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Chapter 161: Need an account, assist the new king

Last season, when Oakley was still with the Raptors.

Tyrone Hill, who was playing for the Philadelphia 76ers at the time, followed the team to a visiting game in Toronto.

Without any warning, Oakley walked up to 76ers player Tyrone Hill while the two teams were practicing and slapped him across the face.

Afterwards, Oakley explained the reason: "He never pays back the money he owes me, so I have to remind him."

Come on! This is a televised game.

The Raptors' young men also had a less than pleasant experience working with Oakley.

He once angrily complained that Carter was a weakling who lacked ambition, and McGrady was also forced to drink several sips of liquor by Oakley when he was under the drinking age.

But what's strange is that he likes Lu Yu very much.

Maybe it's because Lu Yu, like him, has a generous temperament.

Tyrone Hill has cut off any contact with Oakley since he was slapped by Oakley. Naturally, he has no intention of paying back the money. The last time he was attacked by Oakley, this time if Oakley dares to reach him

By his side, he will never let Oakley succeed easily - even if he loses, he won't make headlines because he is unable to fight back.

Today's Lakers home court is very lively. Although they have been losing on the road recently, their home record has been good. At least they have one win and one loss now. They won a game against the Pacers and lost a game against the Knicks. The fans are looking forward to today

How will the team perform?

Of course, maybe the expectations are not high.

The 76ers were the Eastern Conference champions last season. In the finals, the ok combination was still in full swing and they pulled out one victory.

But taking a closer look at the Eastern Conference rankings, the 76ers are actually in last place, having lost all their first five games at the beginning of the season.

In this comparison, the Bulls, who have one win and four losses, are still a little better.

The reason why the 76ers keep losing has a lot to do with head coach Larry Brown.

"Play the ball the right way" will be familiar to fans who are familiar with the NBA. It has almost become Larryism.

So, what is the "right way"?

Brown said: "I don't know where I learned this, but I always tell my players, 'Play hard, play smart, remember to be a team player, enjoy basketball, and play hard defense.'

"

Brown has always adhered to these principles during his more than 20-year coaching career.

But unfortunately, his principles have not changed, and the rules of the NBA have changed... and he has started to play zone defense.

This made Brown confused. The 76ers were able to succeed last season because Brown allowed Iverson to switch to shooting guard, and then used Snow as the point guard to deliver cannonballs to Iverson.

Ferson took personal heroism to the extreme.

Now the rules have changed, and individual heroism is no longer possible.

what to do?

change!

But here comes the problem, Iverson is unwilling to change his style of play.

No matter how much Larry Brown can "turn something bad into something magical," he can't get the "answer" that goes his own way.

In the end, the personal relationship with the team's top star Iverson became incompatible, which showed that Brown had an imperfect grasp of the players' psychology.

Old Brown always adheres to his own principles and seems to lack some concepts of compromise when designing tactics for the team based on the characteristics of the players.

When the team's performance is good, these contradictions may not surface; but once the performance declines and people with ulterior motives make a fuss about it, it will cause varying degrees of harm to the team, players and coaches.

These may still be attributed to the inherent stubbornness and uncompromising nature of academic coaches.

Lakers assistant coach Winters once commented on Brown's work: "When Brown controlled Iverson's personality performance, the 76 team was very close to the championship; when Iverson broke away from 'Brown's Law', he and

His team is nothing."

This is the difference between Brown and Jackson and Popovich.

Popovich and Phil Jackson are also among the few coaches with 1,000 wins in the league, and they are better at "controlling players."

After losing five games in a row, Iverson refused to even participate in the team's training.

In the locker room, Larry Brown was in a bad mood. He said loudly: "Cheer up, everyone, the season has just begun. We just need a victory to rebuild our confidence. The Bulls' record is equally bad. We are tonight

We have to work hard to win the game, I believe we can reach the finals again this year like last year!"

The players gained some confidence and clapped together.

Before the applause ended, there was a knock on the door of the locker room. Snow, who was sitting next to the door, opened the door and was shocked to see a player wearing a Bulls jacket standing outside.

Everyone in the room was stunned, and Iverson stood up first: "Hey, I said, is something wrong?"

"Hello, Allen, I am this year's rookie Lu Yu."

Lu Yu was very polite: "One thing is that Tyrone Hill of your team has not paid back the debt he owes Charles. Charles tried to ask for it last time, but he still didn't get it. I'm afraid he will.

I can't help it when I'm on the court and it affects the game, so I want to see Mr. Hill first and hope that he will pay back the money he owes to avoid unpleasant things happening on the court."

Allen Iverson frowned. To be honest, he also hated people like Tyrone Hill.

He looked into the room, and Larry Brown pretended not to hear.

Tyrone Hill, who was tall and thin, was still afraid of Lu Yu, a rookie. He stood up and said arrogantly: "If you have the ability, let Charles come to me. You, a rookie, are not qualified."

"Yeah?"

Lu Yu raised his eyebrows.

Then he looked at 76ers head coach Larry Brown: "Coach Brown, I'm sorry to meet you in this way, but I think I should give you a suggestion, that is, don't let Mr. Hill play at the end of the game.

, otherwise I'm not sure which Chicago hospital bed he would be in tonight."

"Hiss..." All the 76ers players in the room were speechless.

However, none of them had the intention to stand up and speak for Hill, because his character was really not that good.

"Of course, you'd better let him get on a plane and leave Chicago now, otherwise I don't guarantee whether I will throw him into a slum in Chicago after the game."

"I don't have any cash with me. I owe it now and will pay it back next time." Although Hill felt that Lu Yu was bragging, he couldn't guarantee whether it would happen. After all, Chicago's typewriters are famous in the United States.

