The late-night conversation between coach Norman Thomas and DeMarcus Cousins is not known to the outside world. However, in the next game after this night, coach Thomas did not put Cousins out of the rotation.
Boston.
North Shore Garden Arena.
This is the home court of the Celtics and the opponent the New York Knicks will challenge tonight.
Since the beginning of this season, the Celtics' record has been pretty good, and they have won many more games than they have lost. This record ranks them fourth in the Eastern Conference.
There is naturally some gap compared to the Knicks, but at least they have made significant progress compared to last season.
Kyrie Irving is still doing what he failed to do last season, which is competing for the leadership of this team.
Obviously, his performance in leading the team last season failed to conquer young players Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. As potential rookies for the Celtics, these two have always disagreed with Irving's appointment.
Both of them have their own ideas, and both have shown All-Star potential, so naturally they are not willing to surrender to Irving.
However, Irving's leadership ability is really unconvincing, especially his child-like temperament, which makes becoming a leader full of challenges.
Internal discord is a big problem, but there are only a limited number of strong teams in the Eastern Conference, and there are few teams with more talent than the Celtics in their lineups. So if all players are healthy and have a slightly better record, it will not be a problem. Not too strange.
Therefore, in the Celtics' internal atmosphere full of contradictions, the team chose to continue to stumble along.
call out.
On the court, the referee's whistle sounded, and the match between the two sides was about to begin.
With the cheers of the fans in the audience, the Celtics' starting lineup came on stage.
The team's No. 1 position is held by Kyrie Irving, the No. 2 position is assigned to Marcus Smart, the No. 3 position is assigned to Gordon Hayward, and the No. 4 and No. 5 positions are assigned to Marcus. Morris and Al Horford serve.
The Knicks are as usual, but the only difference is that this time coach Thomas put Cousins in the starting position.
After experiencing a suspension and an abandonment, Cousins is now much more humble than before.
His temper is still as fiery as before, but compared to the past when he often had quarrels with his teammates, Cousins is obviously much calmer at this time.
The starting lineups of both sides appeared.
The referee throws the ball up.
Snapped.
Dwight Howard jumped high and slapped the ball away first.
The ball fell into the hands of Zhao Feiyang, who carried the ball across half court.
As soon as he crossed the center line, Irving immediately got in front of him. The scene of the confrontation between the two last season is still vivid in my mind. At that time, the comparison between Irving and Zhao Feiyang became a hot topic in countless media, and later facts proved that having Zhao Feiyang next to LeBron is obviously better than having Irving.
Of course Irving is very strong, but he will become a factor of instability for the team, which is a disaster for a championship-winning team.
Zhao Feiyang is different!
He is much more mature than Irving, especially on the key issue of team leadership, he never shows any excessive thoughts. Even though he led the Cavaliers to relatively good results while LeBron was resting, he still didn't take the matter of striving to be the team leader seriously.
Irving continues to stay with the Celtics this season, while Zhao Feiyang led his team to New York to build a team that competes for the championship.
There was originally a competitive relationship between them, and now they are leading their respective teams to fight. As the leaders of their respective teams, no one is willing to show any signs of giving in.
One on one.
Zhao Feiyang held the ball and faced Irving in singles, and he directly signaled to his teammates to pull away. When everyone thought he was about to rush to the basket and break through with the ball, Zhao Feiyang made a feint towards Irving, and then he threw a long three-pointer amidst the exclamations of the audience.
Uh-huh.
The basketball fell steadily into the basket.
The ball went in.
There were exclamations outside the stadium.
A super long three-pointer as soon as the game started really shocked the fans. On the Knicks' bench, the bench players couldn't help but stand up and cheer for him when they saw how brave their leader was.
It was Celtic's turn to fight back.
Irving, who was at a disadvantage, was not willing to be outdone and quickly got the ball from his teammates.
After getting the ball, Irving advanced with the ball, and after halftime he was also marked by Zhao Feiyang. The two were one-on-one, and Zhao Feiyang put on a very serious posture and went up to snatch the basketball from Irving's hand.
The two met each other, and Owen took the opportunity to shake.
Suddenly, he made a mistake and pulled the ball away. While avoiding Zhao Feiyang's interference, he rushed out from the left side. They had already rushed to the two zones, but when Irving was about to break through, Zhao Feiyang came up.
The two met in mid-air. Irving threw the basketball and Zhao Feiyang jumped high.
boom.
Zhao Feiyang failed to block Irving's shot, but Irving's layup also failed to score, and the basketball bounced off the backboard.
"Damn it!"
Irving shook his head helplessly and sighed when he realized that he didn't score.
The rebound fell into the crowd, and Howard and the opponent's big man Horford went up to fight for it at the same time. The basketball bounced out in the chaos, and when Morris was about to snatch it away, Cousins stepped up.
Snapped.
He snatched the ball away from the opponent.
After getting the basketball, he chose to rush out with the ball.
"It's over!"
“This guy DeMarcus is going it alone again!”
The Knicks' bench noticed the situation, and teammates were surprised when they saw Cousins himself dribbling the ball across half court. Head coach Thomas also shook his head helplessly.
"No!"
"do not do that......."
Zhao Feiyang was also speechless, but he still accelerated towards the half court, planning to meet Cousins' cooperation at any time.
The two rushed across the half court one after another. Just when Cousins was about to encounter a double-team from the Celtics, he suddenly threw the ball with a long pass.
The basketball was given to the left side of the basket, and Zhao Feiyang successfully received the pass he threw while running.
Snapped.
An alley-oop was successfully completed, and Zhao Feiyang ended the battle with a dunk.
There was another exclamation outside the court.
Celtics fans were obviously shocked by the cooperation between Zhao Feiyang and Cousins!
On the Knicks bench, a group of watching teammates breathed a sigh of relief. Head coach Thomas thought his efforts were ineffective, but he finally breathed a sigh of relief after discovering that Cousins was deliberately attracting double-teams from the opponent.
"It seems like DeMarcus has really changed... As long as he doesn't mess around, our current lineup is also very strong..."
