NBA: Goat is actually me

Chapter 84: Genius, You Are Not Human

On December 12, Meng Jin saw his parents off because the Bulls were going on another away trip the next day.

In fact, it is not impossible to take parents to two away games and travel at the same time, but when Meng Jin saw that the first away game opponent was the Detroit Pistons, he decisively gave up this idea.

Detroit fans all have a primitive beauty, and he is worried that his parents can't stand it.

Before leaving, Meng's father deliberately spent some time alone with Meng Jin.

"Clap!"

Father Meng lit a cigarette, took a deep puff and blew out a cloud of smoke: "You are doing well in your career. Seeing you are so motivated, your parents are very pleased."

The most intuitive feeling that Meng's father had during these days in Chicago was that everyone here loves Meng Jin. This is a recognition from the fans. For a professional player to be able to achieve this must be inseparable from tremendous effort and dedication.

"but."

When Meng Jin heard this word, he started to have a headache. The classic is to first praise and then criticize.

"Be careful to control your temper. If you encounter problems, talk them over and communicate well. There is nothing that cannot be solved through communication."

Meng Jin knew that Meng's father was talking about the incident in which he beat up the Detroit trio. During the past few days in Chicago, Meng's father had more or less learned the cause of the incident.

Communicate well with those people from the Pistons. This is definitely the most nonsense Meng Jin has heard this year. But he can't blame his father. He only knows that this is a basketball league. He doesn't know the culture of the league, let alone the grudges between the teams.

"okay, I get it."

Meng Jin didn't want to explain too much, as this kind of thing couldn't be explained in a short time.

Meng's father nodded in satisfaction. At that moment, Meng Jin felt like a child about to go to kindergarten. His father told him to get along peacefully with other children and not to fight.
Alas, it turns out that no matter how old you are, you will always be a child in front of your parents.

"David! Welcome to visit China next time. Thank you for taking care of Xiao Meng during this period. I hope you will continue to supervise, spur and encourage him, and be his mentor and friend! If he makes a mistake and is unwilling to train or plays passively, you should..."

Before boarding the plane, Meng's father gave Meng Jin's agent David Falk a warm hug.

Falk has been accompanying Meng's father these days, and Meng's father has the attributes of a top-notch social expert, so he became familiar with him in no time.

Falk felt like he was listening to a foreign language when listening to Meng's father. After Meng's father finished speaking, he pointed to his ears to indicate that he didn't understand.

After holding Falk with a smile on his face, Mr. Meng turned to look at Meng Jin and said, "Why are you standing there? Translate quickly."

Falk also spread his hands towards Meng Jin: "What is your father talking about?"

Meng Jin was too lazy to translate so much. He looked at Falk and moved his lips slightly: "SEE-YOU."

On December 12, the Chicago Bulls traveled to challenge the Detroit Pistons.

Today the Pistons' home stadium, the Pontiac Silverdome, was packed!
From the moment the Bulls players walked out of the player tunnel, the Pistons fans never stopped shouting abuse.

Especially Meng Jin, he is the focus of fans' greetings. If we talk about the most hated person by Pistons fans this season, it must be Meng Jin. He didn't KO the three Pistons players, he slapped the face of the entire Detroit!

Detroit's basketball culture has always been that you can lose in a game, but you can't lose in a fight. You can take the victory away, but you must leave your life behind.

During the shooting warm-up phase, all the Pistons players stared at Meng Jin with hatred.

However, the protagonists of today's game are not the fans or the players, but the coaches of both teams.

The incident started when coach Chuck Daly was interviewed by reporters after training yesterday. One of the questions was about evaluating the coaching level of Bulls head coach Collins.

After all, the Bulls are ranked first in the Eastern Conference so far, which is beyond everyone's expectations. At the beginning of the season, the outside world ranked the Bulls fifth in the Eastern Conference because this team has obvious shortcomings. Their point guard is at the bottom of the league, and so is their center. Gilmore only has the title of a legendary center, but in fact he is no longer at the level to start for an NBA team.

However, a quarter of the season has passed, and they have kicked and punched the Green Army and the Bad Boys to climb to the top of the Eastern Conference.

The speed of a train depends on the locomotive. If a team plays well, the coach must have made an important contribution.

However, Coach Daly seemed to have a different opinion. He sneered: "Doug Collins? The male cheerleader who only knows how to yell Lets-go on the sidelines?"

One word can cause a thousand ripples, and Chuck Daly's words were reported in the newspaper this morning.

