One Year Left to Play

Chapter 531 - 161: Let Him Get Used to Everything Here

Zhang Hao remembers that in Iverson’s sophomore year, he led his team to the Elite Eight. With Wang Zhizhi joining, who knows if they could go further... But Wang Zhizhi is only a freshman, and this season his playing style has undergone a near-destructive change, with very inconsistent performances.

Anyway, Wang Zhizhi’s college career has just begun. When Zhang Hao calls Wang Zhizhi, it’s always to encourage him...

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Getting ready for battle!

The game against the Bullets is just an appetizer.

After playing the game with the Bullets, the Lakers focused on preparing for the next game—this season’s last regular-season matchup with the Rockets.

This season, the Lakers’ record against the Rockets is 2 wins and 1 loss. The Lakers take this final matchup very seriously, as the Rockets are the most likely opponent in the second round.

After this matchup, it is likely to finalize the specific strategic plans for facing the Rockets if encountered in the playoffs.

As for if they prepare so well and end up not meeting... that’s just something that can’t be helped, but preparations must be made.

However, the Rockets’ journey to chase their third consecutive championship has been full of disasters. Originally, the team owners changing to Alexander just before winning the championship was disastrous enough. This season, the injuries have been nonstop.

So, when the Lakers want to keep up their momentum and beat the Rockets once more, and the Rockets want to even the regular-season record, Olajuwon is sidelined due to knee tension.

Cassell and substitute swingman Sam Mark are also injured.

On the evening of March 3rd, the three main players of the Rockets—Olajuwon, Cassell, and Sam Mark—watched from the sidelines in suits as their teammates gave their all in a 95-101 narrow loss to the Lakers.

Even though the opponent was missing three starters, the Lakers didn’t win easily. Drexler and Mario Elie combined for 50 points and managed to fight until the end despite being understaffed.

It’s really not guaranteed that a team will play poorly just because some players are absent. Games are always hard to predict.

Zhang Hao didn’t score much tonight, shooting 6 of 13 from the field, making no three-pointers, and adding 6 of 8 free throws for 18 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 blocks.

Van Exel played excellently, scoring 26 points with 7 assists, while Jason Williams had 8 points and 8 rebounds, and the Magician had 14 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 assists.

Relying on the advantage of team strength and with the opponent’s top players missing, the Lakers narrowly won.

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The tough schedule in March began. After finishing a three-game home streak that started with the last single game of last month, the Lakers faced their first back-to-back games of March, and it was an away back-to-back.

On March 5th, the Lakers came to Sacramento Arco Center to face the Kings in an away game.

The Lakers performed well in this game, exhibiting their usual good form. Doug Christie’s defense against Richmond was particularly good, holding Richmond to 6 of 15 shooting for just 15 points, essentially one point per attempt, which is undoubtedly dragging the team down.

Although the Lakers poorly defended the Kings’ athletic center, Alden Polynice, allowing him to score a career-high of 30 points, this player who usually averages 11 points a game took 23 shots, indicating that the Kings were out of options.

Zhang Hao scored 29 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 blocks, just shy of reaching his 19th 30+ game this season.

But there were no regrets in the game, as the Lakers easily defeated the Kings 105-95, improving their record to 47-11 after 58 games.

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On March 6th, the evening after the Kings game, the Lakers quickly arrived in Phoenix to challenge the Suns, who were performing well and had re-entered the playoff standings in February.

This season, Barkley’s individual performance has been at an MVP level, with a high win contribution rate, and so far, he averages 23.4 points, 11.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.5 steals, and 0.6 blocks per game. He has a 50% field goal percentage, averages 1.1 three-pointers per game with a 33% three-point shooting percentage...

However, with the departure of Dan Majerle and Danny Manning out for the season due to injury, the Suns, who won at least 56 games for three consecutive seasons after acquiring Barkley and got 59 wins last season, have fallen.

Relying on a February run of 10 wins and 3 losses, the Suns are 25-24, barely making it into the seventh place in the West, but not far ahead of the eighth-placed Kings.

Nevertheless, starting in February, the Suns’ strength notably recovered, showing a slight shadow of last season’s 59-win team.

Tonight, against the Lakers in the second game of their back-to-back, Barkley played excellently, shooting 10 for 16, with an incredible 3 for 3 from the three-point line, and added to that 5 of 6 free throws, accumulating 28 points, 13 rebounds, and 3 assists.

The key player in the Suns’ resurgence, Kevin Johnson, also had 14 points and 10 assists tonight.

Most impressively, the player whose playing style almost duplicates Michael Jordan’s, Michael Finley, came off the bench shooting 8 of 12 and 4 of 4 from the free-throw line to score 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists, competing toe-to-toe with Zhang Hao.

Conversely, the Lakers did not perform particularly well, scoring 101 points in total, with Zhang Hao contributing 23 points and 6 rebounds, the Magician with 7 points and 9 assists, and Van Exel adding 21 points and 6 assists. They didn’t play very well offensively, but it wasn’t awful either.

However, their defense was lacking.

With a score of 101 to 114, the Lakers lost on the road!

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The back-to-back games were just the start of this stretch of four consecutive road games.

With a 1-1 record in their back-to-back games, the Lakers, who have started to accept losses, didn’t experience as much negative emotion from this loss as they had from previous defeats.

Furthermore, the preparation time was insufficient for these two games, while the Suns were well-prepared and rested...

Since the only team the Lakers focused on studying during this road trip of four consecutive away games was the upcoming opponent—the Seattle SuperSonics!

After losing to the Suns, the Lakers’ 47-12 record led the SuperSonics’ 47-13 by just a half-game!