The No.1 Anti-Fans in Basketball-Chapter 205 - 131: 2010~2011 Regular Season Ends

Outside the camera’s view, James’s expression was not one of anger, but of annoyance.

No one knew the real reason for his annoyance—perhaps it was because he failed to block Crawford’s dunk, or maybe he felt he should not have even tried.

After his annoyance passed, in the next round he moved to the weak side, allowing Chalmers to take charge of the offensive.

Hansen was no longer surprised; this was just the longest river, and even if there was only a small hill ahead, if you couldn’t surge over it, you could still bypass it.

What did surprise Hansen was how quickly James backed down.

You have to understand that when James played for the Cavaliers against the Celtics, even though his overall performance was poor, he still had games where he played through injuries.

But now, James seemed only interested in playing easy ball.

A rational analysis suggested this was due to the great external pressure brought about by "The Decision," coupled with the referees no longer favoring him, causing significant fluctuations in his mentality.

That should also be why the Heat Team had inconsistent results.

After all, Spoelstra had previously adjusted the team roles, making James the organizational, or rather, the ball handler core of the Heat Team.

Like an engine in a car, if it can’t get fuel when going uphill, even if the other parts are strong, it’s easy to stall.

Crawford’s dunk over the defender ignited the FedEx Forum and greatly boosted the Grizzlies’ morale; Chalmers’ offensive handling ultimately came to naught.

Turning back, Crawford went a bit wild as he received a pass from Williams, driving into the paint. Despite losing balance due to a physical confrontation with Haslem, he managed to score at a negative angle.

This completely unsettled Spoelstra, who promptly called for a timeout.

When Crawford went off the court, he was warmly greeted by his teammates and Hansen stood up to high-five him.

It had to be admitted that, although this Crawford and that Crawford were very different in technical aspects, what they shared was the "Super Six" gene.

At that moment, Hansen noticed something interesting happening on the adjoining half of the court.

Spoelstra was organizing tactics with the tactical board, but James was not involved. Instead, he sat on the bench, his head lowered.

In front of him was Haslem.

As the longest-tenured player in the Heat’s roster and a key figure in their 2006 championship, as well as arguably the locker room leader, Haslem was presently leaning over, resting against James’s head, continuously offering words of encouragement.

When the timeout ended, the Heat Team brought Bosh back, and Bosh immediately scored an and-one on Haddadi, who had just been substituted in, stabilizing their position.

The scores were close; with seven minutes left in the quarter, it was 34-29, Grizzlies in the lead.

Both teams gradually brought back their main players.

Coming up, the Grizzlies’ offense finally paid off with Randolph’s strong low-post move scoring an and-one against Ilgauskas’s defense.

After scoring, he turned around and gave a powerful high-five to Hansen who had passed him the ball.

For a low-post powerhouse like him, you might limit him for a quarter, but you couldn’t hold him down all night.

With Randolph making the bonus shot, the Grizzlies’ lead had grown to eight points, heading towards a double-digit lead.

On the Heat’s offense, Wade passed the ball to James, and Bibby came over using all energies to push Hansen away forcefully. freēnovelkiss.com

As Bibby was performing well with three-pointers this season, Hansen followed him; James finally got a mismatch opportunity.

Randolph was the Grizzlies’ weak link in pick-and-roll defense, but unfortunately, as James was unwilling to shoot from mid-range, the weak link disappeared; at such times, his only option in pick-and-roll was to physically dominate smaller players.

Allen had made James struggle defensively back in his Celtics days, Conley became the only choice.

Thanks to the Heat’s frontcourt arrangement with Ilgauskas and Bosh, the strong side space was also significantly stretched.

James tried to break through Conley, but Conley’s footwork was air-tight.

Although he hadn’t yet reached a defensive level standard, as a guard, keeping up with James’s speed was not an issue.

James couldn’t breakthrough, so he shifted directly into post-up mode.

Then, no progress.

Conley might not have been very strong, but his defensive skills were excellent; he didn’t bite on James’s physical tricks. As James exerted force, Conley stepped back; once James finished, Conley leaned forward—this caused James to hammer away a few times but still remain in place.

Due to the five-second back-to-the-basket rule, he couldn’t keep hammering and had to opt for a turnaround fadeaway.

Conley didn’t lunge forward but simply raised his hands to obstruct James’s vision.

James split his legs in the air, and the shot he released seemed completely off-target—it was a clean miss.

When the ball dropped into Little Gasol’s hands, even he didn’t react initially.

The crowd couldn’t help but laugh—this post-up was even more comical than the previous fadeaway after bumping into Randolph.

Perhaps James was feeling the game was too intense and deliberately created some antics to amuse them!

In a way, it was successful because Little Gasol didn’t react immediately, causing the Grizzlies to miss the chance to quickly transition into a fast-break.

Both teams moved back into set plays, where Hansen received Randolph’s pass at the free-throw line, shook off a defending Wade, and made another mid-range shot.

39-29, the Grizzlies successfully widened the gap to double digits.

Turning back, Wade took over the play.

After executing a pick-and-roll with Bosh, he rapidly sliced into the paint. Allen was blocked solidly and couldn’t catch up, nor could Randolph, leaving Hansen the only one to fall back in defense.