NBA: Goat is actually me

Chapter 173 Because I Can Fly

What Chick Hearn said is the players' true inner thoughts. Before Meng Jin, no one would start with one step outside the three-point line. Even in the previous life, no one did this. If the characters in the game receive the ball from such a far distance, then someone must have changed their keys.

After the Los Angeles Lakers settled into their position, they made a sudden pass and James Worthy fired from the outside.

Missed!

The Lakers tried many three-pointers at the beginning, which was unusual, but the efficiency was average, and only Magic Johnson made one.

This was not Pat Riley's tactical arrangement, but Pat Riley didn't say anything on the sidelines, because the Lakers players only tried three-point shots after the opportunity came out. If you blame the players just because they didn't make the shot, it will undermine the players' self-confidence. A good coach usually won't be angry because the players didn't make the shot.

"Beep!"

The referee blew the whistle, and Magic Johnson tried to steal a rebound from behind Meng Jin, but was fouled.

"Magic, if you want the ball, just tell me. Don't put your face on my ass." Meng Jin mocked.

Magic Johnson ran away cursing. It was just an accident. The moment Magic stole the ball, he tripped over himself and hit Meng Jin's butt.

The Chicago Bulls served the ball from the baseline, and the Lakers continued to keep a close eye on Meng Jin.

Meng Jin accelerated towards the baseline without the ball, then suddenly took a step back and positioned himself at the edge of the paint area to ask for the ball.

John Paxson passes the ball quickly, and he is not good at passing the ball creatively, but he is still very good at feeding the ball.

While the ball was still in the air, Magic Johnson's double-team came.

Meng Jin had a clear mind. After getting the ball, he immediately turned to the baseline, avoided the double-team and made a turnaround jump shot.

AC Green raised his hands and looked back. The moment the ball went into the net, he shook his head. It was another damn unsolvable ball.

"Hey! Magic, did you get so tired from having sex with women last night? If you want to double-team me, I must be faster!"

Meng Jin continued to rant, saying that the two of them were drinking together with their arms around each other at the party last night, but today they acted like enemies.

Magic Johnson responded: "I'll show you who's got the weak legs, bitch."

Meng Jin's trash talk worked. In the next round, Magic Johnson got the ball and hit Meng Jin hard. After moving sideways, Magic Johnson raised his right hand and right foot at the same time and used Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's most signature sky hook.

However, the shot did not go in. Before the shot, Meng Jin gave him enough resistance. In addition, at the moment of the shot, Meng Jin used his absolute height to interfere with Magic Johnson.

Last season, Magic Johnson had no way to deal with Meng Jin. This season, Meng Jin's defense has improved, and Magic Johnson can't beat him at all.

If Magic Johnson wants to fully demonstrate his abilities in front of Meng Jin, he must run. If he stays in positional warfare, he will be locked down by Meng Jin.

After missing the shot, Magic Johnson deliberately pushed Meng Jin on the spot, not to grab the frontcourt rebound, but simply to prevent Meng Jin from running through the frontcourt without the ball.

The Bulls entered a positional battle. AC Green was ready to half-circle forward to defend Meng Jin in this round. Meng Jin had a great touch tonight, so there would be no chance if he caught the ball.

Meng Jin did not get too entangled with AC Green. He had more than one way to score. Meng Jin squeezed AC Green from the side and ran to the three-point line to receive the ball.

The moment he got the ball, James Worthy rushed over and double-teamed him again. It seemed that Pat Riley was determined not to let Meng Jin have an easy time tonight.

When the double-team came, Meng Jin subconsciously took a step back, then turned around and pulled back as far as he could. He slid directly past James Worthy as if he was skating on the basketball court.

Meng Jin has not specifically trained how to break out of a double-team. This is the advantage of playing next to Jordan, as opponents dare not double-team him easily.

Of course, Jordan thought so too. When Meng Jin was on the court, opponents had to think twice before double-teaming Jordan, so the two of them cooperated perfectly as long as they stayed on the court, even if they had no contact at all and just played singles.

Meng Jin broke into the penalty area, took a step and bounced up with great explosive power!

Seeing Meng Jin's attitude, Michael Thompson very consciously made way for him. There was no other way he could not have done that. If he had forced his way, he might have been beaten with a 2+1. Being fouled was nothing, but being the background board played on TV in a loop would not be a good look.

Although the two had a grudge, Michael Thompson was no longer as jealous of Meng Jin as before when he saw him again. After all, more than a year had passed since the wife-stealing incident, and Michael Thompson's hatred had faded a lot, and reason prevailed.

