Chapter 115 114. Public Opinion Attack
Don’t you always say that pressure brings motivation?

Why is it that it’s good to have no pressure at this time?
While doing physical therapy, Felton told Okafor about his confusion.

Felton didn’t like Okafor before, thinking he was too arrogant.

After knowing that the other party didn't want to talk to him because he didn't have a diploma, he was speechless, but not angry. Instead, he was happy that he had "met the other party's recognition requirements" because this was a 'high requirement' and he would get his degree certificate after completing his thesis defense. As a very successful college athlete, he would be able to pass the thesis defense easily.

After chatting with Okafor several times, Felton felt that Okafor was not bad. He was polite and spoke in an organized and logical manner, unlike many of his teammates who could not understand what others said.

Also, Okafor has no intention of competing for the top spot...

If Felton tells Zhang Yang about Okafor's attitude towards the "competition for the boss", Zhang Yang will help the fat little boss to refresh his cognition - he doesn't think that the two of you can pose any threat to him at all.

As long as Okafor is not seriously injured, even if Felton and Gerald Wallace join forces to fight Okafor, the team must trade one of them, and it will only be the two of them.

After playing a game with Okafor who had lost weight and was not seriously injured, Zhang Yang understood why Howard, who averaged 12 points, 10 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game in the voting for the best rookie last season, received only a fraction of Okafor's first-place votes. He is really outstanding!
In last season's Rookie of the Year voting, Howard received only 6 first-place votes, while Okafor received 66.

In terms of future ceiling, Howard has a higher ceiling than Okafor, but that is only in comparison with Howard. Okafor's own talent is absolutely top-notch, plus his hard work, attitude towards the game, and ability to endure grass in the later stages, an average of 15+10 per game should have been just his starting data.

Okafor: "I think what Jack meant is that the record will not get better with pressure and motivation. Last year, Gerald and I worked very hard. We felt that as the core of a new team, we had an obligation to make the team strong and shoulder the pressure of the city of Charlotte, but we only won 18 games. Even though I was injured for 3 months this year, we have won 25 games. The strength of the lineup is the key, not the pressure. As for the impact of the playoffs, we just need to work hard. Every step closer to the playoffs is our progress."

Felton: "So that's how it is, really, Emeka, when I think about it, the pressure is gone all of a sudden, but my desire for the playoffs has not diminished at all!"

Seeing that Felton understood, Okafor nodded with satisfaction.

When the other party has a sufficient level of education, Okafor is willing to lower the threshold for a good chat - the other party can understand what he says.

...

At 26 pm on the 6th, the game between the Bobcats and the Trail Blazers started at home.

Zhang Yang sat on the sidelines, watching Jarrett Jack, who was from the same agency, start on the opposite side and observed a moment of silence for Blake.

Blake is a player of the golden generation of 03. He entered the NBA right after graduating from college and actually had very good combat effectiveness. He was the best point guard in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference during his college years. Perhaps he didn't even need to be called one of the best. He led the University of Maryland to win the 2002 NCAA championship. Although the MOP was taken away by his teammate Juan Dixon who exploded in the finals, most college fans at that time felt that Blake was the best one.

The Wizards originally selected Blake to be the starter, but they unexpectedly discovered in the summer that they could use a bug in the rules to grab Arenas. They acted decisively and actually got him, which led to the birth of the 'Arenas Clause'.

So Blake became a substitute. His rookie year was OK, averaging 18 minutes per game, 5.9 points, 2.8 assists, and 37.1% three-point shooting. Who knew that Arenas would play 04 minutes per game in the 05-40 season, and Blake was out of the game...

Finally, last summer, Blake's rookie contract expired and he left the Wizards to join the Trail Blazers, who did not have a strong point guard. He quickly secured the starting position, but his substitute was the great Jack.

After holding on for most of the season, Blake finally couldn't hold on. At the end of the game before the All-Star Weekend, he slipped while receiving a serve under the basket and severely sprained his ankle, requiring him to miss 3-4 weeks.

Blake's style of play, in which his feet hardly leave the ground when shooting or grabbing rebounds, could have twisted his ankle like that. I don't know how unlucky he was.

Tonight Okafor returned to the starting position as power forward, and together with Gerald Wallace and Perkins who came off the bench, they limited Randolph's shooting percentage to only 38%.

However, at this time, Randolph didn't care about the success rate of the offense or whether it would affect the outcome. He threw the ball 21 times and made 21 of 8 shots. In order to score more than 20 points, he even ran out and threw two three-pointers, but neither of them went in. In addition, he made 7 of 5 free throws and got 21 points and 10 rebounds.

After playing against Randolph twice, Zhang Yang truly understood why Randolph had such a bad reputation. He was quite puzzled before, because at least he was an inside player who averaged 20+10 per game!

He thought that Randolph was just putting up stats like Towns who couldn't win the game with stats, or getting rebounds and blocks like Whiteside. In reality, Randolph didn't even want to go back to defend, and after the offense, he would just wait under the opposite basket and let his teammates defend 4 against 5, and then he would directly receive a long pass and make a fast break.

