Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

After being eliminated by the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the last season, Yu Fei had an idea.

Game footage of this Brooklyn Nets team should be destroyed; such aesthetically unpleasant games shouldn't exist.

This had nothing to do with him being eliminated by the Nets; it was purely an in-the-moment feeling.

That feeling was even stronger at the start of tonight's game.

Jason Kidd reinforced the impression of a player who was perfect in everything except shooting.

Watching Kidd play was like gazing at a swimsuit beauty with an angelic face but a disappointingly flat chest.

The Bucks adopted a semi-ignore strategy on Kidd.

Every defender assigned to Kidd would stay a good half a meter away from him.

If Kidd wanted to take a shot, the Bucks were all for it.

Even the greatest playmaker couldn't spread the "gospel of passing" without being a sufficient offensive threat.

In every game, Kidd would test his shooting touch for the night.

Kidd took the Nets' first shot.

His shooting form reminded Yu Fei of Charles Barkley's ridiculed golf swing.

Posture, motion, footwork, there wasn't a problem, but that final release hand seemed indescribably awkward.

"Bang!"

Kidd's miss did not come as a surprise, not even to his own teammates.

The Nets' speedy retreat prevented the Bucks from launching a defensive counter.

A gruesome tug-of-war began.

As the team in the League that suffered the most from big men inside during the playoffs, they were also the best at using zone defense.

Yu Fei wouldn't forget how they lost last season.

That's why he had practiced his shooting so hard during the offseason.

Encountering the Nets again, he was determined to shed the impression of "unable to break the zone defense."

Yu Fei raised his hand, signaling for Mason to come set a screen. However, Mason was only pretending; he wanted the ball, so he made a fake screen. Yu Fei had never trusted the quality of his screening. He dribbled directly in the opposite direction of the screen, pulled up, and took a jump shot from the left side of the free-throw line.

2 to 0

"You should have passed the ball to me!" Mason said, "My chance was better!"

Yu Fei cursed back directly, "Don't expect me to pass you the ball until you get rid of that beastly screening habit of yours!"

Mason slunk away, embarrassed.

Nobody could have predicted that this was the beginning of a scoring drought for both sides.

But for those familiar with the Nets' style of play, this situation was not surprising.

As long as Kidd's touch was off, the Nets' set offense was extremely weak.

And the Nets were determined not to give the Bucks easy opportunities to counter on defense; hence, even if they missed in the half-court, they retreated quickly.

The Nets stepped up their defense on Yu Fei and wisely "selected" their defensive targets on the Bucks.

Some conservative coaches believed that adopting a zone defense would make players lose their sense of responsibility on defense, turning them into parasites dependent on team defense. This concern grossly overestimated the players' reliance on the zone.

The Nets were among the first teams to realize that the era of zone defense was going to revolutionize defense; they were also the first in the NBA to use the zone to "filter" out opponents with low shooting percentages by leaving them open and enticing the opposition to pass the ball to the poorer shooters, forcing shots from players with lower hit rates.

And this was the norm in the era of small ball.

In the offensively unbalanced era of small ball, it's usually difficult to stop a star once he gets going. To concentrate the defensive resources, players with poor shooting constantly end up completely unguarded.

This was uncommon before the era of zone defense.

In order to constrain Yu Fei, the Nets did three main things.

First was to have Jason Kidd as the primary defender, supplemented by the zone; next, no matter which big man came up to set a screen for Yu Fei, the Nets' big man who came to the high post would immediately double team him; finally, they chose to leave players open, even Sprewell, with a three-point shooting percentage of 37%, was left open, the only player they closely guarded was Ray Allen.

After Yu Fei revealed his ability to break through to the free-throw line for a jump shot, the Nets tightened their defense on him even more.

Although Yu Fei really wanted to go all out and test his offseason training through persistent shooting, the game had just started. It wouldn't be wise to go full throttle on the offense from the get-go.

So, Yu Fei passed the ball to Sprewell, who was left open.

As a result, Sprewell's actions effectively endorsed the Nets' leave-open strategy.

"Bang!"

"Nice shot!" Yu Fei said sarcastically.

George Karl was like a man on an adrenaline rush, ecstatic to see the Nets start a fast break, shouting frantically, "Get back! Get back! Don't let them pull it off!"

Karl had a good reason to worry; as a team weak in set offense, transition offense was a vital part of the Nets' game plan.

Kidd was one of the best fast-break masters in the League.

This sequence was dangerous; the Nets had obtained better positions, and only Yu Fei and Sprewell had managed to get back on defense for the Bucks. Discover exclusive content at empire

Sprewell stopped Kidd's advance.

Kidd passed the ball to Kenyon Martin, who was eager to put on a show.

Martin, seeing he was defended by Yu Fei, wanted to prove his toughness. But Yu Fei neither lost his position nor committed a foul. Martin had not enough skill to shake the defender, so under these conditions, he could only hand the ball back to Kidd, indicating that the fast break was halted and they had to slow down for set offense.