Collins was very angry about Chuck Daly's words, which were equivalent to attacking him on two points. The first point was that his coaching ability was not good. The Bulls had this record entirely due to the two perverts under his command. The second point was that Collins often danced on the sidelines and looked like he was dancing.

Collins was not lenient with Chuck Daly either. He was known for his hot temper. He said directly at the pre-match press conference: "Chuck Daly is a loser! He wants to yell 'lets go' on the sidelines, but do his players have that ability? He does have a lot of tactics, but they are all about how to hit people. Now that the flagrant foul rule is out, I believe this guy must be unable to sleep every day."

Originally the media thought that the two were just arguing with each other, but Chuck Daly heard the news from somewhere and rushed into the press room!

The reporter kept shouting, "Don't be impulsive, don't be impulsive," while taking pictures wildly with his camera, and no one tried to stop him.

Everyone wants to see two coaches fighting each other, but it's much more interesting when the players fight each other.

But Chuck Daly is a tough guy on the outside but a prudent one on the inside. He would never do such a stupid thing as fighting. He just wanted to intimidate Collins.

Collins is no pushover either, and the two exchanged barbs for 10 minutes at the press conference, with the content being extremely exciting.

After the verbal fight, the two came here in a rage. After the game, they did not even do the routine handshake. The feud was officially formed.

The game went into overtime, and the Pistons finally defended their home court and narrowly defeated the Bulls 129-128.

Six players on the Pistons scored in double digits, with Rodman, who replaced Bill Laimbeer, performing the best with 6 points and 26 rebounds.

This surprised many people. In fact, Rodman during this period was offensive, and sometimes even made two open three-pointers. If you look closely at Rodman's play, he is exactly the black version of Bill Laimbeer. The two are equally smart, both like to do tricks but not charge into battle, and both are masters of mentality. Even the occasional three-pointers are the same.

Bill Laimbeer wore the same mask as Jordan and sat on the sidelines to watch the game.

Bill Laimbeer turned into a fountain commander throughout the game, yelling on the bench. He did not have the mentality of being embarrassed if the team won without someone. On the contrary, he was proud of these brothers because they beat the Bulls.

Jordan scored 35 points for the Bulls. With 3.9 seconds left, the Bulls had a chance to win the game, but Jordan missed the shot.

Jordan made countless classic buzzer beaters in his past life, but what fans don't know is that he missed just as many buzzer beaters. It's just that everyone only remembers the hero's success, and no one cares about the missed shots and lost games. The Pistons' defensive moves in this game were still big, and they didn't seem to be affected by the flagrant foul rule.

After the flagrant foul rule came out, Chuck Daly was panicked for a whole day. When he returned home at night, Chuck Daly suddenly got inspiration from his wife's words.

Chuck Daly came home and saw the pizza on the table and asked his wife if we weren't having chicken today.

His wife told Daly that the supermarket downstairs was closed and there was no chicken, so he made pizza.

Chuck Daly suddenly realized that if there was no chicken, then there would be no eating chicken. If there was no flagrant foul, then he would not allow his players to commit flagrant fouls.

It’s just that flagrant fouls are not allowed, but the league’s standards of confrontation have not changed.

The dirty tricks and marginal moves from the past can still be used. In other words, you can still use any method to sneak attack on the court, but just don't do anything that is obviously harmful to the opponent.

The day after the regulations were introduced, Chuck Daly called the players together for a training session.

The first sentence is to let the players play more aggressively in the next game!
Be more ruthless!
A little more fouls!
After hearing this, the players thought the coach was crazy. The league had just introduced a flagrant foul rule, the purpose of which was to rectify the atmosphere and eliminate violence on the field. Isn't this just walking into trouble?
When Chuck Daly saw the players' expressions, he knew that they had fallen into the thinking trap they had set.

Chuck Daly told them that the Pistons would be dirtier and more ruthless in the future!
But it should be more covert. The Pistons should try to avoid direct hitting scenes in future games. All hitting actions should appear naturally in the confrontation of the game.

The meaning of Chuck Daly's words is very clear. The Pistons used to often stage "intentional murder" scenes, but now the Pistons want to turn murder into "accidents."

After some research, Chuck Daly even felt that the introduction of this rule was beneficial to the Pistons, because after the Pistons added hidden little moves, the opponent's anger value would definitely soar, and then it might be the opponent who would be called for a flagrant foul.

I have to say that Chuck Daly is indeed a genius coach.
After some research by Chuck Daly, the Pistons made some minor adjustments to their game plan. Now they not only have to beat others like before, but also have to lure their opponents to beat them.

