Chapter 51: What a Birth (-word chapter)
In the second quarter, the players' touch did improve, but it was still a little worse than usual.

Since the referee's whistle was loose today, the intensity of the confrontation rose to a higher level from the second quarter.

Zheng Yang was hit by at least three elbows during each layup, commonly known as "three elbows without a layup." One of the elbows hit his nose, injuring him instantly.

Of course, the Mavericks are not to be trifled with either. They used their own methods to retaliate against the Kings, making life difficult for them.

At the end of the first half, the Mavericks were still trailing by 42 points at 44:2.

The head coaches of both teams have no idea what to do about the current situation on the field. It is obvious that everyone's touch is not good. What can they do?

They can only ask everyone to defend harder and harder. It doesn't matter if we can't score, as long as we don't let the other side score.

Therefore, at the beginning of the third quarter, as soon as Nowitzki received the ball, Divac hit him twice in the kidney.

The action was so obvious that Divac himself had to laugh out loud in embarrassment when he said it was just a small move.

Nowitzki looked at the referee in disbelief, and the latter also looked at him with a frown?
What's wrong? Is there a problem? Is anyone dead on the field?

No, right? Then the game continues.

The referee didn't whistle, and Nowitzki had no choice but to use a Tai Chi "top elbow" on Divac, then use a Doupo "baji collapse" on Webber who was assisting in defense, and then make a layup.

Even though the basketball had already entered the basket, Divac still came up to grab the rebound, and then "accidentally" elbowed Nowitzki in the chest while falling.

Divac: Dude, are you okay? It was an accident, it was a rebound! Understand!
Nowitzki: It’s okay, it’s okay! No foul, normal action, normal action! I understand!

Divac: Hey, man, your chest is swollen, are you okay? Do you want to go see a doctor?
Nowitzki: It's okay, it's okay. I just had breast augmentation surgery. Everything is normal!

Nowitzki waved his hand, and then waved his hand in the next defensive round, and the two teams started a hand-to-hand fight.

To be honest, with the intensity in the third quarter, even if Artest came, he would have received two slaps in the face!
The more people they hit, the less ball they played. Therefore, the scores of both sides in the third quarter were 18:17, and the total score was 60:61. The Mavericks were still behind by 1 point.

The audience sitting on the sidelines started to get bored. They didn't buy the wrong tickets. They bought tickets for NBA, so why did they get involved with WWE?

You know what, these players are much more real than WWE!

At least those elbow strikes were delivered with real force!
Coach Zhang from CCTV took the opportunity to bring up Chinese martial arts and kept talking about it. Yu Jia tried to bring the topic back several times but failed.

Okay, let’s talk about Chinese martial arts. There’s really not much to talk about this competition anyway.

In the fourth quarter, the two teams had continued the fighting style of the previous game, but after the referee called an offensive foul on each team, the game finally got back on track.

Webber, Doug Christie, Nowitzki and Zheng Yang took turns to shoot, each showing their skills.

But the Kings eventually won the game.

There was no way around it. The Mavericks were too tough in this game. Except for Zheng Yang and Nowitzki, no one in the starters had a shooting percentage over 40%.

Although Zheng Yang was a tough shot in the first quarter, his touch improved later on and his final shooting percentage was around 43%.

When the game ended with a score of 79:83, the Kings fans cheered excitedly.

Although this game is not interesting at all, who cares? As long as we win, it’s fine.

After the total score was tied at 1-1, players from both sides left the field with heavy faces.

Even in the post-match interviews, the Kings players stopped making wild statements. Shouting a few times before the game could be considered a sign of confidence, but if they still dared to say such things after playing two games, they were like sand dollars.

The next battlefield will move to the Mavericks' home court, the American Airlines Center.

The Mavericks, who have two home-court advantages, are wondering whether they can change the score to 3-1. The fans in Dallas are very nervous, and the fans in Sacramento are even more nervous.

出走半生，归来能不能3-1领先，实在不行2-2也行，千万别1-3啊！
After two games, the most watched first round in the Western Conference is still between the Mavericks and the Kings. After all, the other three series are currently leading 2-0. The next result will either be a sweep or a gentleman's sweep. Normally, there will be no other results.

