During the official timeout of the second quarter, Gentry noticed that Mike Miller, who was acting as a decoy on the wing and receiving passes from shooters, had taken four shots over a quarter and a half and only made one long two-pointer. He suggested to D’Antoni to leave Mike Miller open and increase the pressure on Zhang Yang.
D’Antoni didn’t understand defense and didn’t care about it either. Since Gentry wanted to make such an adjustment, he agreed.
In the following period, Mike Miller was off-target, Alan Anderson’s shooting angle was fixed, Pietrus was still adjusting to the half-court offense, Afflalo couldn’t make a shot... The Bobcats’ forward-guard line had four players who were shooting poorly. Gentry’s defensive adjustment forced Zhang Yang to shoot more and shoot under more difficulty.
In the later 24 minutes of game time, Zhang Yang made 11 out of 23 attempts, including 3 out of 8 three-pointers and two free throws, totaling 27 points. It looked pretty good because sometimes he only scored this many in a game.
But with such efficiency, placed in last night’s game, it wasn’t enough. The Suns gradually widened the gap, ultimately winning by 14 points.
Always feeling he’s not good enough, wanting desperately to win... Nash respects but also feels helpless about this aspect of Zhang Yang.
Thinking back to two years ago, Zhang Yang was so weak, and the Bobcats were also weak. When facing the Suns, Zhang Yang’s face was filled with ’I want to win’, and he put it into action... even if it led to a disastrous defeat.
Perhaps it was from that time onwards that Zhang Yang left a deep impression on Nash.
Zhang Yang looked at the latest standings on the homepage.
The Suns surpassed the Spurs and the Hornets, ranking second in the West with 34 wins and 11 losses, third in the league, firmly aiming for 60 or even 65 wins.
From last night’s encounter, the Suns felt stronger than last season...
Nash, through this season so far, averages 18.1 points and 12 assists, third highest in career scoring and a career-high in assists. His shooting percentage is 54%, a career-high, surpassing last season’s 53.2%, including 48.3% from three-point range averaging 2.4 three-pointers per game, remarkably strong.
Stoudemire averages 26.2 points, surpassing Yao Ming’s 25.6 points, becoming the strongest scoring inside player of the season.
The Suns average 111.9 points per game, ranking second in the league.
This team seems to be climbing towards a higher peak of run and gun style, two years later in double-core war with a championship team for six games, needing Artest and Gasol to score critical shots to narrowly defeat the team. Why did the general manager collapse this team and not even made playoffs next season?
Zhang Yang asked Nash: "Steve, heard your team’s general manager hasn’t been in a good mental state recently?"
Nash, puzzled, asked: "Who did you hear this from?"
Zhang Yang: "Well... just saw it when I refreshed."
Nash: "Don’t look at gossip news, all sorts of nonsense, Kerr has been working very hard lately, saying he definitely wants to lead us to become stronger and win the championship."
Zhang Yang: "...He actually doesn’t need to be that diligent."
Nash didn’t understand this, thinking it was Zhang Yang dissing their team because of losing last night, didn’t take it seriously.
In this aspect, this leader has always been broad-minded, one gets used to it.
At noon, Nash led the ’Big Brother Group’ to the restaurant for lunch.
Once the dishes were served, Nash saw Zhang Yang taking out his laptop, logging online, and connecting with Felton via video.
Nash asked: "Jack, what are you doing?"
Zhang Yang: "You’re the host, Raymond isn’t here, our group of followers eats uneasily. Let the boss see what we’re eating... hmm, boss, you eat first."
Members of the Big Brother Group and Nash looked at the video where Felton bent the spoon, laughing but feeling the atmosphere was somehow sinister...
In the afternoon, Zhang Yang’s group was invited to Nash’s house to play.
Members of the Big Brother Group, some were playing cards with Nash, like Millsap, Alan Anderson, Afflalo, etc.
Some were playing ’elegant’ games solo, Okafor was in the backyard playing mini golf.
There was also someone ’standing out’, practicing shots for two more hours in Nash’s indoor gym. This person was Zhang Yang.
He wanted to quickly earn enough 100,000 shooting value to redeem ’chasing shot mastery’.
If he had the chasing shot ability, playing against the Suns... last night’s situation would still be challenging, but when facing the Kings, getting more points in the first three quarters might be possible.
Nash saw Zhang Yang open his gym door, enter the storage room to take out the basketball hoop and such, with the first thought—has the leader been to my home before? Seems to be quite familiar.
Maybe he has been here, don’t remember.
He dismissed the thought, threw himself into getting familiar with members of the Bobcats’ Big Brother Group.
Even though his personal performance this season was reaching new heights, born in ’74, next month he would turn 34, with such fierce competition in the West now, and still standing in the league are two super strong teams. Although he has confidence in his own strength and the team’s capability, he still wants to retire with a championship ring, not wishing to face regret similar to Barkley or Malone as MVPs in a lifetime without a championship.
Spanning the entire NBA, the defending champion Bobcats with the leader have the most promising future.
By evening, Nash arranged the official start of activities, this time without bringing others, just Zhang Yang, going to a manor on the outskirts of Phoenix City.
When Zhang Yang saw the waitress cosplaying as a bunny girl, he knew this party wasn’t going to be decent.
Although Phoenix isn’t cold in winter, but now at the end of the year, during the coldest period, bunny girls had their butt cheeks exposed, needing to earn money wasn’t easy.