One Year Left to Play-Chapter 182 - 59: Dancing with God

Compared to the latter half of the first quarter, Jordan has now become more malicious, his mouth hasn’t stopped.

Every successful defense or shot Jordan makes, he spews trash talk, frantically provoking Zhang Hao.

This makes Zhang Hao’s head feel like it’s going to explode, his attention completely scattered, playing worse and worse. Finally, he gets two shooting opportunities, but both bricks, and once, after receiving the ball, it’s directly stolen by Jordan.

It’s not just him, the entire Brooklyn Nets team is suffering, Chales can’t take care of which teammate to cover, and they can only score bet they can. The smooth tactical executions from the earlier two games against the Hornets are completely gone after the Bulls’ substitutions!

At 10 minutes 11 seconds, with Jordan changing defense to pressing defense and stealing from Chales, the Bulls counter-attacked, and Ron Harper’s cutting and dunk scored, the Bulls had a 14-5 run in the past over five minutes, leading the Brooklyn Nets by 8 points, 43 to 35, calling for a timeout!

Zhang Hao was replaced again.

Randy Whitman was not disappointed, Zhang Hao was still trying hard to maneuver, grab rebounds, and defensively trying on the court.

But the opponent was too strong!

Randy Whitman mostly felt regret, hoping for a rookie breakout, this thought would be prevalent, because he indeed believes Zhang Hao is a genius.

At halftime, the Bulls lead the Brooklyn Nets by 11 points, 50 to 39, heading into intermission.

Zhang Hao returned to the locker room, feeling nothing but deathly silence.

Dignity, confidence, drive... all positive emotions were crushed by the Bulls!

Zhang Hao tried hard to calm down, and did find a point to do so—this was only his third game, and it’s just the preseason.

"Is this the truly brutal NBA arena?"

Zhang Hao recalled the Hornets from the past two games, and truly they are nothing like the Bulls.

Perhaps, this is the qualitative difference between the super teams emerging from the late 80s to early 90s and ordinary strong teams like the Hornets.

Not just the strength, but the style of playing, doing things, and speaking.

The Hornets have Dale Curry and Glenn Rice, these two are friendly, Larry Johnson is fiery but loyal, and the Bulls are just bullies!

Zhang Hao thought Kenny Anderson’s pre-game adjectives pinned on Bulls players were spot on, these are just bullies!

Thinking about tonight’s halftime Brooklyn Nets encounter, Zhang Hao suddenly understood—"Jordan wants to showcase their might, eliminating any team’s desire to be enemies with them.

He wouldn’t even let a feeder team like us go.

His goal is possibly to crush every opponent, any opponent, everything... utterly!"

Every dynasty team has its characteristics, Zhang Hao felt it on his first encounter with the Bulls.

Tyrannical!

Unreasonably tyrannical!

From the depths of his heart, Zhang Hao felt a sense of powerlessness towards playing basketball.

What’s most terrifying?

It’s knowing what the opponent intends to do, but being powerless to resist.

Even losing the desire to resist.

Feeling humiliation from the heart, accompanied by frustration.

Zhang Hao sensed this emotion from his teammates too, including Kenny Anderson.

Kenny Anderson has played for a few years, even matched up against Jordan from the first three-peat but still felt like collapsing.

This is just a preseason game, but the Bulls have already started their tyranny.

Currently trailing by 11 points, yet they’ve lost any desire to win, the Bulls crushed their hard-earned desire through the first half.

Zhang Hao didn’t analyze everything clearly, but he felt, if they don’t do something now, they’re going to collapse! Collapse from the start of preseason!

Something has to be done! Must do something!

Just as this thought emerged within Zhang Hao, a subtitle suddenly appeared!

"Special contract player Zhang Hao faced targeted attacks by Michael Jordan in the game, attempting to counter, task: Dance With the God triggered."

"Dance With the God: 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Objective: Under the host’s guidance, in the second half of the game, Zhang Hao must score higher than Michael Jordan when both are on the court.

Reward: 60 days lifespan.

Advanced Reward: If Zhang Hao actively taunts during the game, letting Michael Jordan know the target for confrontation, and accomplishes the task objective, reward Bronze Medal: King of Turnaround Jumpers."

"Holy!"

Seeing the task description, Zhang Hao’s first reaction was to curse! The reward is explosively rich! But is this really a task a human can accomplish?

This made Zhang Hao totally wake up, all the frustration, tension, defeat... all gone.

Zhang Hao stood up and paced non-stop, everyone’s attention in the locker room turned towards him. Though his curse wasn’t understood by teammates, the emotion was sensed, although it wasn’t because of the match.

"Aix, are you okay?" Kenny Anderson asked worriedly: "It’s alright, just a preseason game anyways, the opponent is that man, your plight... don’t mind it."

Kenny Anderson didn’t know how to comfort, matching up against Jordan is just that tragic, one can only figure it out alone.

Zhang Hao looked at Kenny Anderson, understanding his thought, and indeed he figured out at this moment... he truly has nothing he can’t afford to lose, this task instead reminded him!