After returning home, the Wizards will play two consecutive games against the Indiana Pacers, who are also members of the Eastern Conference. The first game will be at the Wizards' home court, and the second game will be in Indiana.
The Pacers currently rank eighth in the Eastern Conference with a record of 13 wins and 16 losses, and are considered a relatively competitive playoff team.
Their team lineup also contains some relatively balanced players, which is more in line with their record.
The more famous players include Danny Granger, Mike Dunleavy, Darren Collison and Roy Hibbert.
Judging from the lineup, the Pacers are basically built on defense, and interior defense is their core.
It is worth mentioning that in this year's draft, the Pacers used their No. 9 pick to pick forward Paul George from Fresno State University.
It's a pity that the Pacers have a very rich talent pool at the forward position, so Paul George didn't get much of a chance.
December 29th is coming soon. Facing the Pacers with Hibbert inside, Sanders' general policy for the Wizards is naturally to open up the situation on the outside first, thereby opening up space for inside offense.
The team's tactics were executed very well. After one game, the Wizards team threw a total of 18 three-pointers, directly drowning the Pacers in the stormy waves formed after the three-pointers rained down.
In the end, the Wizards easily defeated the Pacers 114-95 at home and won two consecutive victories.
After defeating the Pacers at home, the Wizards team rushed to Indianapolis, the city where the Pacers are home, that night.
This city is quite familiar to Li Kaiming. They played here for some time in the original NCAA March Madness.
The day after arriving in Indianapolis, the NBA official website released the second phase voting results for the 2011 Staples All-Stars.
Kobe still maintains his position as the top vote-getter, and other stars basically received the expected number of votes. Only one person's position on the entire list attracted the attention of fans.
On the last day of the second stage, Li Kaiming overtook forward Paul Pierce from the Boston Celtics with just over 400,000 votes, officially becoming the fourth All-Star forward in the Eastern Conference!
In other words, if this All-Star is entirely based on fan voting, Li Kaiming is already an All-Star substitute at this time!
Li Kaiming's sudden appearance immediately attracted widespread attention in America.
"How can he, a rookie, surpass Paul Pierce? I think this voting is shady!"
"The possibility of being shady is very small. I think it is because of his Chinese identity that many Chinese people voted for him, just like Yao Ming back then!"
"I hope David Stern will improve the All-Star voting mechanism. Li Kaiming is far inferior to Pierce, who is obviously more worthy of this All-Star than him."
…
Many local América fans expressed dissatisfaction. Of course, most of them were fans of Li Kaiming's competitors. They believed that the proportion of fan votes was too large, allowing a fish like Li Kaiming to slip through the net and enter the All-Star.
But none of these people would have imagined that Li Kaiming, who was involved at this time, was not satisfied with his vote count. You must know that if he wants to complete the S-level task of the system, he must enter the All-Star starting lineup.
Although the system did not specify that he should be included in the All-Star starting lineup, he knew in his heart that the All-Star substitutes were not decided entirely by fans' votes like the starting lineup, but by the votes of the coaches from the alternative players.
He is just a rookie. Firstly, he has no connections of his own in the league, and secondly, he has no honors, which means his status in the league is not high.
In this case, how could the coaches of each team vote for him?
So just in case, and to safely complete this S-level mission, he must get his All-Star votes into the top two forwards in the Eastern Conference!
The day after the Wizards players arrived in Indianapolis, players from both teams regrouped at the Pacers' home court and fought again for a whole game.
The Pacers' coach made special arrangements before the game this time because he was scared of the Wizards' three-pointer in the last game, so he prepared a little surprise for the Wizards players.
When the game between the two sides entered the second quarter, after Sanders took the five-way lineup as usual, the Pacers also put on the mysterious gift package prepared by the coach for the Wizards!
After seeing the Pacers' lineup, Li Kaiming couldn't help laughing!
Damn it, why is this Pacers coach so crazy? Why are they still in fifth grade?
That's right, the Pacers, a smart head coach, went into a dark room and thought for two days and two nights. The method he came up with was to take down his own big center and compete with the Wizards against the five small players!
This is not stupid, this is stupid and cute!
Li Kaiming took the next step and concentrated his main shots on the outside because Hibbert under the Pacers' basket posed a great threat to protect the rim.
But now, in order to defend the Wizards' three-point shooting, the Pacers actually took the initiative to remove their biggest threat at the basket, and then gave up their strengths to compete with the Wizards!
Note that the Wizards' fifth center position is Li Kaiming, and his height of 2.1cm is completely enough to play center.
After the Pacers replaced the power center, they actually let their 208-meter power forward play center. The power forward position was occupied by the original small forward, 206-meter-tall Danny Granger.
