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Chapter 714 - 301. Mutual Flattery

Chapter 714: 301. Mutual Flattery

On December 26th, the morning after playing against the Chicago Bulls, Zhang Yang woke up, feeling refreshed. He glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand, and it was after 10 o’clock.

"Wow, slept for at least eight hours, huh?"

Zhang Yang remembered coming home from post-game work last night after 1 a.m., quickly falling asleep after crawling into bed.

Defeating the little giants and holding onto the league’s top spot left him in high spirits. Plus, having thrown 28 times, he was quite tired and thus slept soundly.

If there was anything less than ideal... With his senses quickly recovering, Zhang Yang felt an urgent need and hurriedly got up to go to the bathroom.

After freshening up, Zhang Yang put on a warm jacket, ready to go out for a meal, and upon entering the living room, he saw Yangyang playing with a toy excavator on the carpet.

Zhang Yang greeted him, "Yo, Yangyang, good afternoon."

Yangyang threw aside his excavator, scrambled up calling "Brother!" and ran toward Zhang Yang.

Zhang Yang picked up his brother and headed to the kitchen, sure enough, his mom was updating the refrigerator’s contents.

Even as an NBA player, he most often drove the car given by his mom, lived in a house given by his dad, and for food, his parents worried he might eat something not fresh, so they would come to clean and replenish his fridge every other day... Living off his parents was bliss!

Seeing a big basket full of vegetables, fruits, meat, eggs, and milk, he said, "Mom, you should’ve woken me up to help with this heavy lifting."

Yang Jing: "You played hard last night, needed to sleep more. I used to be able to carry that much with one hand."

Zhang Yang: "Mom, are you and my brother staying for lunch? Should I cook?"

Yang Jing: "Of course, I’ll have a meal before going back. I handpicked these ingredients myself!"

Zhang Yang: "..."

Without their Zhang San dragging them down, their family business was doing better and better. But become a rich mom, she seemed not to have changed much...at least in front of him.

Zhang Yang put Yangyang down, took off his thick jacket, and handed it to him, "Go hang this in the living room."

Yangyang: "Okay... ow!"

Yang Jing watched her younger son completely ’buried’ under her elder son’s jacket... Would he trip or hit the wall? She watched closely...

Zhang Yang picked a few dishes that his mom and brother loved and began showing off his cooking skills.

Close to noon, the mother and her two sons gathered around the coffee table, eating and watching TV.

Yang Jing watched the TV screen and said, "The news on basketball seems particularly high these days, same with the newspapers. I saw on the forums that fans are exceptionally enthusiastic in discussions."

Zhang Yang: "Every year around Christmas, basketball interest peaks since the season starts, but it will soon fade and quickly decline. Then the ratings and topic heat will enter the lowest period of the whole season... That doesn’t really affect us players, it’s the Jewish bosses who should worry."

Yang Jing: "Really? I haven’t paid attention to that. Oh right, the last few years you didn’t have to play on Christmas, we went shopping together."

Zhang Yang: "Sorry about not being able to go shopping with you this Christmas."

Yang Jing: "Knowing you’re sorry is good enough, but for many years to come, you probably won’t have time on Christmas... let’s choose another time. You have a couple of days off before the big Christmas game, right? We can go shopping in advance then."

Zhang Yang: Despair! Complete despair!

He pretended not to hear. Although his mom said that, he knew he couldn’t escape a random shopping spree at the mall before next Christmas, but he refused to accept it. This was his last stand.

He turned his attention to the TV. The afternoon program on Fox Sports was broadcasting an analysis of last night’s two Christmas games.

Last night’s second Christmas game featured the Suns against the Spurs.

The Son of the Wind scored 22 points and handed out 15 assists on 8 of 12 shooting; Duncan scored 36 points and grabbed 17 rebounds on 25 of 15 shooting. Both had incredibly dominant performances.

Stoudemire scored 27 points with 7 rebounds, not bad offensively, but Duncan tore him apart defensively.

Diaw had 11 points, 10 rebounds, and 6 assists; Marion added 18 points; Raja Bell netted 11 points; Barbosa contributed 19 points. Eight Suns players took the floor, six of them scoring in double figures.

For the Spurs, Conley scored 10 points and gave 13 assists for his first double-double of the rookie season; Ginobili was solid with 13 points, four rebounds, and four assists on 5 out of 11 shooting; the veteran Barry added a lift with 15 points and five assists; Bowen, Horry, and Bonner also performed well in their shooting roles; however, Guy faltered.

Guy racked up comprehensive stats with 16 points, six rebounds, three assists, two steals, and two blocks. However, he only hit 6 out of his 19 shots.

It was one thing for Guy to miss shots during the regular time, but in crucial moments when Ginobili wasn’t causing trouble, Guy still decisively took shots from the outside, which at least served to use up the shot clock. However, missing those key shots meant he was dragging the Spurs down.

During the analysis of Guy’s performance, the hosts and guests on Fox Sports commented, "He kept floating outside the free-throw line to take shots, when he could have driven past defenders like McGrady and dunked over Stoudemire. But instead, he was still hanging around the perimeter taking shots until the very end..."

In the end, the Suns managed to overturn a 5-point deficit by the end of the third quarter, outscoring the Spurs 36 to 26 in the final quarter and winning the game 115 to 110.

