Daly said seriously: "Zhou, when we are leading, you should take bolder shots. You have to know that one shot in the game will have a better effect than ten shots in training."
"I see."
Zhou Quan nodded quickly. It seemed that playing reasonable basketball was sometimes wrong. He still had to be the front-runner for the Pistons.
With 10 wins and 11 losses, a winning rate of 47.6%, the Pistons are still eighth in the Eastern Conference, only half a game behind the seventh-place Nets and sixth-place Pacers.
After playing the Suns, the Pistons flew to Los Angeles overnight and will challenge the Clippers away from home in back-to-back games tomorrow.
The Clippers had previously had 11 wins and 10 losses, with a winning rate of 52.3%, ranking ninth in the Western Conference. The Lakers were eighth, with only half a game behind them.
Therefore, in this game, the Clippers worked hard to take advantage of the Pistons' back-to-back lack of physical fitness. After winning, they can surpass the Lakers and squeeze into the top eight.
The Clippers are known as the hell team's star black hole. Owner Sterling is reluctant to invest and only wants to rely on the stars to sell tickets, so the stars are unwilling to come.
During the draft, the Clippers, who held the No. 22 pick in the first round, sent Zhou Quan a trial invitation. At Philip's suggestion, he did not come.
On the afternoon of the 11th, the Pistons came to the Clippers home court for training.
The Clippers' home court is at the USC Memorial Arena. Zhou Quan is very familiar with this place because USC and UCLA are both in Southern California. They are just private universities. He used to play ball and pick up girls here with his friends. .
In the evening, the game begins.
The Clippers' main lineup performed mediocrely, but the bench performed well, scoring a total of 101 points.
Charles Smith, who came off the bench, the power forward that Pat Riley wanted to trade for Mark Jackson, was in excellent form. He made 9 of 17 shots in 29 minutes and scored 23 points with free throws.
James Edwards, the former champion of the Pistons, also scored 14 points on the bench.
Another substitute, Doc Rivers, also scored 12 points.
The Clippers' three major substitutes jointly contributed 49 points. All five substitutes scored a total of 53 points, accounting for 52.48% of the Clippers' total points in the game. However, their playing time only accounted for 46.25%, and their performance was obviously better than the main lineup.
But even though the Clippers' bench performed off the charts, the Pistons still won the game.
Although it was a back-to-back game, Joe Dumars was extremely brave and in excellent condition. He scored 36 points in 43 minutes and shot 57.7% from the field, becoming the team's leading scorer.
Zhou Quan played 32 minutes, shooting 6 of 14 and a shooting percentage of 42.8%. In addition, he made 7 of 8 free throws and scored 19 points, 7 rebounds, 12 assists, 3 steals, 1 block, 3 turnovers and 3 fouls.
Although the personal offense can only be said to be barely passing, the assist performance is very good and is not affected by back-to-back games at all.
The Smiling Assassin came on as a substitute for 21 minutes and had a strong desire to attack. He made 7 of 14 shots, 0 of 1 three-pointers, and 4 of 6 free throws. While scoring 18 points, he also sent 4 assists.
Rodman once again grabbed 18 rebounds, and his average rebounds per game has reached 17.2. As long as he keeps it up, he will have the rebounding title.
But the Pistons won the game not with rebounds, but with assists. The entire team had a combined 29 assists, while the Clippers had 18.
With 11 wins and 11 losses, the Pistons finally pushed their winning rate to 50%.
At the same time, the Pacers and Nets lost one after another, and the Pistons also took this opportunity to climb to the fifth position in the Eastern Conference.
The Pistons are also the only team among the top eight in the Eastern Conference with a winning percentage of 50%. Among them, there are four teams with a winning percentage of over 60%, and the other three teams are below 50% and above 40%.
On the 12th, they continued their away game. The Pistons came to the West and flew to Portland to challenge the Trail Blazers.
Previously, the Trail Blazers had 13 wins and 8 losses, with a winning rate of 61.9%. They were squeezed out of the first place in the Western Conference. Now the Jazz squat in the first position.
