After the first game of the Finals, both the Timberwolves and the Pistons were given two days to recuperate. The Finals G2 will start on June 8, and the location will still be the Target Center Arena.
A strong start to the finals, coupled with Lin Fei's outstanding ability when defending Hamilton,
This quickly increased the Timberwolves' probability of winning the championship to 76%, while the Pistons were only 24%.
At the same time, in ESPN's Finals MVP rankings, Kevin Garnett continues to rank first, with "Madman" and Billups ranking second and third.
Lin Fei, on the other hand, relied on his explosive performance of 26 points with 7 three-pointers in G1 of the finals, and was ranked fourth in the FMVP list, and is expected to continue to climb.
It is worth mentioning that.
The scene in which Lin Fei hit a three-pointer from a 0-degree angle on the right side with a bleeding nose after flying to save the ball in G1 of the finals also became the cover of the latest issue of the American "Sports Illustrated".
This is the first time that a Chinese player and an NBA undrafted player have been featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. "Linsanity" has quickly become popular among American fans.
In the genuine jersey sales stores around the Target Center Arena, due to insufficient reserves of Lin Fei's Timberwolves No. 22 jersey, there has been a situation where supply exceeds demand.
This led to collective dissatisfaction among Timberwolves fans and complaints.
Nike Group, which officially cooperates with the Timberwolves team, has placed orders at surrounding factories and quickly produced a brand new Lin Fei No. 22 Timberwolves jersey, totaling more than 100,000 pieces.
On the Chinese side.
In some small garment manufacturing towns in the south of the Yangtze River, a group of forward-looking workshop owners have seized the business opportunity and are already rushing to produce Lin Fei's No. 22 Timberwolves pirated jersey...
Several well-known domestic sports brands such as Li Ning, Anta and Tebu have also begun to call Lin Feiyuan's agent Qin Dongmei in the United States to discuss sportswear endorsement matters.
United States, California, Stanford.
In a Starbucks coffee shop on the Stanford University campus.
An Asian beauty with a slim figure and delicate features was sitting at a table by the window, carefully flipping through the documents in her hand, and recording something with a pen from time to time.
This Asian beauty looks to be in her mid-twenties, wearing straight-leg pants and a pair of white canvas shoes, and a V-neck blue sweater on her upper body.
On her tall, fair nose, she wears a pair of brown-rimmed glasses, the latest model from Gucci for women.
The gold Chanel women's watch on her left wrist is also valuable.
This Asian beauty is none other than Lin Fei's agent Qin Dongmei, a top student in the Department of Finance at Stanford University.
Qin Dongmei's facial features are quite similar to Tong Liya in her previous life in the entertainment industry, but her whole body exudes the noble temperament of a CEO of a listed group, with sharp thinking and resolute actions.
Before the NBA Finals started, the reason why Qin Dongmei hoped to finalize a big team contract for Lin Fei in advance was because he was afraid that he would show off his hips in the Finals and even not get playing time.
Although Qin Dongmei has been silently supporting Lin Fei to enter the NBA, she has always judged issues rationally and never been blindly confident.
But after G1 of the finals, Qin Dongmei's situation completely opened up. He saw a miracle in Lin Fei that had never been seen in the NBA.
And this miracle is still continuing unreasonably and unscientifically...
As Lin Fei fully demonstrated his worth in the first game of the finals, his defensive end was no longer useless.
Contract offers from various NBA teams have also increased, one after another.
The ensuing business endorsement negotiations are also endless...
Qin Dongmei was naturally very busy these two days, receiving at least 50 calls every day.
While comparing the price and terms details of the star contracts signed by Nike, Adidas and other major sports brands in the history of the document, the ring tone of the Samsung mobile phone placed aside rang again.
"The sparrows outside the window are talking too much on the telephone poles. When you say this, it feels like summer..."
The title song of Jay Chou's latest album expresses the taste of summer and first love. This is also the most distinctive music label in the streets of China in 2004.
Qin Dongmei quickly answered the phone, and the voice of the general manager of an NBA team came from the other end.
After patiently listening to what the other party meant, Qin Dongmei responded in proficient English without being humble or overbearing:
"Mr. Thomas, are you sure it's US$9 million over two years? I'm really sorry. With Lin's current worth, this contract offer is no longer competitive!"
Qin Dongmei was very busy, while Lin Fei continued his daily training step by step.
Including individual strength and endurance training, shooting training, and team tactical training.
The systematic ten-fold strength, endurance and speed training allowed Lin Fei to achieve greater talent improvement in personal training. This can be said to be a slow transformation.
In terms of latest bench press strength, Lin Fei has increased from 74 kilograms to 75 kilograms.
In terms of sprint speed, Lin Fei also increased from the previous limit of 11.2 seconds to 11.09 seconds.
Although it is only an improvement of 0.11 seconds, for many professional sprinters, this may be an insurmountable gap in their lifetime.
The 45 training points gained in three days, plus the 200 free attribute points awarded for winning G1 in the finals,
Before the second game of the finals, Lin Fei added a total of 245 free attribute points to defense.