I have to say, this coach is really a talent!
Since the opponent is giving face to him like this, if Li Kaiming doesn't show it, he will be sorry for the efforts of the Pacers head coach!
So in the second half of the second quarter, Li Kaiming began to play a lot of singles with the ball, and his style of play and ideas were completely different from the previous game, trying to break through to the basket as much as possible.
Facing Li Kaiming's singles, the Pacers' two inside combinations, who had less than 210 points, not only failed to prevent Li Kaiming's breakthrough, but were shot several times in the face by Li Kaiming!
As for the dunks under the basket, there are even more!
With the cooperation of the undercover head coach on the opposite side, Li Kaiming scored 16 points, 6 rebounds and 2 assists in just half of the second quarter.
This is the result of the Pacers finding something wrong after half a game and bringing in a big center.
But at this time, Li Kaiming's touch has been completely opened up. Even if the opponent has a big center, he can't stop his fiery touch.
To describe Li Kaiming at this time in one sentence, that is, in his eyes, the current basket is as wide as the sea!
In the second half, the Pacers head coach finally realized what he had done, so he replaced Hibbert again, hoping to turn the game around in the next time.
I have to admit that Hibbert's efficiency in protecting the frame at the basket is really high, and Li Kaiming's breakthrough inside score is not so easy.
However, what made the Pacers players break the defense was that Li Kaiming himself didn't score much, but he started to drive his teammates again like he did in the last game!
Li Kaiming used his outside threat to move the Pacers' inside line out, and then broke through to the three-point line, attracting the Pacers' double-teaming and formation contraction, and then distributed the ball to his teammates on the outside.
Under his caring care like an old mother, the Wizards' outside firepower once again reared its head, and it immediately became stronger like the second brother who had taken sildenafil.
The Pacers, who focused their attention on Li Kaiming, were like a little girl who had her clothes stripped off. Under the wolf-like attack of the Wizards players, they were quickly defeated!
It is worth mentioning that the Pacers also got Paul George in the second half and let him play for two minutes.
The reason why it only played for two minutes was because after George came up, Li Kaiming played a 2+1 against him, which immediately made the Pacers fans unable to stand it!
What the hell! They are all rookies, why are yours so strong?
In order to protect George's weak self-esteem, the coach quickly replaced him.
We finally selected a player with some talent, but we can't let the pervert on the opposite side destroy him...
There was a big doubt in George's little mind: Coach, why don't you let me play basketball? Coach, I want to play!
Coach: Hit me with a hammer! I'm afraid that when you go up there, you'll be beaten to death by the pervert on the other side. You're the only one in the family...
From Evan Turner before to Paul George now, every rookie in the same class who faced Li Kaiming ended up being tortured to pieces without any surprise.
Li Kaiming can be called the dream-killing mentor of this rookie class!
The two sides fought until there were five minutes left in the fourth quarter. Seeing that the Pacers had no chance to catch up with the score, they directly called a timeout, put on the water dispenser, and called it a day!
Sanders also took advantage of the situation and took down his own players and replaced them with those who were eager to try on the bench.
However, this change caused a problem.
With two minutes left before the end of the game, Yi Jianlian landed on the opponent's foot after grabbing a rebound, and then sprained his ankle!
After the team doctor came forward to check, he asked two players to carry Yi Jianlian back to the locker room.
What was originally a joyful and peaceful game was cast a shadow because of Yi Jianlian's sudden injury and withdrawal.
At the end of the game, the Wizards once again defeated the Pacers 95-86 at the Pacers' home court, adding another victory to the team's record.
Li Kaiming played for 32 minutes and made 12 of 21 shots, including 4 of 8 three-pointers and 5 of 7 free throws. He scored 33 points, 17 rebounds and 9 assists.
One assist short of a triple-double, Sanders asked Li Kaiming if he wanted to play a little longer and get an assist, but Li Kaiming refused.
He lacks everything except data!
After returning to the locker room, Li Kaiming also learned about Yi Jianlian's situation.
The MRI showed nothing wrong, just an ordinary sprain, but he would need to miss at least a week.
Li Kaiming sighed. He saw Yi Jianlian's efforts and investment in training. Under his persuasion, Yi Jianlian changed his shooting posture this season. As the season progressed, his shooting percentage gradually began to rise. .
But at this moment, Yi Jianlian was injured!
How to put it this way, I can't blame others, I can only say that I have bad luck, and this bad luck seems to run through Yi Jianlian's entire NBA career. Every time he makes a splash, he will suddenly get injured after a while.
Fortunately, this time it was just a simple sprained foot and the impact was not significant.
