Chapter 153 152. The Rockets' House Collapsed (35)

The Bobcats slaughtered the Rockets by 31 points, and the domestic media were stunned.

How to write this battle report? It's too late to cut off the live broadcast like Kim Jong Un!

What they promoted before the game was that the Bobcats were just a playoff team and the Rockets were a championship contender.

In fact, they were prepared for the Rockets to lose and had already made a plan in mind.

Others may not know what the Rockets are like, but how could they, who have been in Houston for many years, not know? Yao Ming and McGrady have absolute advantages in terms of personal ability, but apart from Yao and McGrady, only Battier, who was traded for Gay, can be considered outstanding. Most of the players are lagging behind, and are far from being as good as they are in the news.

A score difference of 20 points or so was not a big deal, after all, the difference was only 10 points after three quarters. It could also be said that the Bobcats took advantage of Yao and McGrady's rest and used their main players to launch a sneak attack and forced the game into garbage time.

But when it came to garbage time when both teams sent out their pure substitutes, the Rockets' substitutes were outplayed by the Bobcats' substitutes. The difference in lineup depth... wasn't even a difference. It was like a match between NBA players and Development League players.

Zhang Yang, who scored the highest points of the game, gave the domestic reporters another critical blow during the live interview: "It is normal to win against a team with only three players."

The reporters were devastated!
No, isn't Zhang San usually very humble and gentle when he is interviewed? Why is he so direct today?

How can they make up for it so that they can receive the money?
...

The Bobcats' substitutes' actions against the Rockets' substitutes have poked a hole in the sky of Chinese basketball!
Over the past few years, the Rockets have spent a huge amount of money on media operations, promoting themselves as a championship-contending team in China, and promoting their excellent annual recruitment efforts, saying that they are great at finding players in the free market, and that every player is awesome.

Spanoulis was selected by the Mavericks with a second-round pick in 04, but he failed to pass the Mavericks' test in the summer league and was abandoned by the Mavericks. After the Rockets signed him this year, they dared to use the nickname "European Kobe" as a gimmick to promote him in China.

When the Rockets signed Jon Barry, a player who averaged 5 points per game in his career, the Rockets praised him as being more powerful than his brother...

Due to the limited channels for information dissemination, many people still do not watch live broadcasts or watch very little. Their understanding of the NBA and the Rockets' strength comes from TV news and newspapers. They really believe the media's unscrupulous reports, and many people even have a deep-rooted impression of them.

Today, the basketball views of countless fans in China were shattered...

The domestic attention to the match between Yao Ming and Zhang Yang this time was much higher than that of last year. The game started at 10 a.m. and the ratings were also very high compared to last year, especially in the final quarter, which started at exactly 12 o'clock. The ratings almost doubled at that time...Then they saw a group of substitutes from the Bobcats, whose names they couldn't even remember, crushing the group of powerful Rockets players in their minds.

The 38-17 score in the final quarter stunned the fans who believed that the Rockets were a championship contender. They began to doubt... no, question! Question the news they had seen before.

After the game, most fans no longer believed the news reports that the mainstream media racked their brains to come up with to make up for the Rockets' loss.

At this time, some second- and third-tier media outlets, seeing an opportunity, began to report the truth and sparked public opinion.

The false image that the Rockets had spent several years and a lot of operating funds to create collapsed overnight...

...

As for Zhang Yang, after winning the opening game, he had a good sleep and when he woke up, he saw the text message from Tellem and realized that the domestic sports world had been turned upside down by them.

He went to a domestic sports forum and took a look... and took a deep breath.

He really didn't expect that a game could have such a big impact.

Looking at the crazy posts criticizing the Rockets in the forum... the substitutes did a great job! If the score difference was only 20 points, it might not have had such an effect.

When a lie that has been fabricated for many years is exposed, one can imagine how terrible the anger of the person who believed the lie is.

What he said in the interview after the game also played a big role, giving fans who wanted to know the truth a direction to find the truth.

He regretted it...why didn't he say more? It was such a pity.

Yes, he just hates the Rockets. He was gloating and wanted to take advantage of their misfortune, but unfortunately he didn't seize the opportunity.

As for whether "only three players on the Rockets" would offend the Rockets players... they only played against each other twice in a season, so what's there to worry about? Becoming teammates in the future? Impossible. Among the Rockets players, apart from Yao Ming, McGrady and Battier, only Luther Head is acceptable. Juwan Howard still has some talent, but he earns 3 million a year, which is definitely a high salary with low ability.

Last season, they might not have looked down upon the Rockets' role players, let alone now.

Will it affect his relationship with Yao Ming... The 31-point difference was the fuse that ignited the public opinion, and his words were at most exaggeration.

If Yao Ming becomes enemies with him because of this, then so be it. Even if he didn't say that, this would still have happened.

He was even happier to be able to pull the Rockets down from the "altar" in the hearts of domestic basketball fans.

