Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Chapter 861 861 535 A Door That Opened but Didnt

?Chapter 861: Chapter 535: A Door That Opened but Didn’t Fully Open_2 Chapter 861: Chapter 535: A Door That Opened but Didn’t Fully Open_2 So in official games, this team is also known as Team USA.

Compared with the hodgepodge of mediocre American players coming to China for a holiday, fans undoubtedly find this team more acceptable.

After all, Yu Fei really showed up.

If it weren’t for the lockout, it would have been unimaginable for someone of Yu Fei’s stature to organize a scratch team to play games in China.

During warmups, Yu Fei noticed a young player on the China Team.

If he wasn’t mistaken, that person was Guo Ailun from the Liaoning youth team, also the most promising young player in all of Asia.

When encountering Yao Ming mid-court, Yu Fei inquired about the young Guo, “How’s that kid doing?”

“Green as they come,” Yao Ming’s expression turned into an emoji as he shook his head and said, “He still needs to train.”

“How about I help you train him today?”

Yao Ming replied, “It’s unlikely, he probably won’t match up against you.”

This suggests that Guo occupied a very back seat in the team’s rotation.

After all, this was built on the core that had bravely made it to the top eight in the home Olympics two years earlier.

Before long, the friendly match officially began.

Although Yu Fei’s Team came with specific goals, the main reasons for visiting China were tourism and making money, their attitude towards the game was still serious.

Yu Fei, Roy, George, and Brown, the four Reebok giants, all started, joined by Wayne Harrington. Based on the talent of that lineup, as long as they played seriously, they could cut through competition anywhere.

Roy, having not played in a while, was very excited at the start, first hitting a three-pointer from the outside.

Then, he stole the ball from Liu Wei, Team China’s prime point guard, and scored on a fast break.

Interestingly, Yu Fei intentionally ran into the paint to play front defense against Yao Ming to prevent him from receiving the ball.

“Don’t let me get the ball, or you’ll see what’s coming!”

Yao Ming even made a threat.

Afterward, China Team also displayed their characteristics.

Or rather, this was the hallmark of their head coach, Bob Donewald.

Due to his average résumé and not knowing how to please the media, domestically, he is often mockingly referred to as a “high school coach” by the monopolistic sports media with the “homegrown Stephen A. Smith” at the forefront.

Dunhuad indeed lacked high qualifications and didn’t have a profound tactical cultivation, but his on-the-spot adaptability was passable, and he immediately saw through the composition of Team China.

Apart from Yao, Yi, Wang, and Sun, the four active and former NBA players, the rest of CBA’s big names could only play role players on the international stage. Also, due to lower coaching levels at the grassroots in China, these players hadn’t developed a high tactical acumen from a young age, hoping that they could play team basketball like Europe would turn the game into an unproductive pass-around on the perimeter.

Therefore, what Dunhuad emphasized was “fighting” – fighting with all their might on defense, and on offense, whoever had the opportunity would shoot, but Yao Ming was the core, and if they couldn’t get through, they would feed him the ball like crazy.

He truly lacked a mature tactical system, but this simple and crude style suited Team China well.

Since Yu Fei played fierce front defense, it wasn’t easy for Yao Ming to receive the ball, so Team China moved the opportunity higher up the court.

Space Easy, who had been criticized for his inefficiency and mechanical style during his three-year stint in Portland, became supremely confident when returning to the national team; grabbing the ball and shooting, his hot hand kept scoring consecutively.

Once Space Easy started high, Yao Ming was also freed.

Yu Fei wanted to front again, but Yao Ming no longer played along, simply bringing the NBA gameplay back to China, executing pick-and-rolls with Liu Wei, then stepping out to the perimeter to catch and shoot threes.

China Team managed to break open the situation, strong both inside and outside, while on Yu Fei’s side, after Roy started off strong, he began to give younger players like George a chance to show their skills.

But George’s initial performance was enough to make the Spurs’ management, who were watching from afar, go dark.

Everything was too rough, missing various shots on offense, and leaking points on defense without reason.

Kwame Brown was also just going through the motions.

Having come to China with Yu Fei several times, he knew about an essential social concept in China: “face.”

It’s similar to the American regard for “dignity.”

Showing face in China is like giving respect to a stranger in America.

Everyone looks good, and life goes on smoothly.

So Brown didn’t plan on going all out, just doing enough to get by, and even if he tried his best, he still wouldn’t be able to stop Yao Ming.

By the end of the first quarter, China Team surged forward, surprisingly posting a score of 22 to 14.

Yu Fei didn’t score in the first quarter for two reasons, the first being that he only played five minutes, and the second that he played the position of Power Forward, focusing on defense and messing with Yao Ming, not expecting that the offensive performances of his teammates like George would be so disappointing.

“Alright, let’s all get serious,” Yu Fei said during the interval break, “Though winning or losing isn’t important, don’t play too casually, we have to catch up in the second quarter!”

After Yu Fei’s pep talk, he re-entered the game in the next quarter, not as a Power Forward this time.

Also joining him on the court were Roy and Beverley.

When Yu Fei said to get serious, they took it seriously.

Beverley started pressing China Team’s guards in the frontcourt. Liu Wei, as a miraculous player who could hold his own against world-class guards on the international stage—yet also get pressed into submission by Koreans in Asian play—was forced into consecutive turnovers by Beverley.

So Dunhuad made an on-the-spot decision to get Sun Yue to step up for assistance.

But once Sun Yue got the ball, he faced the high-pressure defense of Yu Fei.

This was defense that had caused James a lot of trouble in the Western Conference Finals, and it was because his lack of refined technique for playing the three positions at the NBA level that Sun Yue’s NBA prospects went bankrupt.