Champion Creed
Chapter 723 - 723 248 Retribution for the arrogant asking for monthly votes!

723: 248: Retribution for the arrogant (asking for monthly votes!) 723: 248: Retribution for the arrogant (asking for monthly votes!) The Hawks and Roger played the most spectacular regular season in history.

As far as regular seasons go, this Hawks team was more dazzling than the ’96 Magic that was included in the “Top Ten NBA Teams” and more hopeful than the ’96 Bulls.

So, how good were the 2000 Hawks?

The assessment from “SportsCenter” was very fair:

“Never has an NBA team faced such a high level of exposure and collective fan attention, with every away game feeling like a Michael Jackson concert, and still maintained focus and hunger.”

Their defense and confidence on the court were impressive, and their chemistry and locker room morale were unbelievably good.

Roger was consistently stable in all 82 games, even though he got a supermodel girlfriend.

But the problem is, they still had to go through the playoffs.

Before that, no one could place where the 2000 Hawks rightfully belonged.”

This time, Keith Olbermann wasn’t blindly praising Roger.

He was right, the true level of this Hawks team would be determined by the playoff results.

The ’96 Bulls’ true worth had been conclusively determined; they were a great regular-season team, but that was all.

In the world of competitive sports, not winning a championship is the original sin, especially since the 72-win Bulls didn’t even make it to the finals.

Because they did not win the championship, the Bulls’ 72 wins were very much overshadowed, and the players from that team hardly ever bring it up.

Even Nike didn’t promote Jordan’s 72 wins.

Originally, during the ’96 season, they had collaborated with many parties to shoot thousands of hours of material, hoping to make a documentary about the 72-win season, but this plan ultimately fell through.

The reason is simple, anytime you bring up the Bulls’ 72 wins, people recall another fact—the Magic defeated them.

Mentioning the 72 wins only highlights the greatness of that Magic team.

So, whether the 2000 Hawks were tremendous dominators or just a glamorous backdrop still had to be proven in the playoffs.

This also meant that Shaquille O’Neal had not lost hope of creating greatness.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ record during the regular season was quite awkward, stopping at 69 wins.

They equaled the ’71-’72 season’s 69-win record created by Chamberlain, Baylor, and West but just missed the 70-win mark.

This might be the lowest value-for-performance record in history.

Moreover, with the Hawks achieving 72 wins, it made the 69 wins feel even less significant.

It’s not hard to imagine how terrible Shaq felt, as Bill Simmons put it, “Roger’s 72-win season is like chocolate, mostly everyone who eats it is happy, but a dog would die from it.”

The rule of law in the United States saved Bill Simmons, otherwise, Shaq would definitely have shown up at his door with a gun to settle accounts.

Sometimes Roger doubted whether the United States was also selling ‘star balls’, and without even providing a little spoon.

Otherwise, it’s really hard to explain how someone like Bill Simmons could develop such an unceasingly sharp tongue.

However, after the last game of the regular season, Shaq was neither angry nor discouraged: “No matter what that idiot Bill Simmons, who likes to watch pirated royal films on his computer, says, I have the experience to crush a 72-win team, and history will prove once more that the team with the better regular-season record isn’t necessarily the winner; the war isn’t over yet.”

Shaq wasn’t talking nonsense this time, the war wasn’t over, since neither Roger nor Shaq had shed blood yet.

And only the playoffs are where true battles to the death occur.

On April 22, the 1999-2000 season playoffs kicked off.

The first to bleed was Ray Allen, whom Roger had long thought about.

The Hawks’ first round opponent was exactly the same as last season’s, facing the Milwaukee Bucks again.

Throughout most of the 90s, the Bucks struggled in mediocrity until George Karl arrived, bringing hope of revival.

But George Karl himself felt like he was living a nightmare.

His humiliating defeat in the 1996 finals filled him with hatred and fear towards Roger’s team.

After coming to Milwaukee, he still couldn’t escape Roger’s clutches.

Last season, the Hawks swept them, but George Karl wasn’t discouraged.

After all, Milwaukee’s trio of sharpshooters had just begun to show their combat strength, and Ray Allen hadn’t yet matured.

This season, George Karl’s goal was to make it to the second round, but the team’s instability only allowed them a narrow entry into the playoffs.

This record meant he had to face Roger again this year.

George Karl didn’t know what to say; Michael Jordan had retired, yet he was still getting beaten up.

Was this the fate destined by the heavens?

George Karl wasn’t very confident about the match, yet Ray Allen had a different opinion, “No one is destined to win, not me, and not Roger.

Those who are arrogant will eventually be consumed by their arrogance.”

It was clear that Ray Allen despised Roger; he didn’t like his always superior attitude nor his teasing in the All-Star game locker room.

Ray Allen’s confidence stemmed from the Bucks’ record at the end of the season; the team almost missed the playoffs, but in the last month of the regular season, they seemed to find the safety on their firearms.

Once they turned it off, they were finally free to fire at will.

The trio of sharpshooters put on an excellent performance, finishing the season with a 10-3 run and entering the playoffs in strong form.

During that period, the Bucks defeated strong teams like the Spurs, Jazz, and Pacers, seeming at last to find their synergy.