vote, as he is the kind of person who improves faster with more encouragement. Baynam was extremely grateful and almost treated Ye Feng like his own brother.

  The Lakers' next game is still in Los Angeles, and their opponent is the Clippers.

  This is a derby war. As we all know, Los Angeles has two NBA teams, the Lakers and Clippers.

  The two teams not only share the same city, but also use the same arena. After one game is over, they immediately switch to the other team's carpet if they are playing each other, and whoever is the home team gets their carpet switched in. Moreover, the NBA schedule will not arrange for both teams' home games to be at the same time. Even the maintenance fees for the venue are split 50/50, and ticket sales are also separate. This is a very successful example of NBA marketing!

  However, it was the alliance that succeeded, not the speedboat.

  Although they share the Staples Center, in this "City of Angels", the two teams have never been on an equal footing. The Lakers have made waves and established several dynasties, are the local darlings; the Clippers arrived in Los Angeles later than the Lakers and their achievements cannot be compared to those of the Lakers.

  Although they made it to the Western Conference semifinals under Brand's leadership two years ago, outperforming the Lakers. People still liked the Lakers. Although Brand has been a consistent 20-10 player since entering the league, one of the players with the smallest technical statistical variance, comparable to Tim Duncan; although he is an all-around player who excels in both offense and defense, including positional defense and supplementary defense; he had MVP-level performances, averaging 24.7 points and 10 rebounds per game, with 2.5 blocks. However, compared to Kobe Bryant, the box office appeal was still worlds apart. This season, Brand couldn't play, the Clippers lost consecutively, and ticket sales plummeted to a five-year low.

  Except for this game, the Clippers' tickets are almost sold out because Lakers fans have bought up all the Clippers' tickets, which are cheaper than the Lakers'. Once inside the arena, it's still all Lakers fans. The only time they can outsell the Lakers is during a Los Angeles Derby...

  Before the game started, fans also initiated an interesting discussion online. The topic of discussion was: "Lang" facing his girlfriend's team, what kind of performance will he have, and predict his data.

  Airi and Ye Feng had a midnight snack together, and they were also talking about the Derby match. Aili said seriously: "Tomorrow's game, don't be so desperate again, I think it's quite scary to watch you play these two games, some of your moves are too dangerous, if you get hurt, it will be serious, I don't want to see you like Brandt, seriously injured and out. This match has a tacit understanding between the two sides, the defense won't be too strict, just be honest, can you do that?"

  Ye Feng smiled and said, "You've given the order, how dare I not obey? I will control my emotions. There's a Chinese proverb that says 'going too far is easy to break', this principle I understand. Thank you for caring about me."

  Ellie hummed and smiled, "You understand that's good. If you get hurt, I'll have to go to the hospital with you, I hate the smell of hospitals, for this, you also have to be healthy enough to play all the games."

  Ye Feng nodded and said: "Yes sir."

  The Clippers owner's daughter hopes the Lakers win, which is not surprising. Playing a gentleman's game is also one of the NBA's unwritten rules. When a weak team encounters a strong team, they usually play a gentleman's game. Both sides consciously lower their defensive intensity to ensure that players are not injured, and the strong team wins without making the weak team look too bad. For two teams from the same city like the Clippers and Lakers, with vastly different records, they will definitely not fight to the death. If the defensive intensity is low, there will be more dunks, and fans will also enjoy watching.

  Airi asked again: "You two have played well in the last two games, will you start first in the next game?"

  Yue Feng smiled and said, "Definitely not, Jackson has clearly talked to me about it, asking me to substitute in and be the team's sixth man. In the first quarter when Kobe is on the court, I have a hard time getting the ball, going up and wasting energy, Radmanovic is more suitable for starting, if Kobe encounters double teams, he can shoot three-pointers from outside."

  In the two games, Ye Feng only had one assist. He usually attacks the basket directly after receiving the ball and rarely passes it. Playing like this with Kobe on the court will definitely not work out. Can't have Kobe pass the ball and just watch him play?

  He talked to Aurielle, revealing all the Lakers' tactics. He wasn't worried that Aurielle would tell Deng Livi what to do, as the fast ship didn't want to win at all, and against the Lakers, with their rotten lineup, they couldn't win even if they wanted to.

  Ye Feng often had a bit of guilt in his heart, feeling that as a friend, he couldn't help Ailier much. Talking about the Clippers' draft pick, he had a bold idea. If the Clippers happened to get the first overall pick next season and chose Rose, it seemed like a promising prospect. In the future, should he join the Clippers? If Ailier was in charge, when trading players and building the team, she would also listen to his opinions, and the Clippers might become strong ahead of schedule.

  He doesn't plan on saying anything about it for now and will make a decision after the Lakers win the championship.

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