Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters-Chapter 465 - 319: I Want Him to Repay Tenfold

Chapter 465: Chapter 319: I Want Him to Repay Tenfold

At the start of the fourth game, Shaquille O’Neal secured the ball for the Miami Heat.

In the frontcourt, the two teams spread out their formations, and O’Neal received the ball in the low post. Taking advantage of the Bucks’ late double team, he muscled past Pachulia’s defense and scored with a turn-around hook shot.

This was the ideal situation for O’Neal. If he could play like this every round, he believed he could score 100 points.

But his opponents wouldn’t give him the chance, and besides, this wasn’t his current role on the team.

Being a dog, you’ve got to be aware of your role. O’Neal’s opening play was just a matter of basketball custom, letting the inside players start off the game.

The Bucks did the same.

Yu Fei called for a pick and roll with Kwame Brown, then fed him the ball for an assisted slam dunk after he rolled to the basket.

2 to 2

Dwyane Wade brought the ball from the backcourt to the frontcourt, facing up against Raja Bell, opting to drive in from the weak side. However, he was covered by Pachulia.

Since the paint was too crowded, Wade couldn’t pass the ball to O’Neal and instead decided to cut across underneath the basket. This further confused the Bucks’ defense, after which he passed the ball to James Posey at the top of the arc.

Posey’s three-pointer hit the iron.

Yu Fei caught the long rebound outside the paint and counterattacked on the spot.

Wade and Posey retreated quickly on defense, but Yu Fei was too far ahead; even when they got back, they posed no immediate defensive threat.

So, they stood there like two statues as Yu Fei, after collecting the ball, completed a Eurostep layup without a response.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to react, but Yu Fei had seized the moment when their bodies were stiff right after coming to a quick stop.

2 to 4

“I told you guys,” Yu Fei said sarcastically, “two people is far from enough to guard me!”

Posey shouted back, “It was just luck!”

Every time Yu Fei mocked the Heat for not being able to guard him even with two players, Posey would brush it off as luck.

Yu Fei found it beneath him to refute such sophistry.

Wanting to make a comeback, Wade actively called for a pick and roll to switch Yu Fei onto him.

In terms of guarding Wade, Yu Fei was not as effective as Bell.

Wade was too fast, especially when he switched directions at full speed, which made it difficult for Yu Fei to react in time given his size.

To defend Wade, Yu Fei could only firmly implement the strategy of conceding the shot but not the drive, and he gave Wade a vast amount of space to shoot, ensuring he wouldn’t get beaten with one move.

Even with an ocean’s width of open space, Wade was still reluctant to solve the problem with shooting.

This further reduced the Bucks’ wariness of his jump shot.

As Wade forcefully penetrated against Yu Fei, even if he managed to break through the defense and get half a body ahead, his layup was still under the threat of being blocked.

In the end, Wade sliced into the basket like lightning, but his layup hit the side of the rim and missed.

“Easy peasy!”

Yu Fei called out loudly, increasing Wade’s psychological burden.

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However, behind Wade was O’Neal, guaranteeing the miss with a follow-up.

Pachulia, though he had positioned himself, was outmatched by O’Neal’s natural talent. Not only did O’Neal grab the rebound over him, but he also drew a foul during the Bucks’ defense of the second-chance offense.

O’Neal pointed at Pachulia, scored the layup.

It was an and-one.

“!!#,” O’Neal bellowed, turning to chest bump his teammate.

O’Neal, embracing his role, seemed to have found the perfect way to play the game.

In the match-up against the Bucks, he had never been so influential.

But now, by focusing on rebounding and defense, and dominating one-on-one, O’Neal had truly become a thorn in the Bucks’ throat.

If Pachulia couldn’t mentally get to O’Neal, his effectiveness on the court was significantly limited.

Karl immediately corrected his mistake, substituting Mutombo for Pachulia.

But this was only a temporary solution.

Mutombo couldn’t defend O’Neal one-on-one either, and his rim protection and rebounding efficiency would only last for a few minutes.

Once his stamina waned, the Bucks would have to find another solution.

“Swish!”

O’Neal made the bonus free throw, 5 to 4.

O’Neal, who had only scored 15 points in the last game, had already racked up 5 points tonight and seemed to be in explosive form.

This made him forget about Yu Fei’s terror, and while retreating on defense he barked at his nemesis, “Wait until we win the series, you’ll shut your stinking mouth forever!”

Originally, Yu Fei planned to deal with Wade first and then find some time to take care of this big fat dog, but now, it seemed Wade wasn’t in a great state initially while O’Neal was full of spirit after scoring five points, developing the delusion that maybe he was still capable.

It had only been a dozen seconds since O’Neal had taunted Yu Fei when Yu Fei scored a floater over him using a 1-5 pick and roll.

“You stupid coward, hiding behind others, do you think you can bark at me?” Yu Fei said, insulting him after making the basket.

Since his words were too harsh, the lead referee Bob Delaney issued him his first warning of the night.

Subsequently, Shaquille O’Neal called for the ball in the low post, thinking it was another opportunity, but the good times did not last long—Mutombo’s rough tactical foul sent him to the free-throw line.

The first free throw clanked off the rim.

Fei said, “You don’t even want the points when they’re handed to you?”

