Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Chapter 784 784 512 Need Time

?Chapter 784: Chapter 512: Need Time Chapter 784: Chapter 512: Need Time Chapter 512: It Takes Time
Kobe quickly scored another 2+1 on Durant, prompting Yu Fei to enter the game.

Subsequently, Kobe made the free throw, and the Lakers extended their lead to 9 points.

The atmosphere in the Staples Center was electrifying, as Lakers fans excitedly recognized the return of the familiar team.

Facing an opponent like the Supersonics, they had played to their strengths and now needed to maintain the momentum.

Yu Fei stopped the bleeding for his team with a breakthrough jump shot in set play.

However, Kobe was fully in form; no matter who defended him, he managed to get the ball into the basket.

Yu Fei moved to guard him, Kobe backed down, not possessing a physical advantage, but his agile footwork—twisting left and right, untwisting the defender’s center of gravity like a twist braid—allowed him to score beautifully with a step-through layup.

“That’s Kobe for you, you can always trust him!”

“When he’s feeling it, even Frye can’t get the upper hand on him.”

The Supersonics were down by 9 points, but Yu Fei had to do more than just contain Kobe; he also had to help his teammates find their rhythm.

However, Chris Bosh and Durant had barely taken any shots during the minutes they partnered, focusing just on pick-and-roll covers and defensive positioning—efforts that weren’t paying off as they sapped his shooting touch. Now, running pick-and-rolls with Yu Fei again, his long-range shooting touch was gone.

Bosh’s shots kept coming up short.

The ball would hit the front of the rim and then bounce out.

This was a sign of dwindling stamina.

Coach Lu caught on and summoned Jermaine O’Neal from the bench, preparing to substitute Bosh.

But after Bosh’s successive misses, the Lakers scored on two fast breaks, pushing the Supersonics behind by 13 points.

This looked like a scene of despair.

Yu Fei had already come back, but the Supersonics were still unable to stand against the Lakers’ onslaught.

Should he call a timeout?

Tyronn Lue found it hard to decide.

Yu Fei had only been back in the game for two minutes, would calling a timeout now be too hasty? But without a timeout, the point difference had already reached 13.

“Call a timeout, first we need to break the Lakers’ rhythm!”

Tim Grgurich said.

Coach Lu thought it made sense, so he approached the scorer’s table and requested a timeout.

Yu Fei hadn’t expected Lu to call a timeout so quickly.

He had wanted to test the other players’ shooting, and if that failed, he was ready to just let loose and play solo till the end.

“Frye, I’m going to have Jermaine and Little O substitute Chris and Tony (Moro’s nickname).” Coach Lu said, “You need to increase the frequency of your personal attacks.”

With this move, Coach Lu allowed Bosh and Moro to rest first. Compared to Bosh at this stage, Little O was a weaker version in terms of both offense and defense, but he was still useful—a power forward who could average double-digit points. Substituting Alonzo Gee for Moro was like a card game move, bringing in a defender with high defensive stats to take the hits, buying some time.

Gee, with his limited offensive arsenal of only cutting to the basket and highly unstable shooting, could not match the spacing capabilities of a shooter like Moro.

Lu’s thinking was simple: make Yu Fei struggle on offense, let the others adjust properly, and withstand this wave. If they could hold up, they would be able to compete in the second half; if not, they would have to prepare for G3 half a game ahead of the Lakers.

What Coach Lu didn’t expect was that this situation would resemble the previous one when he substituted DeAndre Jordan for Kwame Brown.

If Bosh and Moro were still in the game, Yu Fei might have continued focusing on passing.

Now that they were out, the court was filled with players who couldn’t contribute much, just space fillers creating chaos. The only one who could alleviate his offensive pressure was Little O, so Yu Fei could ignore everyone else and play a true ball hog.

In the past, George Karl had been impressed by one aspect of Yu Fei.

The reason the predecessors of ball-dominant forwards were given control was that, although they were small forwards, they could handle the ball and had a mind for organizing, feeling the joy of assists.

In other words, as an evolved product of the organizing forward, the essence of a ball-dominant core should be a selfless basketball philosophy.

It’s impossible for such players to monopolize and ignore others’ feelings to have fun alone; they would feel a moral burden.

Am I being too selfish?

They would keep thinking this way.

However, Karl didn’t see such a burden on Yu Fei.

In his Bucks days, Yu Fei demonstrated this, eagerly expressing his personality upon arriving in Milwaukee, wildly recording 28+9+9 in his second season, scoring an astonishing 35 points per game during the troubled year of 2005, followed by averaging a triple-double.

As long as he desired certain statistics, he would fully pursue them without considering his teammates’ feelings.

Thus, Karl thought Yu Fei’s transformation in Seattle was both magnificent and incredible.

A person who valued ball control above all else suddenly shared half of it with Brandon Roy and also distributed some to Durant to aid his development, even cutting down his own shots to fewer than 18 per game at the most extreme.

These changes reflected a shift in Yu Fei’s game philosophy as a player.

But the question came back, would he abandon everything from the past after embracing a new philosophy?

After Tyronn Lue took over, Yu Fei’s ball-centric performance reminiscent of his Bucks days showed that old habits die hard.

A selfish ball handler, an ultimate ball-dominant core unperturbed by moral concerns—this was the true nature of Yu Fei.

Now, all pretenses were stripped away, and Yu Fei was no longer holding back.

Yu Fei called for Little O’s screen, and the Lakers thought he was going to pass.