Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Chapter 829 829 525 The Worlds Largest Noise

?Chapter 829: Chapter 525: The World’s Largest Noise Chapter 829: Chapter 525: The World’s Largest Noise The greatest noise in the world
After Pau Gasol purposefully left Chris Bosh open at LeBron’s signal, Yu Fei’s choices indeed became simpler.

Pass the ball to Bosh, letting him shoot from an open position.

This was clearly a smart move. However, after battling for nine minutes at the beginning of the game, Bosh’s energy had significantly depleted, and some opportunities he could previously handle now became unstable.

Within one minute, Bosh attempted three shots and made one. Tyronn Lue then substituted him with DeAndre Jordan.

With DeAndre’s appearance, the Supersonics’ use of the fifth position in the pick-and-roll strategy lost its element of outside shooting, and it seemed Pau’s situation was improving.

But the impact of decreased energy was two-sided.

If Bosh could no longer endure, Pau Gasol was even worse off.

When DeAndre entered the game, Pau, who was consistently targeted, was already at a critical state of exhaustion.

Yu Fei called for a pick-and-roll again, and it wasn’t clear how many times that had been—DeAndre set the screen, cut inside, and dashed towards the basket like a beast breaking free. With Pau lacking the energy, he committed his second foul of the quarter against Yu Fei.

Subsequently, the Lakers also substituted him out.

Big Z replaced Little Gasol.

For Yu Fei, he wouldn’t abandon the strategy of destabilizing the interior line, especially since Big Z was an easier target compared to Little Gasol.

However, with less than two minutes left in the first quarter, both teams opted to slow down the game to ensure a higher offensive success rate.

LeBron controlled the time, waiting until Big Z set up a confident screen for Kobe to come out and shoot a three-pointer.

“Swish!”

The teams were tied.

Then, Yu Fei, also not in a hurry to respond, dribbled to the left outside the three-point line and directed Durant, who was on the right, to move.

The scene was akin to the Lakers’ previous offensive play, only Artest’s off-the-ball defense was lackluster, allowing Durant to shake off his defense effortlessly, unlike Kobe’s elaborate maneuver.

He just ran from one side to the other. Artest failed to follow, and Yu Fei’s pass was already on its way.

Mike Miller hustled to cover, but it was too late.

For someone like Durant, who was given such a wide-open space, don’t expect anyone on Earth to disrupt his shooting.

Durant settled the score with the Lakers with a three-pointer.

Leveraging this, the Supersonics again took a three-point lead, maintaining it until the end of the first quarter as the Lakers couldn’t close the gap.

23-26
The visiting Supersonics performed better than the Lakers, with Yu Fei using just the center position to render Little Gasol utterly miserable, pushing the Lakers into a predicament of lacking viable options inside.

“15 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists,” ESPN’s Mike Breen summarized Yu Fei’s first-quarter performance, “plus 1 steal and 2 blocks. This is Frye’s performance in the first quarter, Jeff, Mark, what do you think of Frye tonight?”

Mark Jackson simply stated, “Impeccable. I don’t think there’s any other player who could bring more to the game in one quarter.”

“Props to Brandon Roy, who we know took a huge risk in choosing to come back early,” Jeff Van Gundy remarked, “and I think this definitely fired up Frye. Only in such circumstances do we see the best players perform their best. He’s fully immersed in the game, willing to set aside his disputes with Kobe and LeBron to lend entirely his strength to role players like Mark Jackson. Now, it’s paying off; Phil Jackson will soon realize that without the Spaniard anchoring the interior, their line-up will falter.”

Below the court, neither team opted to rest their key players who played the entire first quarter.

Coach Lu had Yu Fei and Durant continue playing, while the small forward position was substituted by Alonzo Gee replacing Anthony Morrow.

The deeper into the playoff series it got, the more Lu realized these shooters that are ‘all threes, no D’ were mere decor.

If you’ve laid a solid foundation and brought in the best architects to build a great house, then decor is essential.

But what if you don’t have a good house?

Would you care whether you’re hanging nails or decorations on your wall?

Morrow’s problem was here, he was a shooter who proved himself during the Supersonics’ peak, back when he just needed to make three-pointers from the open spots Yu Fei, Roy, and Durant created.

Now, however, Lu expected him to take on more, but he couldn’t manage it and would be targeted by Kobe as a weakness, so it made more sense to substitute him for someone like Gee who, though he couldn’t offer much offensively, could play annoying defense.

Inside, the pairing was Jermaine O’Neal and DeAndre Jordan.

For the Lakers, both Kobe and LeBron were present, Miller was switched for Mike Bibby, the power forward position reverted to Antawn Jamison, and the center remained Big Z.”

That’s how things were: the Lakers had an abundance of shooters but a very thin interior presence. Jackson knew their weak foundation in the post, so he staked all his hopes on the perimeter.

As the second quarter began, the Supersonics had the ball.

Little O tossed a gentle ball to Yu Fei.

Yu Fei didn’t take it, letting the ball roll ahead on the ground.

This was the star guard for the Hornets, Chris Paul’s habit, as the NBA’s offensive clock only starts when a player touches the ball, effectively saving offensive time.

Walking leisurely forward, the ball rolled ahead of Yu Fei.

“What are you pretending for?”

Kobe, annoyed, went forward and disrupted the peace.

“What’s the rush?”

Yu Fei picked up the ball, used his body to shield Kobe, and with a large step crossed the logo. The Supersonics had 21 seconds for this offensive possession.