For Martin, neither life nor the basketball court had the word "cannot." Only the incapable would choose "cannot."

For him, it was only natural to challenge Yu Fei's defense head-on.

However, he didn't have the skills.

Once Yu Fei was set, he let him crash into him with full force.

After the collision, Yu Fei stumbled backward, and Martin charged into the paint for a dunk, but the referee's whistle blew, calling Martin for an offensive foul and nullifying the dunk.

All of a sudden, the player who had made the cover of Sports Illustrated the previous year as a "bad boy" was furious, "Where the hell did I foul? What the hell kind of soft call is that?!"

A "warm-hearted smile" akin to Duncan's appeared on Yu Fei's face.

Martin, nearly being called for a technical foul, stopped questioning before he infuriated the referee further. He glared at Yu Fei, "You sissy, the ref saved you!"

"Are you getting angry already?" Yu Fei said smugly, "This is called making good use of the rules. If you can't even understand that, you should go read the rulebook a hundred times!"

The trash talk between Yu Fei and Martin was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the game.

But instead of watching their quarrel, the live audience was more eager to see scoring.

However, besides Yu Fei's foul line jump shot at the opening, both teams had a scoring drought for four minutes due to various reasons like bricking, turnovers, and fouls, with the score stuck at 2-0.

The Bucks led by 2 points, which was of course good for the Milwaukee folks on site, but was it really fine to have only scored one basket in four minutes?

After missing an opening three-pointer, Kidd, who had been silent for four minutes, started to think about shooting again.

This time he decided to change angles and shoot from a spot closer to the basket.

Even though Sprewell had given him plenty of space, Kidd still called for a teammate's screen and took a jump shot from the left side of the foul line.

Another miss!

Yu Fei grabbed the defensive rebound and brought the ball up-court himself.

Kidd lowered his center of gravity tightly.

With more than a 10 cm height difference, plus Kidd's low stance on defense, their matchup looked oddly mismatched.

And Yu Fei had had enough of sticking to conventional play styles.

Facing Kidd's defense, Yu Fei made a crossover move from outside, dribbling left and right before abruptly pulling up for a three-pointer right in front of Kidd.

"Swish!"

5-0

"Frye seems to have a good touch tonight!"

"Yes, the Brooklyn Nets are in trouble now!"

There's an unwritten rule in basketball: once one team breaks a scoring drought, the other tends to follow suit shortly after.

There's no logic to it - after Yu Fei hit a tough pull-up three, Kidd crossed the halfway line and lobbed the ball to Mutombo.

Looking like he had no offensive game, Mutombo backed down Dan Gadzuric and went for a stiff hook shot that went in.

5-2

Karl looked like he was about to explode. Mutombo was definitely one of his least favorite players. Moreover, this animosity had nothing to do with personal character, and there was no personal grudge between them – it was purely a rivalry on the court.

George Karl was the first coach in NBA history to be upset by an eight seed.

Mutombo was the defensive cornerstone of that eight-seeded team and blocked 31 shots in their five-game series (1993 Western Conference First Round).

Mutombo's blocks and the finger wag that followed each one disgusted Karl, and now seeing him score against the Nets using the post moves he wasn't known for made Karl rage even more, as he yelled at Gadzuric, "Toughen up, Dan! Are you a man? Fight like one!"

The Bucks didn't make Karl wait long for their reply.

As Ray Allen brought the ball past half-court, he saw Yu Fei on the right side signaling for the ball.

An eager-to-please Gadzuric set a high-quality off-ball screen for Yu Fei.

Yu Fei cut out to the foul line to catch the ball and turned to shoot.

7-2

Yu Fei was responsible for all the Bucks' points since the start of the game.

To the Nets, Yu Fei's performance was astounding.

Byron Scott remembered that during the first round of last season, Yu Fei's shooting was inconsistent; he only had one good shooting game out of four in the series.

But tonight, he was three for three, all from mid- to long-range shots beyond the foul line.

Was this Yu Fei's lucky night, or was it proof of a significant improvement in his shooting consistency?

The Nets' players were not as preoccupied as their coach. Kidd and Martin exchanged looks before executing a beautiful pick-and-roll in the frontcourt.

After setting the screen, Martin cut inside, and Kidd passed the ball skillfully.

The Bucks' defense was powerless to stop Martin's drive, as neither Mason nor Gadzuric could block his way to the basket.

Martin slammed the ball home.

"Nobody can stop me!"

7-4

Do you need to get that excited over a simple screen and roll, isn't it just about having hands?

Just as Yu Fei was sarcastically judging Martin in his mind, Wang Zhelin's dunking performance at the 2023 Men's Basketball World Cup came to mind—apparently, it wasn't just about having hands.

PS: More updates coming tomorrow