Chris Paul walked away calmly.
Three years later, this League would recite a certain slogan:
"Eat, sleep, and beat up Paul."
It referred to Chris Paul’s greatest bane, Deron Williams, who was in the same draft year as him.
The reason "Little Fatty" had such control over Chris Paul was his sufficient weight and strength.
Ron Artest had one more lethal weapon than Deron Williams:
Fast cross movement steps.
That meant Chris Paul had no advantage when facing him; his usually skillful low center of gravity breakthroughs often ended tonight with him crashing into Artest and stumbling back beyond the three-point line to try breaking through again.
Chris Paul’s expression grew uglier with each repetition.
Regarding defense, Su Wan continuously attacked him, giving Chris a taste of the helplessness of defending Deron Williams.
Having been blasted on both offense and defense, by the third quarter, only four words remained on Chris Paul’s face:
"Doubting his life!"
Was this still the NBA he had played in for a month?
He clearly didn’t remember it being like this!
His sharp breakthroughs, precise passing, and jump shots as deadly as the "Yellow Jacket’s Stinger," why had they all failed him tonight?
By the fourth quarter with 7:14 left, Chris Paul, who had been benched for almost four and a half minutes, propped his chin with one hand, his elbow on his knee, and stared blankly at the court as if he’d lost his dreams.
Looking at the other side, Su Wan and Artest had also sat down, but they chatted and laughed, a stark contrast to him.
Ultimately, the game ended, and Chris Paul left Indiana with a dismal 30% shooting percentage and 7 points, 3 assists, and 4 turnovers.
If you asked him what he learned from this game, he’d tell you the first lesson for a rookie entering the League was called "Silence."
If he’d just stayed silent during Su Wan’s bombardment in the beginning, he might not have been targeted like this tonight.
But if you asked whether Su Wan was right in doing what he did initially, Chris would still tell you:
Su Wan was wrong, for he was the first to provoke.
Yet that’s basketball, where some things are decided by the outcome.
Su Wan won, and he could keep talking smack.
Of course, after the game was over, Su Wan didn’t continue to run his mouth at Chris.
As the Finals MVP, he couldn’t afford to lose his dignity.
He could condescend as the respected veteran and say "This batch of rookies is no good," but it would be beneath him to gloat after the rookie’s loss.
Besides, he had more important matters to attend to.
Right after the game, Su Wan found the morning paper from Indiana that day and turned to the latest Eastern Conference rankings, then pointed at the team below the Pacers and asked the reporters, "My English is not good, can you help me see what the team ranked below the Pacers is called?"
There were indeed new media reporters who leaned in to take a good look at the team’s name, while Erin, who knew Su’s character well, didn’t even glance and blurted out, "That’s the Cleveland Cavaliers, Su."
Su Wan feigned surprise, "Aren’t they the number one in the East? The last time I read the newspaper, I saw the Cleveland media talking about their revival. How come they have dropped below us now, when we’re only fifth in the Eastern Conference?"
Erin played along, "Su, you might not know, but after entering December, the Cavaliers lost another ’back-to-back’ set of games. Now their record is the same as the seventh-place Chicago Bulls. If they lose the next game, their record will match the eighth-place Bucks, and since they’ve lost to the Bucks before, with the same record, they will directly fall to ninth in the East."
"Is the situation that dire?" Su Wan still had one doubt, "I wonder who their next opponent is."
As Erin almost laughed out loud at his feigned "concern," she managed to respond with her last sentence, "Su, have you forgotten? The next game, their opponent is you guys, the Pacers!"
"So that’s how it is!" Su Wan put down the newspaper, "I am thrilled to have another chance to knock them out of the top eight in the East."
The other reporters were dumbfounded.
Su Wan was getting better and better at being obnoxious.
At the same time, they looked at Erin with new respect; no wonder she enjoyed special treatment from Su. They couldn’t perform the way Erin had just helped Su stage that act.
She deserved every penny of that money!
The next morning, after getting up, Su Wan saw that lots of media had already started hyping up the game.
It seemed like an arrangement by God, very similar to the last time he met them last season.
The Cavaliers would fall out of the top eight with another loss.
Everyone was waiting to see how LeBron James would perform this time.
Would it be a "Baptism of Fire," or a complete descent into ruin?
LeBron’s impressive average stats played a significant role, and many journalists believed you couldn’t use the old perspective to judge, saying that in his third season, LeBron James had entirely transformed, nothing like his first two seasons.
Some ESPN experts chimed in, "Even a stat padder can hardly pad stats like LeBron James’s."
Their words weren’t kind, but they spoke the truth.
No one had ever heard of a "stat padder" managing to average 30 points per game.
The sourc𝗲 of this content is free(w)𝒆bnov(𝒆)l