Champions Creed

Chapter 217 Chapter 216: Roger is the stupid champion (ask for monthly ticket!)
With Big Ben's starting appearance, the balance of victory began to tilt towards the Hawks.

Karl Malone originally wanted to teach Big Ben a lesson today, but now he has to consider whether it is worthwhile to do so.

First of all, the guy with the afro is definitely not a fat clown like O'Neal who only has brute force.

Ben is very ruthless, the kind of ruthlessness that will make him kill you if he fights you.

Secondly, if it is really overdone, Karl Malone and Ben Wallace will also suffer greatly.

Malone couldn't fight Ben directly, so he could only look for some opportunities to deal with Ben secretly.

However, Karl Malone is a master in this area.

The game "Hitman 47" may have been inspired by Malone, as he is very good at disguising intentional injuries as accidents.

The game continues and the Jazz attack.

Malone asked for the ball in the low post, then aimed his elbow at Big Ben's head the moment he turned around, trying to replicate David Robinson's dream moment.

As a result, the tip of Malone's elbow went straight into Ben's afro, but did not cause any actual damage to his head!
Even Ma Long was convinced. It turns out that the afro has this effect?

While Malone was stunned, Pippen had already doubled over and did everything he could to steal the ball.

Pippen quickly made a long pass to Roger, who made another easy dunk.

6-0, the Utah Jazz had a very, very bad start.

Roger also began to chatter: "Carl, this is the first time I've seen a star player from a championship team who can't even hold the ball. You know what? You can only bully trash like Shaq."

"Shut up Agent Zero, your result in this game is 0. No matter how many points you get, it's all in vain!"

"Game? Don't you understand, Carl? I don't treat war as a game! That's the difference between you and me!"

Malone was just hurt mentally by Roger's trash talk, and soon he was hurt physically by Ben.

In this round, when he was getting into position, Big Ben returned an elbow to Karl Malone's waist.

Most players in this league are afraid of Malone and dare not challenge him.

But Oben is not afraid.

He is not afraid of anyone.

Even though he knew that if Malone's elbow had hit him on the head, he might have become the next Tomjanovich.

"If you are afraid, you will lose your whole life."

This was the first lesson Oakley taught him many years ago when he went to Charles Oakley's training camp with the money he earned from cutting hair.

Small guys who want to survive in the NBA have generally learned this lesson, so those point guards who can make a name for themselves are often more ruthless than each other.

Smiling Assassin, Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo and John Stockton, are there any good ones among them?
Steve Nash? Of course he is also a ruthless person, but from a different perspective.

When you see Ben Simmons cheating money year after year because of back injuries, you just need to know that Nash's back is much more serious than Simmons. He won back-to-back MVPs with constant injections of drugs and strong willpower. Isn't this another kind of cruelty?
Big Ben and Oakley are not small guys in the traditional sense, but if they are placed in the interior, their situation is no different from that of a point guard.

They are not tall, so they must be strong inside first.

After Karl Malone was elbowed, his position became unstable, so Stockton gave up the idea of ​​feeding him the ball.

Malone, who was hit hard both physically and mentally, gnashed his teeth and said, "Who allowed Roger and Ben to play together?!"
Stockton gave up the pass to Malone and instead looked for Hornacek and passed the ball to him.

But then, it was "Abby's carnival moment".

The moment Hornacek received the ball, Roger quickly cut off the defense. After completing the steal, Roger accelerated and sprinted amid the cheers of Abby Hornacek, and completed another beautiful slam dunk.

8-0, Roger stopped the Utah Jazz!

When the timeout whistle blew, Abby Hornacek was more excited than the Hawks players.

Jerry Sloan roared the moment the players left the court: "Carl, you are being led by the nose by Ben Wallace!"

Jerry Sloan knew that his star player was distracted, and he had to find a way to wake Malone up.

Karl Malone said nothing, but just held the towel tightly in both hands, wishing he could crush it into powder.

After taking a deep breath, Ma Long nodded gently: "I will pay attention."