Meng Jin jumped on one foot, pulled the bow to its full extent and ended the fight with a one-handed slam dunk.

Magic Johnson dribbled the ball across half court. The Lakers kept pressing the tempo at the beginning of the game. Pat Riley wanted to use this slowing-down method to reduce the number of fast breaks the Bulls made. The Bulls did make fewer fast breaks, but they did not score less. Fast breaks have always been the Bulls' sharpest weapon, but not the only weapon. Both Meng Jin and Jordan have strong offensive capabilities in positional battles.

On the other hand, the Lakers are the team that relies more on fast breaks. Once they enter positional warfare, their offense is like a stagnant pool of water.

James Worthy relied on his personal ability to break into the paint and make a layup, but Cartwright jumped to protect the rim and successfully interfered.

Then, Cartwright ran to the inside to get a position. After receiving the ball, Cartwright did not back up, he chose to turn to the front. Cartwright has a certain mid-range shooting ability, although his shooting posture is not very beautiful.

Cartwright was originally preparing to attack on his own, but when he turned around, he saw Meng Jin running along the baseline into the penalty area.

Cartwright sent the ball in without hesitation.

AC-Green stuck tightly behind Meng Jin, not giving him a chance to turn around.

AC Green thought he had defended perfectly in this round, but he didn't expect Meng Jin to jump up from the ground the next second and do a back dunk on the spot!

Meng Jin performed a helicopter lift-off show. After catching the ball, he did not kneel or prepare, but jumped directly to complete a dunk, and it was a back-to-back dunk.

This is pure physical talent, which others can't envy. Meng Jin had already made 5 of 5 shots at the beginning of the game, and Pat Riley on the sidelines was very upset. Although the Lakers had already listed Meng Jin as the key defensive target at the beginning of the game, they still couldn't stop him from scoring.

In the first quarter, Meng Jin made 8 of 7 shots and 4 free throws, scoring 18 points.

Now efficiency has almost become synonymous with Meng Jin. In the eyes of opposing fans, Meng Jin is like the god of death, who will harvest heads with every shot and rarely misses.

In the second quarter, the Lakers let the team's sixth man Orlando Ulrich lead the team. Orlando Ulrich was in good shape and scored 4 points with a series of breakthroughs and shots.

Orlando Ulrich is a former Bulls player. He was once Jordan's most capable assistant, averaging 22 points and 5 rebounds per game in his peak season. However, after playing with Jordan for two seasons, he was ruthlessly traded by the team because his scoring style was incompatible with Jordan.

What the Bulls said was definitely polite. Ulrich's biggest problem is not his playing style, but his attitude. He only knows how to score, has few rebounds and assists, and no defense. His average rebounds per game are not as good as Jordan, the guard. He is a complete cancer.

Orlando Ulrich himself doesn't think so. He feels that the Bulls have deceived him because Meng Jin's playing style is very similar to Jordan, and he can coexist with the Bulls and Jordan.

After coming on the court in the second quarter, Orlando Ulrich secretly competed with Meng Jin. He confronted Meng Jin whenever he had the chance, and even tried to single out Meng Jin with a pick-and-roll, but failed.

Meng Jin completely ignored Orlando Woolrich. He didn't know Orlando Woolrich, and his attention was not on him. He didn't even feel Orlando Woolrich's hostility. This was the most hurtful thing.

半场打完，芝加哥公牛69比51领先了18分，孟进用28分7篮板3抢断3盖帽的数据统治了上半场。

During the half-time break, Pat Riley tapped on the tactical board. He asked his players to slow down in the second half. He felt that Meng Jin could not always remain efficient in positional warfare. He was best at fast breaks. Magic Johnson slapped Pat Riley's tactical board away, which made Pat Riley very annoyed.

The two had an argument about this last season, and Magic Johnson compromised at the time. It was not that he could not accept the proposal of slowing down, he also felt that this was a way to limit the Bulls' scoring. He just could not accept Pat Riley's commanding and coercive tone.

This made Magic Johnson very unhappy.

When he first took over Westhead, Pat Riley was cautious, kind to everyone, and obedient to Magic Johnson. But now Pat Riley is completely different. He is like an evolved from a kitten to a tiger, a dictatorial tiger at that.

Magic Johnson didn't like his attitude and was even more disdainful of listening to him. During the halftime break, Pat Riley and Magic Johnson were both sniping at the center gate.

At the beginning of the second half, Magic Johnson refused to implement Pat Riley's tactics. He started to speed up from the first offensive round and fought against the Bulls.

