Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

At the beginning of the second quarter, the core players from both sides were resting, but people like Red and Miles were still on the court.

Red often got scolded by Karl for messing up tactics.

But Yu Fei was more focused on Miles, this guy who had just been completely outplayed by him, seemed not to have fully recognized himself yet.

Miles broke into the basket awkwardly, missed a layup during a contest, yet managed to grab three offensive rebounds with his continuous jumping ability.

The funny thing was, every time he got an offensive rebound, he wanted to finish with a putback, but he didn't have the skills for it. As soon as someone was in front of him, he would get nervous, and with just a bit of defensive pressure, his technique would deform.

Yu Fei had a feeling that if he had Miles's physical quality, he would be stronger than he is now.

"What the hell does this guy practice normally?"

Quentin Richardson, who was once inseparable from Miles on the Clippers, immediately answered, "Dunking!"

"Huh?"

The answer was so idiotic that Yu Fei couldn't believe it.

Teacher Q, seeing that Big Fei didn't believe it, got worked up: "Really, the thing Darius practices the most is dunking."

Yu Fei didn't even know that dunking was something that needed practice.

For someone who can dunk, isn't it just a matter of having hands?

"Don't kid me, Q, I don't believe it."

Teacher Q then explained the reason behind it.

The Clippers at the turn of the century were a typical young team with hardly any veterans, all promising stocks with potential. Consequently, their style of play was reckless, or to put it bluntly, everyone just played wildly. After Miles joined, he increased the team's wins by 50%.

Doesn't that sound impressive? Actually, it just raised the Clippers from 15 wins to 31, and whether it was really correlated to him was hard to say. Within that Clippers team, he only averaged 10 points per game; he looked like a very rough rookie, with no stable offensive means other than dunking.

This was what Teacher Q meant when he said Miles mainly practiced dunking.

Although Miles's stats were not eye-catching and his role not crucial, he genuinely increased the Clippers' home attendance by 20%, and the cheerleaders of the Clippers team were competing to give him number 13.

The most famous was a Clippers cheerleader who said Miles's dunks were the sexiest thing in Los Angeles.

So, for Miles, even if he only averaged 10 points and the team didn't make the playoffs, he was treated like a superstar, with girls rushing to him and sponsors licking his boots, how could life be any happier? Practice? That was just dunking, right? Technical refinement and such were irrelevant, it was better to figure out which area had higher quality girls so he could cast a wide net and catch big fish.

After hearing Teacher Q's introduction, Yu Fei couldn't help but exclaim, "Is there really such an absurd person? Q, how do you know so much about him?"

"Ah..." Teacher Q said awkwardly, "We used to be together every day..."

So he was also involved in those ridiculous things? Is that what it means?
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Yu Fei is not exactly a paragon of morality, what he does off the court is his business if he plays well on the court; what can others say? But the thing is Teacher Q seemed like a player who was still developing normally, whereas Miles had stopped progressing.

Clearly, one must choose their friends wisely. Guys like Big Q who mess around with you on one hand and secretly work hard on their own on the other are truly detestable.

In the following few minutes, the situation on the court changed a bit.

Red performed well for a while, managing to break through and pull up for jumpers, but he lost his touch from the three-point line. Moreover, when the Cavaliers upped their defensive intensity, his capability to play one-on-one could not be relied upon.

This is a common phenomenon among modern scorers.

Basically, every weak team has such a player who looks like a superstar when things are going well, but often can't maintain it, and when their shooting cools off, they're not much use anymore.

Yu Fei checked Red's three-point shooting percentage tonight.

0 for 3.

Although his overall shooting percentage was still close to 50%, Yu Fei didn't need him as a secondary ball-handler to score 20 points.

Red may understand this, but not every player is willing to bet what's left of their career on Yu Fei like Mason, the old dog.

Midway through the quarter, Red and the second unit not only failed to extend the lead but allowed Boozer to lead the Cavaliers in closing the gap.

The Bucks called a timeout.

Yu Fei threw a towel to Red and then said, "You played a bit chaotically just now."

Red pretended not to understand what Yu Fei really meant: "Yeah, I missed a few shots."

"Actually, you don't need to play that complicated," said Yu Fei. "The way you played before was fine. When it gets complicated, mistakes are likely to happen."

This was exactly the issue that Red was constantly preoccupied with.

Playing too simply, doesn't that signal a high replaceability?

He didn't want to be defined as a pure shooter, and besides, how much could he get for his next contract if he was just a pure shooter?

Without responding to Yu Fei's comment, Red just pretended to think and wiped the sweat from his face with the towel.

After the timeout, the Bucks made four substitutions.

Teacher Q, Yu Fei, Ray Allen, and Pachulia came in for Red, Sprewell, George, and Haslem.

On the Cavaliers' side, they also brought back LeBron James and other starters.

Seeing LeBron, Yu Fei felt energized again. Although he had taught little LeBron a few lessons in the first quarter, he then got preoccupied with schooling Miles and had almost forgotten about the little brother.

"Big Fei, you gonna teach LeBron a lesson?" Big Q, who enjoyed watching a good show, said, "Buddy, do some rough play, like a brutal alley-oop dunk on his mother!"