Li Yan's performance has been blown away by the media, especially in China, where Li Yan has become an absolute top player.
"Li Yan continues to be awesome in the finals, G2 leads the team to victory with an easy triple-double";
""Little Emperor" James tried his best but still couldn't prevent the Cavaliers from defeat";
"LeBron James is just a weakened version of Li Yan";
"Li Yan's god-level performance creates history, and the finals MVP is already in his bag";
"Offensive and defensive suppression of the "little emperor" James, Li Yan shows the appearance of the great emperor";
"The Nuggets lead 2-0, leaving few opportunities for the Cavaliers and James";
"Li Yan shows his super style, he is stronger than the magician".
Li Yan's news has always occupied the headlines of major media. Li Yan even had a full minute of footage in Yangma's 7 o'clock news broadcast.
…………
The Nuggets were on a plane to Cleveland the next day.
Cleveland is not a big city, but it has a very strong basketball atmosphere.
When the Nuggets bus was traveling from the airport to the hotel, promotional posters about the Cavaliers in the Finals were everywhere on both sides of the road.
The most popular one is naturally the large promotional photo of "Son of Akron" LeBron James. The "Little Emperor" is the pride of the entire Cleveland.
It's rare to see a city support a player so crazily in the entire NBA.
I don’t know if Kobe Bryant has such influence in Los Angeles, at least Nuggets players don’t have this kind of treatment in Denver.
Li Yan could not imagine how desperate Cleveland would be when James made "decision one".
Countless sports reporters came with the Nuggets, including many Chinese faces.
Li Yan's outstanding performance brought unprecedented attention to the NBA in China, and even higher-end media sent reporters to the scene to obtain first-hand information.
Cleveland fans also prepared some "little surprises" for the Nuggets, but this is just child's play in the eyes of the Nuggets who have been baptized in San Antonio.
On the evening of June 13, the Finals G3 continued at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
For the Cavaliers, this is a last-ditch battle. No team in history has been able to complete a comeback after falling behind 0-3 in the Finals.
In Li Yan's opinion, tonight will be a difficult game.
He is not worried that the Cavaliers will fight back at home, but because the referee of this game is NBA famous whistler Scott Foster.
Foster is a famous "Queen" referee in the NBA. He is famous for his superb court control ability.
Foster can skillfully use penalties to determine the course of the game, and he can always be seen at some key points in the game.
For Foster, Li Yan, who was a senior fan in his previous life, was very familiar with it.
Foster was the nemesis of Chris Paul and James Harden, with Chris Paul losing all games he called.
James Harden is slightly better, he won one game; interestingly, this time Harden faced Paul.
In G7 of the 2018 Western Conference Finals, the Rockets played against the Warriors at home, which is Foster's classic masterpiece.
The Rockets players playing at home were fouled by the Warriors many times, but Foster remained indifferent; while the Warriors would make free throws at the slightest touch.
The Rockets, who couldn't get free throws when attacking the inside, could only keep trying three-pointers from the outside.
In the end, the Rockets, with their explosive mentality, played a classic 3-point game of 0 for 27, and finally lost the tiebreaker by 9 points.
In this game, Foster obviously came with a mission as the referee.
Li Yan has made sufficient mental preparations. He has no intention of winning free throws tonight.
After the entrance ceremony, the game started soon.
What surprised Li Yan was that Foster didn't need to warm up at all and was "full of fire" when he came up.
In just 4 minutes of the game, Li Yan received two fouls.
One was a collision with the ball on offense, and the other was a blocking foul on defense.
These two penalties are very controversial because the positioning of the defensive players in these two rounds is almost exactly the same.
However, Foster made two completely different penalties, and Li Yan became the "big injustice".
George Karl stepped forward to protest loudly, but Foster ignored him at all.
"Fuck, that's too much, black whistle!"
"A typical double standard, Master Li was targeted."
"It's so difficult now that Master Li doesn't even dare to break through."
Foster set the tone for this game, and the Nuggets played a little timidly.
The Cavaliers played very resolutely, and James' breakthrough drove the entire Cavaliers' offense.
They achieved a combination of internal and external effects.
The Nuggets experienced the feeling of the 18 Rockets in advance. As long as the Nuggets players were not beaten to death by the Cavaliers, Foster would not blow the whistle at all.
On the other side, James has become a "valuable item". As long as the Nuggets players dare to reach out, Foster dares to blow the whistle.
In just halftime, James took 14 free throws and hit 12 of them.
In the first half, the Cavaliers led the Nuggets by 7 points 53 to 46.
Clevelanders saw the light of victory.
"Fuck, the Nuggets are in danger. This referee doesn't even pretend. The home whistle is too obvious."
"There is nothing we can do. If we don't intervene, the Nuggets will end 4-0. The league will make less money."
"I think if the Nuggets can't do it, let's have a game. I can also do a gentleman sweep."
"Master Li's mentality exploded. It was a foul whenever he touched James."
"Master Li didn't even dare to break through, so he just stood on the outside and dealt cards."
“Playing basketball also has a human touch.”
"Master Li fouled 4 times. I don't know if he can last until the end."
On online forums, fans are complaining about the Nuggets.
The second half started quickly, and Foster still missed the mark.
Usually, Foster will give a team two "sweet dates" to make up for it after blowing its mentality.
In this way, the referee's report after the game will read: There were XX misjudgments in this game, of which team XX benefited XX times and team XX benefited XX times.
The conclusion reached is that although there was a misjudgment, it was basically fair to both sides of the game.
However, the actual situation cannot be reflected in these data.
It's just that in this game, the Nuggets played very tenaciously. They just relied on fast breaks and mid-to-long-range shooting to hold on to the score.
Foster was also helpless. In order to complete the task, he had no shame.
In this way, the Cavaliers still couldn't completely widen the point difference.
The strength gap between the two teams is too big, and Foster has really tried his best.
