Champions Creed

Chapter 249 Chapter 248: The retribution of a self-righteous person (asking for a monthly ticket!)
The Eagles and Roger played together the most brilliant regular season in history.

As far as the regular season is concerned, this Hawks team is more brilliant than the 96 Magic, which was selected as one of the "Top Ten Teams in NBA History", and has more hope than the 96 Bulls.

So what is the quality of the 00 Eagle?
The Sports Center program's evaluation is very pertinent:
"Never before has an NBA team been able to stay focused and hungry with so much publicity, so many fans, and every road trip being like a Michael Jackson concert.

Their defense and confidence on the court are impressive, and their chemistry and locker room are incredible. Roger's performance was also very stable in 82 games, even though he found a supermodel girlfriend again.

But the problem is that they still have to go through the playoffs.

Until then, no one can say where the 00 Eagles should be.”

This time, Keith Olbermann did not blindly praise Roger.

He is right. The exact level of this Eagles team will depend on the results of the playoffs.

The quality of the 96 Bulls has been determined. They were a great regular season team, but that's all.

Because in the world of competitive sports, not having a championship is a sin, not to mention that the 72-win Bulls didn't even make it to the finals.

Because there was no championship, the Bulls' 72 wins became very insignificant, and the players of that Bulls team basically would not take the initiative to mention it.

Even Nike won't promote Jordan's 72 wins.

Originally, in the 96 season, they had collaborated with multiple parties to shoot thousands of hours of footage, intending to make a documentary about the 72-win season, but the plan was ultimately aborted.

The reason is simple. Whenever you mention the Bulls' 72 wins, people will always think of another thing - the Magic defeated them.

Bringing up the 72 wins only serves to highlight the greatness of that Magic team.

Therefore, whether the 00 Hawks are a great overlord or a gorgeous background board will have to be verified through the playoffs.

This also means that Shaquille O'Neal has not lost hope of creating greatness.

The Los Angeles Lakers had an embarrassing regular season record, just 69 wins.

They tied the team record of 71 wins set by Chamberlain, Baylor and West in the 72-69 season, but just failed to reach the 70-win mark.

This may be the most cost-effective record in history.

In addition, the Hawks won 72 games, which made the 69 wins seem insignificant.

It is not difficult to guess how bad the Sharks are feeling. In the words of Bill Simmons: "Roger's 72-win season is like a piece of chocolate. Most people are happy when they eat it, but dogs will die if they eat it."

American rule of law saved Bill Simmons, otherwise the sharks would have come to him with guns.

Roger sometimes wondered if the United States also sold cups, and they didn't come with spoons. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how Bill Simmons could be so eloquent.

However, the Sharks were not angry or discouraged after the last game of the regular season: "Whatever Bill Simmons, that idiot who likes to watch pirated movies on his computer, says, I have the experience to defeat a team with 72 wins. History will prove again that the team with a better regular season record is not the winner. The war is not over yet."

Shark wasn't talking nonsense this time, the war wasn't over yet, because neither Roger nor Shark had bled.

And only in the playoffs is there really room for death.

On April 4, the 22-99 season playoffs began.

The first person to bleed was Ray Allen, whom Roger had been thinking about all the time.

The Hawks' first-round opponent is exactly the same as last season, facing the Milwaukee Bucks again.

For most of the 90s, the Bucks struggled in the quagmire of mediocrity. It was not until George Karl arrived that the Bucks had hope of revival.

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

His humiliating loss in the 1996 Finals filled him with hatred and fear for Roger's team.

But after arriving in Milwaukee, he still couldn't escape Roger's clutches.

George Karl was not discouraged after being swept by the Hawks last season.

After all, Milwaukee's three musketeers have just formed combat effectiveness, and Ray Allen has not grown up yet.

This season, George Karl's intended goal was to reach the second round, but the team's instability meant they only barely made it into the playoffs.

This record directly led to him facing Roger again this year.

George Karl doesn't know what to say. Michael Jordan has retired, but I'm still getting beaten.

Is this the destiny God has given me?
George Karl was not very confident about the game, but Ray Allen had a different idea: "No one is destined to win, not me, not Roger. Those who are conceited will eventually be swallowed up by their conceit."

It's obvious that Ray Allen dislikes Roger. He doesn't like the way that guy always acts superior, and he doesn't like him teasing him in the locker room of the All-Star Game.

Ray Allen's confidence comes from the Bucks' performance at the end of the season. The Bucks almost didn't make the playoffs this season, but in the last month of the regular season, the Bucks seemed to have found the safety on their guns. After opening the safety, they can finally fire at full power.

The three Musketeers put in an outstanding performance and made it into the playoffs with a 10-3 run at the end.

During that period, the Bucks defeated strong teams such as the Spurs, Jazz and Pacers, and they seemed to have finally found a tacit understanding with each other.