Zhang Yang had a mixed performance tonight. He played for 23 minutes and scored 14 points, 4 rebounds and 1 steal. He made 9 of 5 shots from mid-range and counterattack range, but missed all 4 three-pointers.

However, even though his throw was so bad, Bickerstaff didn't get angry. He even told him to throw more if he had the chance.

靠着杰拉德-华莱士的16分、费尔顿的12分9助攻、张杨的14分、奥卡福的15分9板、布雷泽克的11分10板……山猫队以103比88击败开拓者队，拿下队史首次4连胜！

山猫队战绩来到26胜29负，追平了魔术队，距离东部第九27胜28负的76人队只差1个胜场！
After the Bobcats made the news for their first four-game winning streak in team history, fans were surprised to see that the Bobcats had quietly entered the playoff race.

The last time fans noticed the Bobcats' record was in the last game of January, when the Bobcats upset the Cavaliers, who were ranked fourth in the Eastern Conference. They achieved a record of 1 wins and 8 losses in a single month, setting a new record for the fastest 8% winning rate in a single month since the team was founded in the modern basketball era, which attracted a wave of attention.

But the main reason why it attracted attention was because the opponent was the Cavaliers and two players from the Bobcats were selected as All-Star starters. The heat dropped within two days. After all, it was a team with only 20 wins. Fans who continued to follow the Bobcats only paid attention to the statistics of Zhang Yang and Gerald Wallace. No one cared whether they won or lost the game.

Another month is coming to an end, and when fans paid attention to the Bobcats' record again, they found that they had 26 wins and 29 losses, which means that in the past 9 games, the Bobcats had 6 wins and 3 losses!
Even though the opponents they defeated were weak teams such as the Trail Blazers, Jazz, Raptors, 76ers... and they only defeated the Suns when Nash was injured, and they all lost to three strong teams, the Mavericks, Clippers, and Nuggets, but this was enough to surprise the fans!

However, the Bobcats' 4-game winning streak was able to attract the attention of fans, thanks to that man...

On the last day of February, the Bobcats' opponent is the Cavaliers again!

All major media outlets promoted the Bobcats’ four-game winning streak just to promote this temporarily added game!

...

The last time the Bobcats played the Cavaliers, the game was broadcasted extra by major TV stations because both teams had three All-Star starters.

The reason why the two teams' matchup was rebroadcasted again was because of the Bobcats' defense against James in the last matchup.

James' performance when he backed down Felton in the low post surprised everyone.

那身高差看起来得有20公分，体重差估计也有20公斤，居然4次落低位2次打铁1次失误1次拉出去重打！

This made many fans question James' ability, and James' fans refuted fiercely, but the facts are in front of us. It's okay to miss one or two low-post one-on-one shots, but he didn't score once in 4 low-post shots...

However, this also increased the live ratings of the Cavaliers' games. From February to now, the Cavaliers have played 2 games, 10 of which were broadcast live, the highest live broadcast ratio in the league. The number of live broadcasts in a single month even exceeded that of most teams in an entire season.

Three of the games were added on at the last minute because the fans wanted to watch them.

As the media and fans expected, the Cavaliers' opponents in these 10 games have more or less tried to imitate the Bobcats' defense against James.

However, most teams' imitations were just a poor imitation. Not only did they fail to defend, but they also angered James. For example, Arenas was bombarded with 38 points and a triple-double by the furious James. After 10 games, there were only two teams that could really defend James. That defensive method was fine, but there were not many teams that had the conditions to do it. It just so happened that most of the 10 opponents the Cavaliers encountered did not have centers with strong defense and sufficient ability.

This made James' fans angry again, and they turned around and laughed at those who questioned James, saying that they were just jealous and that the Bobcats were just lucky to defend James once, and they were so happy as if they had caught some kind of handle.

Those who question him are also very firm in their attitude. Most of them don't have much opinion about James himself. James' current public image has no other blemishes except that his layup steps are so powerful that the league has to change the rules and his performance in the Dream Team 6 is very poor. Those fans who dislike James are mainly dissatisfied with the excessive hype of the media and the over-exaggeration of James' fans.

The two sides have been arguing, quarreling and swearing for nearly half a month, and both sides are unwilling to give in, just waiting for the Bobcats and the Cavaliers to face off again.

So, on the 27th, the day after the Bobcats played the Trail Blazers, they suddenly became a "hot" team. The media flocked to Charlotte, and a large number of "one and a half year" Bobcats fans appeared online to cheer for them.

At the same time, the Bobcats were also attacked by many media and fans. These people did not analyze how the Bobcats defended James in late January, but only picked out the Bobcats' record and players' problems. Some extreme ones even went as far as personal attacks.

At first, the Bobcats players were excited to see the media flocking in.

In fact, the Bobcats have no shortage of interviews, and there are always cameras filming in the gym, but the players discovered early on that almost all the media stationed in their gym are Chinese media and local media in the Carolina area. Large American media rarely come, and when they do, they always come for Zhang Yang alone.

This time it was different, even Perkins was surrounded by the media for interviews.

But after an afternoon, the Bobcats players were about to break down.