Only the Mavericks and the Kings remain a mystery.

The other three leading Western teams have also been watching the fun. No matter who meets these two teams, they will be in trouble. It is best to let them torture each other now!
It would be even better if we could make it to a tiebreaker!

……

After returning to Dallas, Nelson gave the players half a day off as usual, and then conducted some training.

After the training, Nelson gathered the players together and told them about a special situation in tomorrow's Game 3, asking them to be mentally prepared in advance.

"According to current information, the air conditioning in our arena will break down tomorrow, so everyone should be prepared to play the game in a steaming cage.

Although it will be hard for us, don’t forget that the king will be more uncomfortable than us. Their average age is older than ours. We just need to last longer than them. ”

After listening to what old Nelson said, everyone looked at the air conditioning in the arena that was still working, and they understood what he meant.

Why is home advantage so important? On the surface, the only difference is that there are no fans supporting you when you play away from home, but in fact, there is a lot of room for maneuver.

For example, adjusting the looseness of the net, speeding up or slowing down the speed of the basketball's descent, and helping the team to fast break or return to defense.

For example, when the Celtics do some tricks on the floor, some balls will bounce off the hollow floor and easily cause the ball handler to make mistakes.

For example, like the Mavericks, the air conditioning was broken and everyone was playing in a steam room.

You say this is immoral and unfair?
But off-court factors are also part of basketball games. According to what you said, fans cannot cheer for the home team during the game, otherwise it would be unfair to the away team.

How much fairness is there in the world?

Giving you the opportunity to play at home means that you can use all off-field factors to help the team win, right?

You have advantages that you cannot use, and don’t blame others if you lose the game!

For the final victory, the players all nodded in approval, and after the team was disbanded, Zheng Yang found old Nelson privately again.

"Zheng, those factors are all part of the basketball game. You don't take them too seriously."

Old Nelson thought Zheng Yang was a fool and wanted to debate with him.

But Zheng Yang smiled and shook his head.

"No, coach. What I mean is... maybe there are more ways we can gain an advantage."

Old Nelson listened to Zheng Yang's plan with a confused look on his face, and after listening, he smiled at Zheng Yang as if he were a fellow traveler.

You are not a good person either! Haha!
……

Game G3 was scheduled for April 4. The Kings players flew here on the 24rd and then checked into the hotel.

This period was normal and nothing happened.

But starting at 12 o'clock in the evening, fireworks were set off near the hotel where the Kings were staying, one string after another, and they couldn't be stopped at all. In less than ten minutes, the Kings players were awakened from their sleep.

"What's going on? Why are the fireworks going off all the time?"

Peja was woken up with an impatient look on his face. In order to prepare for tomorrow's game, he went to bed early tonight. He was having a sweet dream when he was woken up by the fireworks.

No matter who comes to this situation, they will not feel good.

I originally thought that the fireworks would be over in 5 minutes at most, but they continued to go on for a full 20 minutes.

And the more you put in, the more you put in!

Under normal circumstances, Peja might have just gone to the bar to play, regardless of whether he set off fireworks or not, but he still has a game tomorrow.

If we go to the bar, we won’t be able to play ball tomorrow.

Don't think of everyone as Jordan. He was able to play cards with Magic Johnson all night on the eve of the finals and scored 35 points and 6 three-pointers in the first half of the next day. Can you do it?
Unable to bear it any longer, Peja called the front desk to ask what was going on, but the other party said they knew nothing.

After a while, the team's head coach Rick Adelman came over personally to comfort the players.

"This is probably the work of Mavericks fans or the Mavericks team. We have called the police, but we don't expect the fireworks to stop in the short term.

Put some earplugs in your ears first, we will go to another hotel to rest after the game tomorrow."

Since the head coach said so, Peja had no choice but to wear earplugs to reduce the impact of the fireworks as much as possible.