On the other side, Lenny Wilkens was encouraging Ben: "Well done, that's how you deal with Karl Malone! The tougher you are, the weaker he will be!"

After the break, the fierce confrontation between the two sides continued.

In this round, Stockton squeezed through the screen and took a mid-range shot, but Steve Smith's tight interference caused him to miss.

A fierce fight broke out under the basket, with Karl Malone and Big Ben elbowing each other for position, and Kurt Thomas also blocking Mutombo.

As the basketball was falling, Big Ben pushed Malone away with force, and then firmly protected the backboard.

In fact, rebounding, this is the real meaning of Big Ben starting.

Making Karl Malone sit on the ground in disgrace was at most a side effect.

If the Jazz didn't get so many second-chance opportunities in the last game, they certainly wouldn't have been able to maintain the 6-point advantage until the end.

The appearance of Big Ben makes it no longer so easy for the Jazz to grab frontcourt rebounds.

Tonight, Roger finally doesn't have to worry about his efforts on defense being wasted.

Roger dribbled the ball and advanced quickly. Brian Russell had been easily passed by Roger before, so he deliberately gave Roger some distance this time.

So, as soon as Roger got outside the three-point line, he suddenly took a three-point shot!

Lenny Wilkens felt worse than having eaten a fly. Although he had worked with Roger for a year, he still couldn't stand Roger's risky three-point choice.

But when the basketball went into the net, Lenny Wilkens suddenly felt that flies were not that unpalatable after all.

During the warm-up today, Roger felt that his three-point shooting was good, so he shot very decisively.

11-0, the fans in Salt Lake City thought the start was bad enough, but Roger could make it even worse!
Finally, Stockton broke through and passed the ball to Mutombo for an alley-oop, allowing the Jazz to break the scoring drought.

However, this did not interrupt the Eagles' offensive.

One round later, Roger broke through and attracted a double team, then passed the ball to Steve Smith, who immediately made a three-pointer.

14 to 2! The Jazz quickly counterattacked, but Brian Russell's mid-range shot missed due to Pippen's tight interference.

In fact, the Jazz's offense was average in the last game.

The secondary offense became their fig leaf.

But tonight, Big Ben was like a ruthless VIP of the Gold Club, completely tearing off the other party's fig leaf.

"Ben Wallace once again secured the rebound, and Karl Malone complained to the referee. He thought Ben's move when he was blocking the ball just now seemed a bit too big. Hey, this is simply the funniest scene in this year's finals. Karl Malone actually complained that the opponent's move was too big. It's like the Russians complaining that other countries have too many nuclear weapons."

The magician made an ill-timed joke, but that's exactly what happened.

Is there anything more ironic than a villain like Karl Malone seeking protection from the referee?

After that, the Jazz never got any advantage on rebounds.

However, protecting the backcourt rebounds is only the basis for a team to avoid losing.

If you want to win, you have to rely on other things.

And this is Roger's responsibility.

The Jazz's defense was still hard to break, but today in those rounds when he had to take a shot before the 24 seconds were up, Roger was always able to hit some difficult three-pointers.

In the ninth minute of the first quarter, the Jazz defended for 22 seconds, and in the last 2 seconds Roger had to pull up directly under the interference of Brian Russell.

As a result, the basketball hit the target, and all the Jazz's previous successful defense became useless.

In the third minute of the second quarter, Pippen's ball was knocked away by Hornacek when he broke through. With only 3 seconds left on the offensive clock, Pippen could only dive down immediately and pass the out-of-control ball to Roger.

Roger received the ball and shot from outside the three-point line. In addition, Brian Russell was not completely out of position and slightly interfered with the jump shot.

But the basketball still went into the net, and the Jazz's defense failed again!
"Another one! Roger always scored this kind of goal on the offensive end today, a goal that saved the offense at the last moment! These were all the shots that were taken when there was really no other way, but Roger took them all!"

Roger's pot-catching is different from ordinary pot-catching, as it is usually passive.

