Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Yu Fei laughed when he heard it: "Sprewell, you're a damn genius, I want to order a thousand copies!"

Inside the Bucks' camp, there was pure joy because they knew that the Lakers were no different from the regular season; they were very close to defending their championship.

Yu Fei's Finals performance with 40+11+7 per game cemented his reputation as the league's best player.

When defeating the Spurs last season, Yu Fei wasn't even considered the best player of the Finals because experts thought Duncan had a higher overall impact.

With Shaquille O'Neal being recognized as the League's best player so far in the new century, his performance in the first game of the Finals was clearly inferior to Yu Fei's, and his 35+15 stat line couldn't mask his helplessness and ineptitude facing pick-and-roll offenses.

ESPN's top writer, Marc Stein, wrote an article titled "If 21-year-old Frye Yu is the League's best."

Stein reviewed Yu Fei's career thus far over three seasons, compiling his accolades, and concluded with the question: "If the Bucks create the biggest upset in 33 years(1), with 21-year-old Frye as the absolute core of back-to-back championship teams, he would have the credentials to enter the ranks of the top ten players in history. From this perspective, maybe we are witnessing the birth of the next Greatest of All Time."

Since Stein's personal relationship with Yu Fei was well known, his remarks seemed somewhat biased.

However, it was Stein's reminder that made everyone realize that although Yu Fei might lack experience, he already had several key accolades.

If he wins the championship again this year, the honor of back-to-back titles would suffice to place him among "the greatest of all time."

When Yu Fei heard that Stein was openly discussing whether he could become the Greatest of All Time, he just felt that maintaining a good relationship with the media was beneficial.

The talk of back-to-back championships and loaning the title of GOAT was premature; the fourth estate is really spouting nonsense.

Although popping the champagne early isn't ideal, Yu Fei feels that everything else is negotiable during the Finals, except deciding on the FMVP before the outcome is clear.

Unlike the Bucks, the Lakers were surrounded by harsh external public opinion and internal environment.

Due to years of dominance, the Lakers had made countless enemies; their situation had basically reached a point where "if the Lakers have trouble, there's applause from all sides."

The "Los Angeles Times" didn't forget to offer respect to the home team; they published an article titled "The Alarm Bell Tolling Long," which essentially told fans not to panic, claiming the Lakers' championship win was as secure as it gets, with only a first-game oversight due to underestimation.

And so, the second game of the Finals arrived.

Tonight, the OK combination showed the familiar performance fans had come to expect.

Kobe shot 14 out of 27, and Shaquille O'Neal 10 out of 20; both had overcome the problem of limited space brought about by the Iron Bucket Formation.

However, if the offense's problem was solved, what about the defense?

The defense by Kobe wasn't a problem, and the Bucks hadn't planned on turning him into their point of attack.

Previously when facing the Bucks, the Lakers' defensive loophole had always been Shaquille O'Neal.

Yu Fei had developed a condition where he felt unbearable suffering seeing O'Neal do well, so starting from the second quarter, he specifically targeted O'Neal extensively.

This left O'Neal running ragged; although some teammates could help spare him from Yu Fei's onslaught, most of the time, he had to face the problem alone.

O'Neal's response was far from ideal. First, he gambled on Yu Fei's shooting touch and didn't step out to defend the pick-and-roll. As a result, Yu Fei went 4 for 4, and then O'Neal began to guard the high post. Thus, in the following seven turns, Yu Fei scored four times and drew two fouls on O'Neal.

O'Neal's problems in defending pick-and-rolls were so severe that whenever the Bucks called for one, the Lakers' supporters felt the play was already over.

O'Neal, unable to resolve the pick-and-roll, eventually fouled out.

As O'Neal left the court, Yu Fei had the impression that this year's Lakers weren't receiving the "extra favors" from the League as they had in the past.

After O'Neal's exit, the "you go one-on-one, then I go one-on-one" game he played with Kobe could not continue.

Beyond OK, there was not a third player in the Lakers scoring in double digits.

Payton reverted to being a frigid shooter, Karl Malone, dragging a heavily injured knee, went 3 for 10, and both Fisher and Fox scored less than 5 points.

O'Neal was broken through on the defensive end, and the others were powerless on offense, squandering Kobe's strong offensive and defensive performance.
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107 to 94

The Bucks won two in a row, leading the series 2 to 0.

"Part of the reason is expectations," Fox articulated the reason for the Lakers' dismal away performance, "We expected to win everything easily this year; so when we didn't, it looked like we had serious problems."

"It's not a switch between deciding to play well and deciding not to," Phil Jackson seemed to want people to believe that the Lakers being blown out by the Bucks was due to his players not wanting to play their best.

"It's about sacrificing oneself. Sometimes we choose to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of the team, and other times our attention shifts to personal achievements," Fox explained further.

O'Neal's performance was reflective of what Fox described: "We expected to win easily, because that's how we had played in the Finals before."

The Lakers' arrogance and haughtiness exceeded Yu Fei's imagination.

Thus far in the Finals, except for O'Neal, none of their starters had a shooting percentage higher than 40%, and none of their substitutes had a percentage higher than 50%. And then you attribute this to "you don't want to play properly"?

The excessively arrogant statements from the Lakers' side indeed invited criticism from across the country.