The fact was just as Rick Adelman expected, the fireworks did not end until three o'clock in the morning. The police said that the person who set off the fireworks has not been found yet, and since he did not set off any more fireworks later, the matter was over.

Rick Adelman has greeted their families countless times in his heart, but in reality he can't do anything about them.

Damn old Nelson, he actually came up with such a conspiracy, what a villain!
Old Nelson, who took the blame for Zheng Yang, was sleeping soundly in his room at this moment.

The next morning, seeing that his teammates looked sleepy, Rick Adelman had to give them half a day off so that they could have a good rest.

Whether to train or not is secondary, the most important thing is the condition.

If the players were in the same offensive state as in G2, they would have had no choice but to hand over G3 to others.

When the Kings players entered the locker room at the American Airlines Center in the evening, they immediately smelled a strange odor.

Peja took a deep breath while looking for the source of the smell, and finally, after pushing open the toilet door, he exclaimed "Fuck" three times in a row.

Rick Adelman thought he had encountered an accident, but when he rushed over to take a look, he found out why Peja was so excited.

It turned out that the sewer and toilet in the bathroom were blocked, sewage was flowing everywhere, and the yellow turbid liquid in the toilet made people want to vomit when they saw it.

Rick Adelman angrily found the manager of the arena, who helplessly said that there was nothing he could do because the toilet in the locker room was blocked.

The maintenance workers are on their way and may be able to fix it before 10pm.

Before 10 o'clock... I was back at the hotel at 10 o'clock.

Rick Adelman asked them to change locker rooms, but they said that except for the home locker room, the toilets in other rooms were blocked.

If they wanted to smell the other toilets, he could help them change them.

Rick Adelman finally had no choice but to return to the locker room while saying "Fuck".

Why are there such shameless people? Old Nelson, you are so shameless!

Innocent old Nelson took the blame for Zheng Yang again.

After finally adjusting their mood, the Kings players angrily walked out of the player tunnel and prepared to warm up.

After experiencing the torture last night and just now, they were already extremely angry, and they wished they could fight the Mavericks for 300 rounds.

I must definitely try some calf stew today.

But after warming up on the court for a while, they found something wrong. Why was it getting hotter and hotter?

Rick Adelman, who was already sweating profusely, took off his suit jacket and kicked over a chair beside him angrily.

Damn it, it’s really hateful!

Old Nelson, from now on, you and I will never coexist!

He already knows what's going on in the stadium tonight!

This old Nelson is really capable of all kinds of schemes and tricks, he even turned off the air conditioner!
This time, old Nelson finally didn't take the blame for Zheng Yang.

As the fans entered the stadium, the arena became more stuffy and some fans began to complain, but when the staff told them that the Kings were hotter than them, they immediately felt a lot cooler.

Can you give me two quilts? I’m going to catch a cold!

When the Kings players saw the Mavericks players, they were furious and found out... they couldn't get angry at all.

It was really too hot. The angrier I got, the hotter I got. All the energy I had just now was gone.

At this moment, they just hope to finish the game and then go back to the hotel to enjoy the air-conditioning and take a cold shower.

It’s okay to quarrel, as long as it helps to cool down!

Of course, the Kings players are hot, and the Mavericks players feel hot too.

After all, we are playing in the same stadium and feel the same temperature.

Of course, there are some differences in reality, because the staff on the sidelines have prepared ice towels for them. If they can't stand the heat, they can use them to wipe the sweat and relieve the pain.

The king was not so lucky and was given normal towels.

Originally, Zheng Yang's last suggestion was to replace all of the Kings' towels with hot towels, which would be more effective when combined with the air conditioning strike.

But old Nelson was afraid that the Kings players would get too excited and lose their minds, so he finally didn't have the heart to do such a thing.

Before the game, Zheng Yang, who was sitting on the sidelines, wiped his sweat and watched the situation on the Kings side.

Today's Mavericks truly had the right time, place and people, and all the advantages were on their side.

Therefore, this game cannot be lost.

They must change the score to 2-1 and regain the initiative.

Come on, Sacramento Kings, let's start our G3!
(End of this chapter)