Although the game was spectacular, the time allocated for analysis on the sports program was very short; it wrapped up in two minutes before moving on to the coverage and analysis of the game between the Bobcats and the Chicago Bulls, which took three minutes to discuss just the first quarter.

The disparity in attention and viewership ratings was stark. Yang Jing mentioned the data she saw on the forums that morning while helping with cooking. Last night in North America, the viewership numbers for the pay-per-view of the Bobcats versus the Chicago Bulls exceeded 20 million, ranking it the second highest viewed Christmas Day battle since the turn of the century.

The first place was the Christmas Day battle of the 2004-05 season when the Lakers faced the Miami Heat, the battle of O’Neal versus Kobe. At that time, the Lakers had 14 wins and 11 losses, Kobe wasn’t injured yet, the Lakers’ record hadn’t collapsed, and the Miami Heat was at the top of the Eastern Conference with 19 wins and 6 losses. There were lots of highlights and the game was thrilling, with Kobe scoring 42 points, Wade putting up 29 points and 10 assists, and O’Neal contributing 24 points and 11 rebounds. Ultimately, the Miami Heat narrowly won over the Lakers in overtime by two points, and this game’s viewership was among the highest for any regular season game in history.

The Christmas Day battle between the Spurs and the Suns last night did not even break ten million viewers. If it weren’t for it being on Christmas Day and the grudge from last season’s playoffs, breaking five million would be difficult... because in the eyes of most fans, Spurs games are just like the 2004-05 season’s finals. That impression has been deeply ingrained.

What many people don’t realize is that when the Spurs face the Suns, they too play offensively. The Spurs were at a disadvantage during last season’s playoffs against the Suns precisely because the Suns’ defense was effective, and the Spurs found themselves unable to outplay them offensively, leading them to resort to underhanded tactics when they became desperate.

During the analysis of the Bobcats versus the Chicago Bulls game, there was a considerable divergence among the host and guests regarding which team was stronger, with a slight majority believing the Chicago Bulls were the superior team.

The side supporting the Chicago Bulls had an opinion that even those on the side of the Bobcats agreed with— "Unless Jack can score 35 or 40 points against the Bulls every time, the Bobcats won’t have an easy game."

After the game analysis was over, Zhang Yang focused his attention on watching Yao Ming’s interview segment, as he didn’t know what Yao Ming had said following the loss. After the game last night, it was all about interviews, therapy, more interviews... and then going home to sleep. He had slept until noon before getting up to make lunch.

The interview footage was from CCTV, with English subtitles provided alongside.

"I’m very sorry we lost tonight’s game. Me and my teammates all tried very hard, but there were still areas where we didn’t do well.

However, losing to Yangyang is not something strange; he is the best scorer in the world, he is the MVP, and he knows exactly how to shoot the ball during the critical moments.

Next time we face off, we will definitely work hard to beat the Bobcats."

After watching Yao Ming’s locker room interview segment, Zhang Yang was not pleased. Pointing at the screen, he exclaimed, "Where did Big Yao learn to use this tactic of ’praising to death’? Is he so desperate to fight for the top spot in the league? So despicable! No holds barred! If he wants the number one spot that badly, just give it to him!"

Yang Jing rolled her eyes at her son, who was in a bit of a fury.

Shortly after, it was time for Zhang Yang to be humbled.

Following Yao Ming’s interview segment, the program didn’t switch back to the studio, but directly connected to Zhang Yang’s interview segment.

Zhang Yang began by praising each of his teammates in turn, then said:

"Big Yao is the best center in the world. There’s never been a center like him; he can penetrate all defenses in the low post like O’Neal, pass like Sabonis, and do fadeaway jump shots like Chamberlain, and he also has free-throw abilities that rival guards. No other center can match him. Tonight, beating him was just my luck in sinking a few extra shots..."

Yang Jing glanced at her son.

Zhang Yang was silent for two seconds, then said, "Mom, see, your son is really handsome!"

Yang Jing: 凸(--)

...

That afternoon, Zhang Yang went to Tuhang Stadium for a team meeting and training in preparation for the games over the next two days.

That’s right, the Christmas battle had started and the Bobcats were facing a 3-game blitz over 4 days.

Normally, this kind of schedule wouldn’t be an issue—the back-to-back opponents were initially considered some of the worst teams in the Eastern Conference at the start of the season: the Bucks and the Hawks.

But the Hawks had stirred up some trouble, turning the Bobcats’ reasonably easy 4-day stretch into a brutal one.

The team meeting, which lasted more than half an hour, focused primarily on analyzing last night’s game.

Carlisle emphasized repeatedly how fortuitous last night’s win was, how difficult it would be to replicate the victory, and pointed out several ways in which the team fell short compared to the Bulls...

When it came time to discuss the next two opponents, however, discussion was brief.

The Bucks, being a team the Bobcats really didn’t take seriously given that their role players had all scattered during the offseason and there were only five or six core players who could actually compete. Just go at them head-on.

For the Hawks, Carlisle took a serious tone; however, the Hawks’ new lineup hadn’t yet played a match post-trade, with their first game post-trade happening tonight, leaving no material for preparation...