From this perspective alone, Chuck Daly is definitely a genius among coaches.

This game proved that Chuck Daly's tactics were successful!
As soon as the game started, the Pistons players took turns pushing, pulling, tugging and dragging Jordan.

It was no use for Jordan to complain to the referee because the Pistons' actions were so covert that the referee usually couldn't see them, and even if they did, it was just an ordinary foul.

In the last minute of the first quarter, Jordan was knocked to the ground by Rick Mahorn. The referee only gave him a normal foul because Rick Mahorn did not rush directly to Jordan and knock him over. He took advantage of Jordan's highest jump point and slammed his shoulder into his legs.

Jordan lay on the ground for 30 seconds. For a moment, he felt that he almost saw his grandmother.

After standing up, Jordan let out a long roar towards the sky.

Before the flagrant foul rule came out, I was beaten every day. After the flagrant foul rule came out, I was still beaten. Wasn't this flagrant foul rule introduced in vain?

Jordan became angrier and angrier, and near the end of the second quarter, he punched Isaiah Thomas, who had been harassing him.

The referee stopped the game and called a first-degree flagrant foul on Jordan.

The Pistons were having a blast at home. After the flagrant foul against the Pistons was introduced, the first person to be fouled was not a Pistons player, but that boiled egg!

After returning in the second half, Jordan began to compete with the Pistons and almost lost contact with his teammates. Several times when he could have assisted Meng Jin to easily counterattack and score, he chose to do it himself, and missed some opportunities.

Chuck Daly not only studied the flagrant foul rules, he also conducted in-depth research on Meng Jin.

Before the game started, Chuck Daly gave orders to his players. When Meng Jin was running back without the ball, he was to grab his jersey and arm. If he got the ball in the counterattack, he should not hesitate but rush over!

Chuck Daly wanted to create psychological fear in Meng Jin and make him shrink back during fast breaks.

Although Meng Jin was not affected psychologically, he missed several fast break opportunities. It was not just a matter of losing a few points. The Bulls' fast break rhythm was interrupted several times.

Meng Jin roared in his heart more than ten thousand times. He didn't expect that he would be targeted by an NBA team so soon. You know, he was just a rookie who had played in the NBA for one month!

This kind of targeting did have a certain effect, as Meng Jin only scored 17 points in this game.

Of course, Meng Jin felt that he was more targeted by Jordan. If he had not acted alone in the second half, he would have scored more than 17 points in fast breaks alone.

The Pistons' tactics inspired other teams.

On December 12, the Cavaliers frequently used this tactic in the game against the Bulls.

The Cavaliers have a strong overall lineup, and at the beginning of the season their regular season ranking was predicted to be ahead of the Bulls.

If they played normally, they would have at least been able to fight the Bulls until the last quarter. But they got themselves into trouble by using such foul tactics.

They were obviously not as experienced as the Pistons in doing such dirty things. Starting small forward Phil Hubbard received three fouls in the first quarter and was sent off at the start of the third quarter.

Starting shooting guard Craig Elu also received two fouls on Meng Jin.

Chuck Daly watched the game on TV and couldn't help laughing when he saw the Cavaliers' performance. These idiots were simply desecrating their own tactics. To foul Meng Jin, you don't have to hit the ball on every ball. This mindless approach won't work. You have to interrupt him when he is really threatening or when the Bulls' fast break rhythm is right.

Or arrange a role player to do this specifically, use up all the fouls within five minutes and break Meng Jin's mentality.

Chuck Daly thought that the Cavaliers' dorky second-year rookie Dell Curry was perfect for that role.

Dell Curry only played for 15 minutes tonight. He didn't have much playing time in this Cavaliers team, and his tactical position was even lower.

But as soon as he appeared on the stage, he attracted Meng Jin's attention. Meng Jin thought he looked very much like an old friend of his. Only after seeing the number on the back of his jersey did he realize what was going on.

In the end, the Cavaliers successfully defeated themselves, and the Bulls' starters clocked out after three quarters.

The final score was 109 to 83.

Jordan had 24 points, 12 assists and 4 rebounds. I don't know if it was because he felt guilty about losing the game because he played too many singles yesterday, but he obviously increased the number of passes in this game.

Meng Jin was the first beneficiary, scoring 32 points in the whole game. In fact, Meng Jin felt that he could have scored more points. This collision and foul strategy still affected his scoring process.

(End of this chapter)