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Chapter 446 - 202. Bi Shuai: Accidentally Became a Legend?_3

Chapter 446: 202. Bi Shuai: Accidentally Became a Legend?_3

Bickerstaff performed excellently in coaching, drafting, and trading. He drafted Rondo, further unleashing the counterattack abilities of Zhang and Wallace, selected Millsap to reduce the wear on Okafor in positioning, and shared the pressure of offensive rebounding with Wallace. Acquiring Muhammad provided their young frontcourt talents with valuable experience and key defensive capabilities at critical moments, obtaining Jack shared the ball-handling and isolation pressure on the perimeter for Felton and Zhang...

During the voting, I firmly wrote Bickerstaff’s name on the first ballot.

I was surprised that so many people made the same choice as me, but that just proves my thoughts are right; many colleagues think the same way."

The best coach and the best general manager are actually ’team honors,’ mainly reflecting the players’ performances.

Otherwise, in 2003 Jerry West’s trade to acquire Mike Miller, James Posey, and Lorenzen Wright, and Mitch Kupchak’s signing of Malone and Payton with bare contracts, would have competed for the best general manager.

Jerry West could win because he led the Grizzlies from 28 wins to skyrocket to 50 wins.

Seeing Bickerstaff awarded and receiving so much praise, individuals like Zhang Yang and Felton felt honored and were even more exhilarated!

...

At 5:40 PM, the matches between the Bobcats and the Nets, and the Cavaliers and the Raptors were about to start; the players had already begun to enter the Tuhang Stadium and Quicken Loans Arena.

Here in the US, tonight’s spotlight is on the series between the Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors, and the Suns versus the Lakers, the former highlighting a duel between two geniuses from the draft class of ’03, and the latter showing a face-off between two great guards from the class of ’96.

From 5:40 PM to 8:30 PM, the television broadcasting the Cavaliers and Raptors game in the US outnumbered those airing the Bobcats and Nets game.

It’s different in China, though; both CCTV and Guangdong TV chose to broadcast the Bobcats and Nets match, and even though it aired at a very inconvenient time, starting at 6 AM, the ratings were quite high; the ratings nearly broke 1 before the match even started.

wins, first in the Eastern Conference, the best record and highest ranking achieved by a Chinese player as a core component of the team.

Though Wang Zhizhi once got 57 wins with the Mavericks and 59 with the Miami Heat, and Battelle reached 60 wins with the Spurs, both were merely role players or even marginal ones, and their records had little to do with them.

Zhang Yang was different; he was the team’s leading scorer, the primary option in crucial moments!

The enthusiasm of the fans in China was extremely high. They would stay up watching games at the TV even at midnight, not to mention 6 AM.

At Tuhang Stadium, after both teams’ players entered, Kidd saw the opposing Bobcats’ players looking spirited, which was quite troubling for him.

Originally, their only advantage in this series was their rich game experience, with a significant gap in the roster of role players and overall strength. Earlier this season, they had beaten the Bobcats once, but in the mid to later part of the season, they were dominated in their two matchups.

Now with the opponents’ morale so high, it made things even tougher.

Kidd felt uneasy in the morning upon seeing the news about the Bobcats’ coach also winning the best coach and manager awards. Facing a group of players under the age of 25, once their momentum picked up, it was completely unmanageable!

More troubling was that their key scorer in the frontcourt had a knee injury that worsened over half a year of conservative treatment, eventually snapping the ACL and ending his season...

However, having played in the NBA for more than a decade, such hellish conditions couldn’t crush Kidd; he was brainstorming ways to subdue their morale once the game started... He couldn’t count on Coach Lawrence Frank anymore, the more capable coach had already been driven out.

On the other side, Zhang Yang was looking at the regular season statistical comparison between the two teams displayed on the big screen.

Under Kidd’s influence, Carter delivered his best performance since the 00-01 season, achieving his third career average of over 25 points per game with 25.2 points, 6 rebounds, and 4.8 assists; Richard Jefferson averaged 19.5 points and 6.8 rebounds.

The Nets averaged 7.4 three-pointers per game, ranking fourth in the league, only behind the Suns with an average of 9.6, the Rockets with 8.6, and the Warriors with 8.5.

On the Bobcats’ side, averaging 7 three-pointers per game was also quite substantial but still fell short compared to the Nets, ranking seventh in the league. Notably, the fifth place was the Spurs with an average of 7.4 and the Mavericks sixth with 7.1.

Texas teams led other divisions distinctly on the three-point chart.

However, apart from three-pointers, the Bobcats had the upper hand in virtually every other area; they averaged 104 points per game, much higher than the Nets’ 97.6, and their average points allowed per game at 98.1 were also lower than the Nets’ 98.3; they averaged more rebounds at 44 to 40.3, more steals at 7.1 to 6.1, and more blocks at 5.6 to 3.3... even their average assists were higher.

But Zhang still felt the pressure—Kidd’s regular season stats were formidable with an average of 13 points, 8.2 rebounds, 9.2 assists, 1.6 steals, and hitting 1.6 three-pointers per game with a 36% shooting rate... pretty fierce!

The pre-game preparation time quickly passed; at 5:58 PM, the referees called the players onto the court.

When Zhang was at the scorer’s table applying talcum powder, he encountered Kidd who encouraged him with a few words.

He was quite puzzled. He hadn’t had much interaction with Nash, Kidd, or Ginobili, but these few people were very kind to him... unlike a certain number 24, who was not friendly at all and often gave him cold looks.

Even that time, when he impersonated a reporter to interview number 24 about whether he wanted to score 83 points against the Raptors, the man outright chased him away...

As Mikki Moore defeated Okafor to win the jump ball, the first game of the series between the Bobcats and the Nets began!

Bobcats starting lineup: Felton, Zhang Yang, Gerald Wallace, Millsap, Okafor.

Nets starting lineup: Kidd, Carter, Richard Jefferson, Mikki Moore, Jason Collins.

Kidd received the ball, advanced to the front court, used a screen provided by Carter... split away and faced Wallace who had stepped back to focus on Carter, launched a three-pointer... and made it!

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