O’Neal insisted he would not be affected and proceeded to take the second free throw.

“What a dumb dog!”

Fei said as he grabbed the defensive rebound.

Pat Riley was very worried that O’Neal might revert to his old ways, so he shouted after the players were retreating, “Shaq, don’t forget your responsibilities!”

But Fei’s counterattack was faster than Riley’s reminder.

The moment he rushed to the frontcourt, all the Miami Heat players realized he was going to shoot a trailing three-pointer, so O’Neal was in front, Wade on the left, and Posey on the right.

Fei jumped into the air, and the blocking attempts from three directions obscured his entire field of vision, at which point he smoothly passed the ball behind him in midair with one hand to the trailing Kevin Martin.

Martin received the ball, drove to the basket, and scored with a layup as easy as the lineup warm-ups before the game.

5 to 7

After Martin scored, Fei turned to Posey, “Was that a fluke?”

Posey couldn’t answer.

So Fei said, “It indeed was a fluke, if it hadn’t been for you two bringing a dumb dog to guard me, Kevin wouldn’t have had such an easy scoring opportunity.”

“!@#￥”

Fei aimed every bullet squarely at O’Neal.

The O’Neal who had been a one-man show at the beginning of the game had vanished.

Only a furious, seven-foot-tall center who seemed to be possessed by the spirits of Ewing and Mourning was left.

Miami originally had a wonderful start to the game, even with Wade off to a rocky start, but O’Neal dominated the paint.

However, a single trash talk had triggered Fei’s switch, and suddenly, the tide of the game spun wildly to the most unfavorable situation for them.

When Wade missed a three-pointer from beyond the arc and Kwame Brown helped Fei grab the defensive rebound, Posey’s timely tactical foul prevented Miami from losing more points.

Yet, Fei’s targeted comments at O’Neal were like a wrecking ball that disintegrated Miamians’ confidence in their interior game.

O’Neal stepped up, got beaten, and Fei strode into the paint, leapt almost a meter high, and unleashed a spectacular tomahawk dunk that elicited both wails and gasps from the American Airlines Arena.

5 to 9

Pat Riley called a timeout with an ashen face.

ESPN analyst Bill Walton said, “The last thing Shaq should do is provoke Frye. He really shouldn’t do that. He should know that he’s the player most likely to bring out all of Frye’s potential.”

And in TNT’s studio, Charles Barkley said with lingering fear, “I’ve said it before—Michael Jordan is an extraterrestrial player, and now, I suspect Big Fei comes from another planet as well. He has a terrifying ability to motivate himself. When he needs to, he can transform into someone else, just as he has been slaughtering on the court these past few minutes. Who can stop him? No one!”

The Miami Heat decided to bench O’Neal.

Riley had seen it—the type of foolishness in O’Neal, who could remember food but not a beating. If provoking Fei could give the team a greater advantage, it would naturally be the right call.

Clearly, however, O’Neal’s provocation had instead led to his own mental collapse.

If things continued this way, the outcome would replay the same as in the first and second games.

So, Riley benched O’Neal early: “You must think clearly about what we need from you. Until you find the answer, I will not let you play.”

Riley replaced O’Neal with Mourning and Payton in for White Chocolate, finally telling Wade, “People will not compare you to Frye just because you beat him with Shaq’s help.”

“You have to face him the way LeBron does, even if he scores 70 points to your 50 lost, people will still respect you and believe in a promising future.”

“I won’t lose by 50 points to anyone,” Wade said gravely, “nor will I let anyone drop 70 on me.”

Riley looked at the young man who considered Michael Jordan his second father, someone who dreamed of becoming a player like Jordan. That was why Riley kept whispering to him, “You can, perhaps, if,” just as Mima Ito’s mother would always whisper into her ear before sleep, “Only you can beat the Chinese women’s table tennis team.”

Wade knew his moment had arrived.

O’Neal had been broken by Fei again; he needed to lead the other veterans in a counterattack against the Bucks.

As the timeout ended, Wade confronted Raja Bell, quickly blew past him, and breezed into the paint to lightly draw a foul on Mutombo, following it with a difficult layup that banked off the backboard and in.

“Now, everything for Miami rests on Dwyane Wade’s shoulders!” ABC’s Mike Breen exclaimed, “He will carry the weight of an entire city and the pressure of becoming a franchise player!”

Wade made the additional free throw, 8 to 9.

Bell picked up the ball and tossed it to Fei: “You’re not just going to watch him, are you?”

“Of course not.”

Benching O’Neal might have been Riley’s best decision of the night, or it could have been his worst, setting the stage for Wade to match up against Fei while also giving the opportunity for the currently best active player to crush the challenger.

Fei casually caught Bell’s pass, signaled for an “ISO” with a hand gesture while still halfway across the court, and said to Bell, “I want to give it back to him tenfold.”

Raja Bell had only seen Jordan with the Wizards.

That sadistic peak Jordan existed only in legend.

But in that moment, looking over Fei’s shoulder, he inexplicably had a thought that would, if expressed, make Big Fei fly into a rage.

Michael Jordan was still alive; he had not retired. He had always been in this league, living in legends, in stories, in Kobe’s mimicry, in Fei’s mind; he was present in Fei’s entire being.

They had become indistinguishable.

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