[Ding, congratulations to the host, all 245 points of free attributes have been added to the defensive attributes, and the defensive attributes are +16, raised to 46 points]
Lin Fei nodded with satisfaction and quickly clicked on the five items of defensive attributes:
[Single defense: 45]
[Assistant defense: 45]
[Defense change: 45]
[Steals: 60]
[Blocks: 35]
[Comprehensive defense: 46]
Lin Fei did not expect that his steal attribute would be directly improved to 60 points, which is the passing line, while his blocking attribute was the lowest. It seems that this has a lot to do with the physical fitness of his defender.
Thinking that he had played 4 playoff games and had only 2 assists in other positive statistics besides scoring, Lin Fei couldn't help but look forward to it.
In the next G2 of the finals, can he contribute even one steal?
June 8, 2004.
Target Center Arena.
It’s six o’clock in the evening local time, one hour before the game starts.
The Target Center Arena was packed with people, and the atmosphere was even crazier than the previous game.
In the home team's locker room at this time,
In the loud voice of the DJ on site, the Timberwolves players were preparing for the appearance ceremony.
Usually, in the team's pre-game appearance ceremony, the last person to appear is the team's well-deserved core boss.
Of course, this boss has a strength level, but also a spiritual and totem level.
If you can't tell who the boss of an NBA team is, the appearance ceremony before the game can tell.
During the original Big Three era of the Miami Heat, although LeBron James was the strongest, Dwayne Wade was always the one who played the finale in the team's pre-game ceremony.
During the Golden State Warriors' Big Four era, it was Stephen Curry who played the finale, not Kevin Durant.
Except for the players who played in the finale, there is no fixed order in other terms.
But usually the first player to play is also an important role for the team. In many cases, he represents tonight's game. This player will take on a big role.
A few minutes before the entrance ceremony began, Flip Saunders in the locker room looked solemn and his eyes rested on Lin Fei:
"Lin, you and Szebiak will start tonight, Sprewell will play shooting guard, and Kevin and Olowokandi will continue to partner in the paint!"
This five-tiger lineup is the combination with the highest overall plus-minus value for the Timberwolves in the first game of the Finals.
Flip Saunders wants to get off to a good start so that the home team can have a greater psychological advantage.
In the visiting team's locker room,
Pistons head coach Larry Brown patted Hamilton on the shoulder and said after careful consideration:
"Richard, use more ball-holding tactics tonight. We will completely expose Lin's defensive loopholes!"
After listening to the coach's words, Hamilton nodded solemnly, and other Pistons players also supported Larry Brown's tactical arrangements.
Although Hamilton is a master of movement without the ball, his ball-holding ability has also reached the NBA average level.
In the original world, especially after Billups was traded to the Nuggets in exchange for Iverson, Hamilton's ball-handling roles increased significantly in the 2008-09 season, and his average assists per game also increased significantly.
But facing an unpredictable and mysterious opponent, Hamilton couldn't guarantee that his relatively ordinary ball-holding and post-playing skills could really penetrate Lin Fei's "defensive loophole"?
In a luxury box on the roof of the Target Center Arena.
Phil Knight, chairman of Nike Group, sat on the sofa, condescendingly waiting for the start of the second finals game.
Looking at his opponents in this year's finals, Phil Knight was actually not happy.
Although Nike signed "Little Emperor" LeBron James for 93 million in 7 years, he performed well in his rookie season and is expected to become the league's number one player in the next five years.
But Kobe's Eagle County incident caused heavy losses to Nike, which just signed the Black Mamba last year.
The key is that Kobe Bryant's Lakers have not yet reached the finals.
In addition, Kevin Garnett, the hottest superstar in this year’s finals, just switched from Nike to and1 last year.
Finals stars such as "Madman" and Billups are also owned by Adidas.
This naturally made Phil Knight feel shameless, and it also affected the group's sales efficiency to some extent.
At this moment,
The beautiful secretary Silinda gently opened the door and walked in, wearing red high heels, and reported the sales ranking of NBA team jerseys that cooperated with Nike in the past week.
"Mr. Knight, Kevin Garnett's jersey sales climbed to No. 1 this week, surpassing LeBron James!"
"In addition, the number 22 of the Timberwolves, his jersey sales have suddenly increased. He sold more than 20,000 pieces in the past week, but this is largely due to insufficient supply!"
"Mr. Knight, Lin's performance in the Western Conference Finals and Finals has continued to be efficient, winning the attention of Timberwolves fans and many NBA enthusiasts at home and abroad!"
"Besides, like Yao, he is backed by the huge Chinese market, so should you consider signing him? After all, if you sign now, the price is relatively easy to negotiate!"
Phil Knight looked down at the gorgeous lights on the court at this time, listened to the deafening music, and saw that the first person scheduled to appear in the Timberwolves' pre-game appearance ceremony was actually Lin Fei, the undrafted Chinese draft pick.
The deep-set eye sockets shone with wisdom. After thinking for a while, he nodded slowly and decided to take a small gamble:
"Then contact Lin's agent as soon as possible and try to offer him a shorter sneaker contract, no more than 4 years, and the total contract price should be controlled within 20 million US dollars!"
