Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

He indeed disrupted the team's system on the court.

It reflected in every aspect.

Although the previous lineup didn't have a strong shooting guard, with four players revolving around Shaquille O'Neal, they were always able to start a play. Now with Kobe, who can make plays, the fluency of tactics was far from what it was when Fox was on the field.

This season marked the lowest point in Kobe's career three-point shooting percentage, with only 25%. Therefore, the Wizards would tend to give him a large step when defending him.

Due to the limitations of the era, Kobe wouldn't take this deliberately given opportunity as a provocation, preferring to dribble inside the three-point line.

Whenever he did this, the Triangle Offense system would collapse.

Because the basis of the Triangle Offense is to form triangulated positions on the strong and weak sides. If someone chooses to dribble in, that triangulated positioning loses all its meaning.

Kobe not only brought the defender into the paint but also, after disrupting both sides' formations, passed the ball to an open Fisher.

Was he wrong?

He thought he wasn't.

Fisher scored.

This should've been a happy result, but Phil Jackson's face darkened.

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This is a person who doesn't follow the rules but can be effective.

There are such people in every field. Their common trait is being unpopular.

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People tend to remember his negatives and, through tinted glasses, nitpick his positives. In LA, within Phil Jackson's coaching staff, this kind of discriminatory attitude towards Kobe's style of play was out in the open.

Yu Fei now didn't even know if forcing Kobe to play was good or bad for them.

He had thought Kobe would continue to harbor resentment towards Shaquille O'Neal, but now it seemed like they were back to the "You have a problem with me? I have a problem with you too, but we can take out the opponent first before settling things behind closed doors" mode.

This was the coexistence strategy that had gradually formed since 1996.

Victory was the only reliable glue between O'Neal and Kobe.

As long as they believed maintaining the status quo could keep them winning, O'Neal could continue to tolerate Kobe. If all else failed, he could publish another autobiography next year to badmouth his partner, while Kobe, whose life was a mess, wouldn't mind his working environment being chaotic too, as long as they could win, he could endure.

Yu Fei ran to the frontcourt, still matched against Devean George.

George stuck to Yu Fei cautiously, wanting to block off every aspect of him.

He tried very hard, really hard, just as Yu Fei had seen before the game.

Setting aside the fact that they were opponents now, Yu Fei admired George.

"Hey, Tyronn!" Yu Fei motioned for the ball, which quickly came his way.

With the ball in hand, Yu Fei extended a finger, "I SO!"

Since the Lakers insisted on having George match up against him, Yu Fei had no reason not to take advantage of the matchup.

Yu Fei held the ball with both hands, first advancing with a probing step full of McGrady's flavor, then bouncing the ball, followed by a behind-the-back crossover, looking like a big version of Jordan. George's defensive center of gravity swayed uncertainly, losing his initiative from that moment on.

The moment Yu Fei completed the crossover to the left, he slapped the ball behind his back with his left hand, switching the offensive focus instantaneously to his right hand, accelerated, and upon entering the paint, scored with a floater over Shaquille O'Neal's defense.

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Looking at Shaquille O'Neal's face, enraged beyond measure, Yu Fei mimicked his expressions, like a gorilla that had won its mating rights, puffing his cheeks and emitting a peculiar cry: "Oh oh oh oh oh!!!"

"DG, did you fucking defend seriously?!"

Unable to contain Yu Fei's floater and control his own temper, O'Neal could only vent his fury at George, who had no problems other than being outmatched.

Yu Fei could sense that George's confidence was further eroded by O'Neal's unreasonable questioning.

Could a person lacking confidence, scared and afraid to make mistakes, score in an open three-point shot?

Although it was cruel to Devean George, Yu Fei was very willing to conduct such an experiment.

In the following Lakers offensive round, under Yu Fei's suggestion, the Wizards suddenly switched to man-to-man defense. Aside from Yu Fei, no one was able to quickly double-team.

As expected, the Lakers passed the ball to the post, intending for Shaquille O'Neal to overpower Ratner.

O'Neal indeed had that in his mind, but he was also worried about Yu Fei's sneak attack, so he paid attention.

And there came that damn Yu Fei!

"Idiot!"

O'Neal passed the ball to George before Yu Fei's double-team arrived.

Facing a large open space and under O'Neal's pressuring glare, Devean George shot the open three-point shot with trembling fingers.

In that moment, George thought of many things.

He remembered when he entered the draft, Jerry West, who was then the general manager of the Lakers, doubted he was a problem player because a forward as talented as him shouldn't only be a late first-round prospect.

Then the Lakers found the answer in a psychological test: he was a fragile person.

In the Lakers filled with old guard players, he became an obvious target for bullying. During George's rookie season, O'Neal decided to "train" him. So, while the team went out of town for exhibition games, O'Neal conned George into going to the gym, stripped him naked with the help of a bunch of veterans, taped his hands and mouth, stuck him to the floor, and then left him there.

He didn't resist, he lacked the courage and boldness to stand up to authority, and the torment and bullying by O'Neal and the other veterans only made him more timid.