After browsing domestic websites and forums for a while, Zhang Yang forced himself to divert his attention and opened the sports website of the Eagle Sauce. The news was much more normal.

The Bobcats' 31-point slaughter of the Rockets also made headlines and there was a lot of news, but it was not as crazy as in China.

Thanks to their performance last season, the Bobcats have become an emerging team that has attracted much attention.

With the Yao-McGrady combination, the Rockets have received a lot of attention in the United States. After trading for McGrady, the Rockets have no one else who can play except Yao and McGrady. This is nothing new. The addition of Battier this season cannot change this fact.

Moreover, the Rockets' trade of Rudy Gay for Battier was criticized by the media as soon as it was completed. When Gay averaged 15 points per game in the preseason and scored 17 points on 9 of 23 shots against the Spurs, he was ridiculed by the public.

As for the public opinion storm that the Rockets team encountered in China, there was no movement in the United States.

Before, domestic fans did not understand the real situation of the Rockets, and American fans actually did not know that the Rockets were actually hyped to such a high level in China. Every time they saw the Rockets calling themselves a championship team, they were confused and wondered if the Rockets owner and management had a problem with their brains. They never considered that what the Rockets owner and management said was not meant for them at all, and they did not care about their opinions.

Zhang Yang scored 33 points in the opening game, becoming the focus of heated discussion among fans. The hottest topic was: Can Zhang Yang surpass James to become the youngest player in history to average 20 points per game?
Rondo, who had 6 points, 5 rebounds, 10 assists and 1 steal in his debut, also attracted the attention of many fans. Although 6 of his assists came in garbage time, the rookie's stats don't need to be taken into account.

The Rockets were slaughtered by 31 points, and the media and fans attacked them at normal points - Jeff Van Gundy responded poorly and the Rockets' lineup was really bad.

Hubie Brown, the commentator for Time Warner Cable Sports, analyzed the game in his column. After reading it, Zhang Yang felt that the analysis was very objective and it also calmed him down.

"At the beginning of the game, I thought both teams would score around 90 points. After playing for 6 minutes, Jack scored 8 points, but the Bobcats only led the Rockets by two points, 12 to 10. At that time, I thought the Rockets had a better chance of winning. Yao and McGrady had not really played yet, and the Bobcats could only rely on Jack to score. Once Jack's scoring performance could not continue, the Bobcats would slowly lose the initiative and lose the game like many teams that were exhausted by the Rockets' defense.

But Rondo's appearance became the turning point of the game. He helped the Bobcats to play an offense that the Rockets did not expect and helped Jack continue his offensive firepower. Faced with this situation, Van Gundy's response was very poor. He made Yao and McGrady enter a vicious cycle of chasing points, getting tired, chasing points again, and continuing to get tired. The Bobcats gradually snowballed their advantage. When Yao and McGrady were both unable to play due to fatigue, the Rockets fell into defeat..."

Zhang Yang noticed two key points mentioned by Hubie Brown. One was that as long as one of Yao Ming and McGrady was still on the court, the Bobcats would not be able to continue to widen the gap. When both of them were on the court, the Rockets could still have the upper hand. The other was that Rondo led the team to play an offense that Van Gundy did not expect, and Van Gundy failed to respond correctly.

He reviewed last night's game and that was indeed the case.

If the Rockets had a league-average lineup of role players, the outcome of this game would be hard to predict. Yao Ming and McGrady are indeed too strong individually. If Van Gundy could respond more promptly and appropriately, and make more targeted responses to rookie Rondo's offense, the Bobcats wouldn't have won so easily. They would most likely be like other teams, and even if they could win, they would have been worn down by the Rockets.

Zhang Yang plans to wait for Little Fatty Boss to come back and have a good talk with him about this matter. Boss, it's time to get to work, teammates, stay calm and don't get carried away!

He looked at the report of another game.

Wade is really fierce...

James scored 27 points, 6 rebounds, 9 assists and 1 steal, which was an outstanding performance, but Wade scored 41 points and led the Heat to win the opening game 92-89 over the Cavaliers in the absence of O'Neal.

However, there was a sentence in the battle report that surprised Zhang Yang - James missed two consecutive three-pointers in the final moments and missed the opportunity to tie the score.

Zhang Yang remembered that when James played against the Cavaliers in the regular season last season, he passed the ball to Damon Jones at a critical moment. Did he shoot it himself this time? Or did he shoot it twice in a row? Was it because his opponent was Wade? Or was there some other reason?
At noon, the Bobcats left Houston and flew to Dallas.

After Zhang Yang discussed last night’s game with the fat Boss, he looked at the white clouds outside the window and had only one thought in his mind - Jews are not human!
When they were gathering at the hotel entrance and heard Bickerstaff say that the next stop was Dallas, he remembered that the Bobcats' first schedule was a three-game road trip to Texas!

(End of this chapter)