When you passively take the blame for a shot, sometimes you won't be happy even if it goes in, because the shooter knows very well that he is just a scapegoat.

Anyone who has played the stand-alone 2K career mode knows that when your team is being defended and you have no chance, you often don't ask for the ball.

Even the ball will be passed.

After all, if you miss the shot in the end, your score and hit rate will be deducted.

But what Roger did was to always take the initiative to ask for the ball to execute these low-cost shots at the last moment when the team was being defended.

Roger's hot three-point shooting today allowed him to make all of these difficult goals.

This kind of ball not only allowed the Hawks to maintain their lead in the score, but also dealt a huge blow to the Jazz's morale.

The Jazz defended seriously in every round, but Roger's unreasonable three-pointer could make all their efforts go to waste.

The score difference was gradually widened. In rounds where the Jazz's defense was not good, the Hawks would score. In rounds where the Jazz's defense was good, there was a certain probability that Roger would make a magical three-pointer.

By the seventh minute of the fourth quarter, most Salt Lake City fans were already in despair.

At this time, the Jazz were already trailing by 22 points and the game had actually entered garbage time.

Most of the fans did not leave the stadium, but were still hoping for a miracle to happen.

As long as they can defend this round and score another three-pointer, the score difference will be within 20.

Well, the gap doesn't seem that big, right? It doesn't seem impossible to win, right?

Chinese fans fully understand the Salt Lake City fans' desire for a miracle to happen.

In this round, Roger was double-teamed when he broke through, so he passed the ball to Pippen who cut in.

When Pippen got the ball, Karl Malone had already made it back to the basket, just blocking his route to the basket.

Pippen quickly passed the ball to Steve Smith with a no-look pass.

Steve Smith was about to shoot, but Stockton filled in without any delay.

Steve Smith did not pass the ball again. Instead, he broke through with the ball and made a layup in the three-second zone.

But the African mountains will not sit idly by and watch someone score in the Jazz's penalty area.

He blocked the ball with all his might. This was Mutombo's fourth block of the day.

Karl Malone and Big Ben ran towards the out-of-control basketball at the same time, and the two muscular men collided like two big trucks, creating sparks.

Malone gritted his teeth, swung his arms and elbowed. With the lesson learned from the last time, Malone did not hit Big Ben's head, but hit Big Ben's ribs.

But to Malone's surprise, Ben didn't back down. Instead, Ben secretly punched Karl Malone in the liver!

Karl Malone first felt a piercing pain, and then all the nerves in his body began to lose control. He fell to the ground like the huge stone statues in the first episode of Ultraman Tiga!
Karl Malone wanted to deal with the first person who stood up to help Roger, but this time, he himself tasted a close contact with hell!
Big Ben also fell to the ground and poked the ball to Roger.

At this time, Roger was standing one step away from the midfield line, because he had already started to retreat after Steve Smith was blocked.

Roger picked up the basketball, but there was little time left on the shot clock.

Brian Russell was waiting for Roger outside the three-point line, but Roger pointed at his feet and said, "Why are you standing so far away?"

Lenny Wilkens' eyes widened. Wait, that bastard is not going to...
"Roger shot directly from the logo position on the court. Hit! OMG! Logo Shot! This was Roger's seventh three-pointer in this game. He ruthlessly took away all the Jazz's hopes! The score difference reached 25 points. We can say that the game is over!"

Wilkens on the sidelines took a deep breath.

Well, coaching Roger, you really have to get used to seeing flies as a delicacy.

After Roger scored the goal, he ignored a bunch of teammates who wanted to celebrate with him, walked to Karl Malone who still couldn't stand up, and made three bow-drawing and arrow-shooting movements.

Every arrow pierced his heart!
Cruel and ruthless, this is the difference between war and games!

"What else can I say? Roger is a 'champion fool'. A 'smart guy' could have just passed the ball in the last few seconds, but Roger chose to be a 'fool'. Well, he's a very capable fool!"

Fortunately, Magic said this in the 90s.

Otherwise, people would definitely think that his life is not going well.

(End of this chapter)