In that case, why is it impossible to beat Roger?

At least it can cause him huge trouble.

You know, in a best-of-five match, as long as you win two games, you can force the opponent into a desperate situation.

He hoped to show some strength in the first round, and even if he couldn't win the series, he would at least bite a piece of Roger's flesh and let the conceited bastard know that he was not a god at all.

But Ray Allen's fantasy was ruthlessly shattered in the first game.

The Hawks' perimeter defense is also quite terrifying in history, and the Bucks are a team that relies on outside shots.

In fact, this is also the reason why their performance is unstable.

Once this offensive team can't find its rhythm and touch, it will lose many inexplicable games.

Tonight, Cassell's shooting percentage was limited to 35%, and Big Dog Robinson's was only 23%.

Ray Allen is the best of the three musketeers, but his shooting percentage is only 40%.

Roger, Pippen and Pierce each handled their own matchup.

On the defensive end, the Bucks' best defensive player is a guy with a bag on his head.

He is only 201cm tall but works very hard doing all the dirty work.

George Karl saw this point in him. This guy who broke a backboard with a dunk during his NCAA days can always contribute on the defensive end with his excellent physical fitness.

But the Cephalospor player's efforts were in vain.

Because the Eagles won by 35 points in the end.

The guy with the bag on his head was very frustrated. He had been very serious and hard-working, but Roger and Pierce were like playing with a basketball machine in an amusement park, and they could make shots every time they shot.

There was no way around it. Neither Ray Allen nor Robinson were elite perimeter defenders. The first line of defense was not good, and no matter how hard the guy with the bandage on his head tried, it was useless.

He thought that this year's playoffs would be the beginning of his foothold in the NBA.

I didn't expect to suffer such a defeat.

At this time, Darwin Ham could never have predicted that he would really make a name for himself in the NBA as a "cephalosporin coach."

The Bucks' defense poses no threat to the Hawks. In the eyes of some stat-conscious fans in 2024, Ray Allen is often considered one of the best players defending Kobe.

The reason? Kobe's shooting percentage was often suppressed in the games against the Celtics, and Ray Allen was often the player who defended Kobe the longest.

But the data won't tell you how hard Tony Allen and Rondo worked on defense, and the data won't tell you how big a role Kevin Garnett played in it.

The facts once again prove the difference between data and games. Ray Allen's defense is not that bad, but it is absolutely impossible for him to deal with a scorer like Roger in a one-on-one situation.

Roger mercilessly scored 41 points on Ray Allen, and then continued to tease this funny guy in the post-game interview: "I like Ray. I got along very well with him in the previous All-Star Game. He is a guy who can give you surprises. For example, tonight, his previous remarks made everyone think that the Bucks would play against us very fiercely, but he ended up losing by 35 points. How about it, isn't it a surprise?"

Ray Allen's response was simple: "We have to win three games to win the series!"

Every year in the playoffs, Roger's opponents would say this, hoping that they could make up in the next game after falling behind temporarily.

But with the exception of Riley last season, everyone else's expectations have been dashed.

Ray Allen is no exception.

In the second game, George Karl decided to implement his specialty of double-teaming.

The result was that Pippen had a great time using the back door.

He moved in and out freely and smoothly, experiencing an unprecedented pleasure.

Bucks starting center Alvin Johnson was unable to stop this. His greatest achievement in his life was to have the same name as Magic Johnson.

In fact, when Earvin Johnson is on the court, his rim protection is still quite good.

The problem is that he is a second man on the court. George Karl must control his playing time within 30 minutes to avoid things like "leaning on the court with his knees and sticking out his tongue to breathe and missing the return run."

The only improvement of the Bucks compared to the previous game was that Ray Allen found his touch and scored 50 points with a 26% shooting rate.

但罗杰34分5篮板8助攻加上皮蓬27分的表现，还是让雄鹿输了31分！
After the game, Roger deliberately patted Ray Allen on the shoulder and said, "Goodbye, Ray. Promise me that you won't brag anymore. Haven't you noticed? You are the one who thinks highly of yourself."

At this moment, Roger really realized why he didn't like Ray Allen, because he was a guy who thought highly of himself.

Ray Allen is actually a very troubled person. Yes, he has a good family environment, he has an admirable clean playing style and an introverted personality.

But throughout his career, he also quietly fell out with many teams and players, most of which came from his high self-esteem.

When he and Rondo were involved in trade rumors, he was so self-righteous that he thought it was all Rondo's fault and I was innocent.

When evaluating Kobe, he spoke highly of the relationship between Kobe and the shark, as if he was teaching Kobe how to do things.

When his teammates invited him to hang out, he almost never went, and then turned around to play golf with those people with prominent family backgrounds, as if deliberately telling his teammates: "You and I are not from the same world at all, and we can't play together."