Pat Riley was so angry on the sidelines that in his opinion Magic's behavior was simply a rebellion. The most annoying thing was that the Lakers players all supported Magic and followed his rhythm to run and gun.

Pat Riley thought that whether he could win the championship this year or not, he had to leave.

Pat Riley is no longer the obedient coach who took over the Lakers. With the increase in the number of championships and the growth of coaching time, his ambition has also expanded extremely. Now Pat Riley is eager to control everything, but in the Los Angeles Lakers, the people who control everything are old Buss and Magic Johnson. This word has nothing to do with him.

There is another reason why Pat Riley wants to leave, that is, during this coaching career, Pat Riley discovered himself. Compared with offense, he is a coach who prioritizes defense, but here he can only play run-and-gun because Los Angeles needs SHOW-TIME. If he goes against this, he will go against the entire city and all the fans.

Pat Riley watched everything that happened on the court without saying a word. He didn't make any comment when the team reached its offensive climax, and he didn't call a timeout when the team entered a scoring drought.

This was a silent protest. The Lakers, who were freed up in the third quarter, actually caught up with the game. After three quarters, the Chicago Bulls led by 100 points, 88 to 12.

In the fourth quarter, Magic Johnson continued to stay on the court, and Meng Jin also stayed on the court. He defended Magic Johnson very well tonight. The Magic Johnson only scored 12 points in the first three quarters. Although the Magic Johnson had a high number of assists, 12 assists so far, this was not something Meng Jin could control. If he could defend the Magic Johnson so that he couldn't even pass the ball, he would be the best individual defender in history.

The Magic came up and asked for a screen, then switched defense and singled out Paxson, hitting a hook shot for two points.

In this era, no player will do 50-100 pick-and-rolls in a game, as that would be seen as a sign of evasion. If a player wants to score, he must defeat the player defending him head-on. But Magic Johnson didn't care about his face in order to win, and he would seize the opportunity to play against Paxson or Jordan in a mismatch, because he really couldn't beat Meng Jin.

Even so, Magic Johnson failed to help the team tie or surpass the score. He himself is not a player with strong scoring explosiveness, and the Bulls' lead has remained in double digits.

At 4 minutes and 38 seconds into the game, Magic Johnson hit the ball on his foot during a counterattack. This seemed to be a mistake, but in fact it was Magic Johnson's body sending a signal that he was too tired.

He played all night yesterday and he hardly got any rest tonight.

However, Meng Jin dunked over James Worthy as soon as he turned around. A minute later, Meng Jin stole the ball and quickly ran to the frontcourt, then made a windmill dunk.

Meng Jin's playing time tonight was almost the same as Magic's. He was able to fly and dodge until the very last moment. Magic was a little stunned. It was hard to imagine that this was the man who had fought all night last night.

The magician couldn't help but sigh that there was indeed a gap between people, no, between people and monsters.

At the end of the game, the Chicago Bulls won the away game 138 to 122.

孟进全场拿下44分16篮板5抢断4盖帽3助攻的大号两双数据，乔丹40分7助攻7篮板7抢断，克莱格-霍奇斯16分，格兰特12分10篮板，卡特赖特11分14篮板，约翰-帕克森10分。

Craig Hodges has now become a backbone on the Bulls bench. Sometimes he plays even longer than Paxson. His three-point shooting percentage this season is a terrifying 48%, and this number is even higher when he plays at the same time as Meng Jin and Jordan.

洛杉矶湖人那边7人得分上双，得分最高的是砍下30分的詹姆斯-沃西，拜伦-斯科特拿到20分5助攻，魔术师约翰逊20分17助攻5篮板。

Magic Johnson did not use the disagreement with Pat Riley as an excuse for the loss after the game. There are very few teams in the NBA that are absolutely harmonious. The two core players of the Bulls were not in harmony, but they still won the game, didn't they?

Meng Jin and Jordan have temporarily found a way to get along peacefully, but it is difficult for Pat Riley and Magic Johnson. Players can choose not to talk to each other, but coaches and players cannot avoid communication, especially core players like Magic.

Meng Jin was in a good mood during the interview because the Bulls won four consecutive games in the devilish schedule in February. Meng Jin also praised Magic Johnson: "His performance tonight was as good as always. It was pleasing to watch him play. He sent 2 assists over my head today. Believe me, 'Magic' can handle all creatures that walk upright."

"Then why didn't he get you today?" the reporter asked.

Meng Jin smiled and said, "Because I can fly."

(End of this chapter)