No.1 in basketball scoring
Chapter 409 - 191. Better to believe that it exists

Chapter 409: 191. Better to believe that it exists

After a while, Felton arrived at the arena with Alan Anderson, and they joined Zhang Yang and Jarett Jack for a meal.

With Matt Carroll’s departure being a done fact, Felton chose to warmly welcome the new teammates, taking the opportunity to bring them into his fold while the prince was away.

Felton also invited Eric Williams, but he politely declined.

Eric Williams, being at least 10 years older than these four new teammates and having decided to retire after this season to coach at high school, didn’t really gel with the younger guys.

Felton and Jarett Jack, both having spent three years in college before entering the NBA and only half a year apart in age, truly peers, and both idolized Payton and Kidd as students, quickly warmed up to each other after chatting in the restaurant for a short while.

While eating, Zhang Yang suddenly realized something—they were all from the class of ’05 at the table.

The next day, February 28th, a new week began.

After finishing the pre-game meeting in the morning, Zhang Yang received a notification from the league; he had won last week’s Eastern Conference Player of the Week!

wins and 1 loss, averaging 21.25 points, 8.5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1.5 steals, and 1 block per game, beating competitors such as Marbury and Okafor.

In the West, Josh Howard got his second Player of the Week of the season, with 4 wins, averaging 19.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks per game.

The Mavericks had won 12 straight games, with a record of 47 wins and 11 losses, and the media had started to speculate whether they could surpass the Lakers’ record for consecutive wins and the Chicago Bulls’ best post-season record with ’35 consecutive wins to end the regular season’.

The momentum behind the Mavericks was even fiercer than the Lakers during the 99-00 season because the Lakers had dominated the regular season, leading comfortably, while the Mavericks had competitors like the Spurs and the Suns and were being suppressed in the mid-season, managed to fight back and reclaim the top spot in the league...

That evening, Zhang Yang watched the live national broadcast of the Lakers versus the Raptors.

The anticipated scoring spree didn’t happen; Kobe only played for 30 minutes, shooting just over a dozen times, 9 out of 14 from the field, plus 4 out of 4 free throws, scoring 22 points, 3 rebounds, and 6 assists.

Aside from the shooting percentage, the other stats were even lower than his seasonal averages, but he used the ’81-point terrifying shadow’ he cast over the Raptors’ players to help the Lakers dominate the game.

Odom scored the game’s highest 25 points, along with 12 rebounds and 12 assists, and the Lakers easily defeated the Raptors 112 to 99.

Two days of rest passed, and March 1st, a new month, arrived.

After finishing the morning’s preparation work, Zhang Yang opened his computer to check the news... they had lost.

Billups beat Okafor, James, Bosh, and Marbury, securing the Eastern Conference Player of the Month for February.

The Pistons had an 8-3 record in February, with Billups averaging 18.9 points, 4 rebounds, and 9 assists.

In the West, Nowitzki finally received an award, with 10 wins, leading his team to surpass the Suns and top the league, playing 32 minutes per game, scoring 22.1 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.5 blocks, shooting 49.1% from the field, 40.6% from three, and 100% on free throws.

He also became the first player in NBA history to attempt more than 30 free throws in a single month and maintain a 100% success rate.

The previous record holder was also a Mavericks player, Steve Nash, who in February 2004 made all 21 free throws, with a free throw percentage of 91.6% during the 03-04 season, now surpassed by Nowitzki with 31.

Zhang Yang, seeing Nowitzki’s performance, was really impressed! The unlimited one-on-one playing style, and maintaining such shooting performance into February.

Last month could really be seen as a month of redemption for Nowitzki, though it was Cuban’s reluctance to offer Nash a ten-million annual salary that led to Nash’s departure, and in the past two seasons, Nash’s back-to-back MVP titles and his team’s 17-game winning streak in mid-season had strongly pressed the Mavericks; the ’ten-million salary meme’ had half of the ridicule fall on his head.

After last month, no one was laughing at Nowitzki anymore.

...

In the evening, the Bobcats faced the New York Knicks in their first game of the new month.

The Knicks had also played 58 games so far, with a record of 27 wins and 31 losses.

Just as Zhang Yang had expected, Thomas really wasn’t foolish enough to already have a winning strategy and still let Francis, Nate Robinson, and others continue to fight over ball possession with Marbury and Crawford.

From a 5-17 record, they managed to pull up to 27-31 over the last two months, achieving a 22-14 record; while they were behind the Bobcats, the Pistons, and the Raptors, they were certainly better than the Knight and the Chicago Bulls, and Marbury, averaging 19 points and 8 assists per month, barely missed getting his first Player of the Month.

Going into the final two months, the Knicks genuinely had the qualifications to push for a playoff berth.

Having had the experience of fighting for a playoff berth from a disadvantaged position last season, Zhang Yang thought that March was very crucial for the Knicks; they needed to secure at least a 60% win rate this month, otherwise, April would be difficult.

At 6 pm, the Bobcats’ home game against the Knicks began.

The Knicks continued their 8-9 man rotation, well-coordinated mutual understanding, everyone played hard, maintaining good performance, and were extremely fierce in attack.

The Bobcats were already unable to suppress the Knicks’ offense, and tonight, with Gerald Wallace continuing to miss the game due to a knee injury, they didn’t intend to compete defensively but started the game by sparring with the Knicks in offense.

The departure of the league’s top fifteen three-point shooter, and the team’s best fastbreak ball receiver, brought its pain!

Alan Anderson, Jumaine Jones, Herrmann, and Zhang Yang all performed worse than Matt Carroll in catching and shooting threes, and tonight they missed quite a few open three-point opportunities.