During the team training in the afternoon, Zhou Quan finally completed his first pull-up jump shot training task, and his basic shooting skills and pull-up jump shots improved by one level each.
"Three thousand times of training to level up?"
He has some doubts. If there is no system, the training volume should be able to be increased by one level, or even more. Then the function of the system may be to force an increase?
After much deliberation, he couldn't figure it out, and forced improvement seemed impossible, because shooting skills had a foundation and physical fitness must be achieved. In other words, if his body couldn't keep up, shooting skills couldn't be improved without limit.
However, after the skills have been trained to a very high level, it is difficult to improve. It is very difficult to make further progress. Even if the physical fitness supports a higher technical level, for some reasons, it is difficult to achieve the purpose of improvement.
He thought of a possibility. The more precious part of this kind of systematic training mission might be the mandatory improvement after the technical level reaches a high level?
If all in the future were to level up three thousand times, then this kind of system task would be even more valuable.
In the evening, the Pistons played against the Trail Blazers.
In this game, Zhou Quan defeated the opposing defender Terry Porter.
Porter was the 24th pick in the first round of 1985. He was pretty good. He was an All-Star substitute in 1991. This season, he averaged 18.1 points, 5.8 assists, 1.5 steals, 2.3 turnovers, and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.5.
He is 191 centimeters tall and weighs a lot, reaching 88 kilograms, but it is nothing in front of him. He can eat hard with his strength.
First of all, he relied on defense to prevent Porter from making 0 of 4 shots in the first quarter. This confused Porter's mentality. In the end, he made 4 of 14 shots from the field, with a shooting percentage of less than 30%. One of the three-pointers had to be missed. 9 points.
As for himself, he also made 14 shots, hitting 6 goals, with a shooting percentage of 42.8%, barely passing. In addition to free throws, he scored 16 points, 5 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals, 1 block, 3 turnovers and 3 fouls.
In addition to his performance, three people on the team scored 20+, namely Joe Dumars, Isiah Thomas, and Rodman.
With the team's strong offensive and defensive performance, the Pistons defeated the powerful Trail Blazers, defeated the Glider, and won their 12th victory.
That night, the team rushed to Salt Lake City.
On the evening of the 14th, Delta State Center Arena.
"I gotta go out there and I gotta pay that damn kid back."
"No, Karl, don't be impulsive. Your bones are not fully recovered yet. You absolutely cannot play in the game now."
At around six o'clock, in the home team's locker room, the postman was among them, and he had an argument with head coach Jerry Sloan.
He was injured by Zhou Quan on the 15th of last month, exactly one month ago. Although his physique is strong, there are still at least three weeks before he can return.
But this game was the last game of the season between the two teams, and he wanted to play, but Jerry Sloan refused, so a quarrel ensued.
"Karl, don't let your desire for revenge affect your thinking. You have to be clear about what he will do to you if you anger that guy again. Do you know what he will do to you? Have you considered it? What if you get hurt again? ?It’s very possible.”
Jerry Sloan said very sternly.
Postman Ma Long said angrily: "I was not careful last time..."
"No, even if you are careful, you are likely to be injured by his punch again. He specializes in fighting. He can knock you out with one punch. He is definitely at the level of a professional boxer. You should know this. Karl, you must Think about the whole team, you are the boss of this team, everyone is watching you, you can't act on your own initiative."
Jerry Sloan interrupted the postman angrily.
"boom!"
The angry postman turned around and punched the iron wardrobe, making a big hole in the door.
He made up his mind to practice boxing when the season was over. He was going to fight that guy one-on-one, so no one could stop him.
"boom!"
The door to the visiting team's locker room was suddenly pushed open. A Pistons staff member stretched out his upper body nervously and shouted: "Iron Fist, the postman is here. He's aggressive, as if he's going to cause trouble."
"What?"
A group of Pistons players immediately stood up and looked at Zhou Quan.