Many of the questions asked by reporters during interviews were very sharp and could even be described as deliberately difficult, and there were also various attempts to sow discord.

Take Felton for example. The media repeatedly asked him questions like "his number of shots is not as much as Zhang Yang's", "his endorsement fee is not as high as Zhang Yang's", "his draft pick is lower than Deron Williams who lost to him in the NCAA finals", "his performance is not as good as Paul's" and so on. He was exhausted by the questions.

On the morning of the 28th, Jordan directly announced that the gym would be closed and no interviews would be accepted, as they wanted to focus on preparing for the evening's game.

The arena without reporters became a safe haven for the Bobcats players. They felt that the world had finally quieted down.

Before the pre-game meeting in the morning, Felton complained to Zhang Yang, who was sitting next to him: "James' fans are all crazy. I don't even dare to go online now."

Zhang Yang responded: "In fact, most of James' fans are normal. Only a small number of them come to scold you. You can only see them because they say something related to you."

Okafor on the side said: "The silent majority? That's right, Raymond, Jack is right. You can't scold those innocent fans just because of that group of extreme fans."

After hearing what the two said, Felton said in dissatisfaction: "You were also scolded! Emeka, they all said you are made of glass, saying that you are not as good as Howard and Jack. They scolded you more harshly than they scolded me..."

Zhang Yang: "Doesn't this just prove that they are afraid? Boss, do you think that the way they wish you dead is because they are afraid that you will defend James again? So what you should do now is not to get angry, but to be prepared, defend him again, slap those people in the face, and make them shut up... And, Boss, have you noticed something?"

He spoke in a low voice and in a gentle and calm tone, but his words were sonorous and powerful, which gradually turned the emotions in Felton's heart into fighting spirit and fighting spirit.

“What is it?” Felton asked.

Zhang Yang: "James didn't come out to respond to whether you defended him."

Felton frowned in thought, then suddenly his eyes widened and he said, "Yes! Jack, you are right! From yesterday to this morning, I didn't see any news about him being interviewed! But why is that? Doesn't James want to appear on TV 24 hours a day? Why is he so low-key this time?"

Zhang Yang pinched his thigh. It was really hard to assist this big boss, but he still had to say, "Because he's afraid of being slapped in the face, and he may know that if he stands up to refute your statement that you defended him, he will really be slapped in the face, but he can't admit that you defended him, so he will keep a low profile. After this game is over and people's attention is diverted, he will become the one who can't wait to be on the news 24 hours a day... He may also be concentrating on how to deal with you. It is even possible that these opinions are made by the team behind him to influence our mentality and make us perform abnormally. As long as we lose tonight, those comments that are not favorable to him will disappear, and we will become a laughing stock instead."

Felton: “So that’s how it is!”

Zhang Yang pinched his thigh again and continued, "So, Boss, you should help your teammates vent their emotions, dispel the interference of public opinion, cheer them up, and slap the faces of the media and fans."

Felton: "Okay... uh, what should I say or do to make them cheer up?"

Okafor on the side couldn't stand it anymore and said, "Just say what Jack said in your own way."

Felton thought it made sense. He thought there was a ready-made answer that he could copy. He immediately ran to the main seat in the meeting room, greeted his teammates, and boosted their morale.

Zhang Yang felt very tired, even more tired than playing in a game.

He noticed Okafor's probing gaze and said with a smile: "My boss is not very smart, please take care of him."

Okafor nodded, turned his attention to the main seat, and did not ask any further questions.

Watching Felton's roaring speech to stir up the emotions of his teammates and hearing his teammates start to shout "beat James" in unison, Okafor guessed why Zhang Yang did this.

A 17-year-old rookie doesn't speak loud enough, but an NCAA champion and the fifth overall pick speaks loud enough.

Also, the rookie who is a top student truly considers Felton, his teammate and senior from the same school, as a friend.

At the door of the conference room, Jordan was surprised to see all his teammates excitedly shouting "Beat James".

He came to the pre-match meeting specially this time, hoping to use his identity as the "God of Basketball" to help the players adjust their mentality.

Although his mentality has changed towards that of a capitalist, he is very unhappy to encounter such a bombardment of public opinion less than 3 years after his retirement. He wants to win the game tonight... no, he must win!
He didn't expect to see this scene as soon as he arrived at the door of the conference room.

Looking at Felton, who was leading the crowd in shouting "beat James", Jordan refreshed his understanding of this junior.

Although he is not talented enough, he works hard enough. In just a few months, he has corrected many bad habits and is getting better and better.

In his rookie season, he was able to withstand such a bombardment of public opinion, and he was also able to help his teammates regulate their pressure and boost their emotions...

It is unlikely that this junior will become an All-Star player, but perhaps he can be trained to become a team leader!
……

……

I only updated 8000 words today, and I still owe 1 chapter for the monthly ticket, o(╥﹏╥)o. Xiaofeng won't play games anymore. I'll go to bed early today, and make up for the 2000 words I missed today tomorrow. Next, I'll hurry up and update the extra words I owe. I'm quietly begging for the monthly ticket and recommendation votes!
(End of this chapter)