In the previous All-Star Game, he was very self-righteous and said that others were selfish, waving the flag on the moral high ground, but when he voted himself, he was very unambiguous.

He has been offending people silently and showing off his superiority silently, without even realizing it.

Today was Roger's little comeuppance against this man who thought highly of himself.

Ray Allen was irritated by Roger's words. He swore, which was rare. "Fuck! I will win. I will win at least one game! Don't think you can get away with it easily, you bastard who thinks you can beat everything!"

He couldn't stand this feeling of failure. Most importantly, he couldn't stand losing to Roger, a scum who was conceited, narcissistic, self-righteous and liked to mock others!
Roger was not angry, he just waved his hand and said calmly: "Forget it, I'm already thinking about the next opponent."

This sentence made Ray Allen stand there in a daze, and his eyes, which were clearly full of unwillingness, instantly became empty.

He felt like a worm.

Roger just happened to run over him.

The Musketeer was shot through the heart by a bullet fired by Roger.

In the third game, Roger's old friend, Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins, came to Milwaukee to cheer for the team's promotion.

But what he saw was an extremely ugly game.

The Bucks did not rebound after returning to their home court, but completely lost their fighting spirit.

It's not just Ray Allen, the fighting spirit of the entire Bucks team has been dampened.

Although they were swept last season, they at least played a decent game on the field.

But what about this season?

Losing 66 points in two games is really hard to accept.

The distraught Ray Allen made only 9 of 2 shots and scored only 6 points.

Big Dog Robinson scored 17 points with a shooting percentage of 33%.

Only Cassell's performance could be described as manly, with 21 points and 7 assists in adversity.

But God was jealous of his beauty and didn't want him to be a hero, so he ruled that the Bucks lost the game.

In the final moments of the game, Eric Snow casually shot a three-pointer from the outside in order not to increase his number of mistakes.

Snow, like most point guards who are as retro as dinosaur fossils, never knew what a long shot was.

They are suitable for the era without the three-point line, shouting loudly while passing the ball step by step.

Therefore, Snow's three-pointer was really just a casual shot. He knew he couldn't make it and he didn't intend to score at all.

As a result, with a "swish" sound, the basketball went into the net.

Eric Snow was dumbfounded. He usually couldn't make the shot when he aimed carefully, but today he made it with a casual shot?
He made himself feel extremely humiliated.

This unexpected three-pointer led to an unexpected result - the Hawks led by 30 points.

In other words, the Hawks won all three games in the first round of the playoffs by 30 points.

Seeing this, Roger, who was leaning on the bench, turned and asked Wilkins: "Dom, has this happened before?"

"what's up?"

"Winning three games in the playoffs by 96 points, an average of 32 points per game, that's crazy! You started playing in the 80s, do you remember anything like this happening before?"

Dominique Wilkins thought for a while: "Something similar did happen. In the first round of the 86 playoffs, the Lakers swept the Spurs 3-0, averaging 31.7 points per game, which is the record for the largest average win in the series. Congratulations, Roger, you broke another record. Damn, you really want to make history in the millennium!"

Roger looked surprised: "You remember such a small record so clearly?"

"You know," Wilkins shrugged, "my good friend Artis Gilmore was the starting center for that Spurs team, and that series made him dislike the skyhook to this day, so I remember it very clearly."

"Well," Roger looked at Ray Allen, who looked unhappy, "I'm not afraid of having one more person dislike me."
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Roger set a new record by beating his opponent by 32 points per game in the series! Except for the 86 Lakers who beat the Spurs by 31.7 points per game in the first round, there has never been an average win of more than 28 points in history. Roger is still adding bricks and tiles to his brilliant season, and he will have a completely different ending from Michael! - Atlanta Military Police.

Everything about Michael is being erased because Roger is doing a better job than him. In ten years, no, maybe five years, Michael and Roger will be on a completely different level. Wait, considering Roger saved Atlanta and Michael failed to save New York, this time may be shortened to three years. - The New York Times

Roger's arrogance will hurt him sooner or later. He always thinks he can handle everything, but look at last season, without Steve and Scott, he still couldn't win the championship! - Ray Allen talked about Roger in the press conference.

I have been compared to him since high school, but this series says it all. Don't compare me to him anymore, it's an insult to me. - Roger hit back mercilessly.

The Hawks' "kill you" mode has not been turned off yet, and this is the continuity of great teams. Many people compare the 96 Bulls to the 00 Hawks because they both won 72 games. I can only say that this is a stupid comparison, just like comparing Ray Allen to Roger. Okay, prepare to continue bleeding. I'm not talking about Philadelphia or Charlotte, I'm talking about all the playoff teams. You are facing the most unbeatable opponent in history. - Bill Simmons Yahoo Sports Column

(End of this chapter)