Lu Yu shrugged: "You can't borrow money from your teammates. Iverson, Snow, Mutombo, they are all rich people..."

When he said this, Mutombo glared at Lu Yu: "I didn't bring any money."

Then he glared at Hill again: "You shouldn't owe other people money, especially Oakley's money. Now that Oakley's little brother is here, don't implicate me."

He thought Lu Yu was Oakley's younger brother.

In fact, this is indeed the case. In life, Lu Yu is Oakley's younger brother, both in terms of age and status in the locker room, but in the team's tactical system, Lu Yu is the team's... future boss.

What else Hill wanted to say, Iverson said: "I have 3,000 US dollars here, and I helped him pay off the debt."

Then he took out three thousand dollars and handed it to Lu Yu.

Lu Yu took the three thousand dollars, smiled and nodded: "Well, thank you!"

After saying that, he turned around and left.

At this moment, many members of the Bulls team had arrived. They thought Lu Yu was joking when he said he wanted to ask for a debt, but they didn't expect that Lu Yu really came to ask for a debt.

When they saw Lu Yu holding a thick wad of banknotes in his hand.

Everyone was stunned.

Especially Oakley, he is not short of the $3,000, he is just short of the breath.

When Lu Yu said in the locker room that he wanted to help him pay the bill, although he was moved, he knew that this was just Lu Yu's way of changing the topic. Unexpectedly, just as he was about to go on the field, he heard from the staff that Lu Yu went to 76 alone.

The team's locker room.

He quickly rushed over with his teammates.

Artest turned Lu Yu left and right.

"How's it going? Lu? They didn't bully you, did they?"

Chandler was also worried: "Lu, are you okay?"

Oakley came closer and looked Lu Yu over. If Lu Yu had any wounds on his body, he would definitely smash the 76ers locker room.

However, it was obvious that Lu Yu had no signs of making any moves with anyone.

Lu Yu just smiled and handed the money to Oakley: "Charles, I promised you that I will give you the money back."

Oakley felt a little warm in his heart, and for some reason, he felt a touch of emotion in his heart.

To be honest, Jordan called him a few days ago. The Wizards are really short of manpower now. Jordan hopes that Oakley can go over and help him. Oakley is still hesitating these days, but Lu Yu's move made him give up.

Got this idea.

Perhaps, assisting a new king to ascend the throne is also a good choice!

After the warm-up, the game begins.

Bulls starting lineup: Lu Yu, Hoiberg, Artest, Fizer, Miller.

76ers starting lineup: Eric Snow, Allen Iverson, Matt Halprin, Derek Coleman, Dikembe Mutombo.

When it came to Mutombo, Brad Miller didn't even bother to jump the ball. He couldn't jump the ball anyway, so he just gave it up.

However, the 76ers have certain flaws inside. After helping the 76ers reach the finals last season, Mutombo renewed his contract with the 76ers with a four-year, $65 million contract. But everyone knows that he has already

I am 35 years old. At this age, my status is unknown every year.

What's more, he is an excellent frame protector, but he is definitely not an excellent offensive player.

Another big man is Derek Coleman.

Without his bad temper, maybe Derrick Coleman could be one of the best power forwards in the world.

When he first debuted, Derrick's talent shocked everyone; people described him as the next Karl Malone or Charles Barkley.

"Sports Illustrated" even made this prediction: "Derrick will become the best power forward."

However, Derek did not cherish his talent. He slacked off in training, drank too much, got into fights, and repeatedly got into trouble.

The talented power forward ended up being only a two-time All-Star and quickly became a third-rate player.

More importantly, he is also 34 years old this year.

The combined age of the two insiders is almost 70. In the entire Bulls team, only Oakley is older than the two of them. However, Oakley is only a substitute, while the two of them are actual starters.

It can be seen from this that the 76ers really do not have suitable rookie players in the interior.

However, Coach Brown's idea is also very simple. The two insiders only need to be responsible for protecting the rebounds and interfering with the opponent's offensive inside. As for scoring, just leave it to Iverson.

This method worked last season, but it has been hit hard this season.

The reason is simple. Because of zone defense, although Iverson's points per game did not drop much, his offensive efficiency dropped significantly.

But what we encountered today was the Bulls. The Bulls and the 76ers have a very similar problem, that is, there are not many players who can attack. As long as the few points on the field that can be scored are limited, the game can be won.

Not difficult.

Iverson changed direction twice to get rid of Lu Yu's defense, then accelerated to get rid of Miller, reversed the layup and scored, 2-0

The two teams directly mismatched their defense, Lu Yu defended Iverson, and Snow defended Lu Yu.

In fact, Lu Yu was under greater pressure. After all, he had to do two jobs by himself, but Floyd had no intention of adjusting. He was actually a little dissatisfied with Klaus's involvement in the team coach's affairs.

Lu Yu passed the ball to Artest from the bottom corner. Artest lived up to Lu Yu’s assist and hit a three-pointer, 2-3.

The 76ers attacked, and the two inside players pulled out to provide a pick-and-roll for Iverson. Iverson saw the opportunity and passed the ball. Snow hit a three-pointer from the left corner, answer ball, 5 to 3.

This shot is definitely a fool's errand. You must know that Snow's three-point shooting percentage may not even be 20%.

Brad Miller has no problem letting him attack. His shooting percentage from the high post is quite good, but his movement is slow. Once he changes defense with a defender, he hates chasing the defender's shot.

I have to admit that Brown has his own level of ability to become the coach of Qian Sheng.

It will not be easy for the Bulls to win over the 76ers.


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