Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Yu Fei thought that the Spurs would continue to play to Duncan's advantage in one-on-one situations, but he was wrong.

The Spurs' response to Yu Fei's step-back three to break the double team was to let Stephen Jackson go one-on-one against Yu Fei.

If professional basketball in the 90s was influenced by Pat Riley's physical style of play, then at the start of the new century, teams further increased their demands on physicality in defense to limit behemoths like Shaquille O'Neal.

Therefore, even teams like the Spurs would grant certain one-on-one opportunities to their wing players.

The rise of Martial Saint meant that the Spurs no longer needed an aging Steve Smith to take on more one-on-one responsibilities than he could handle.

Yu Fei rarely felt surprised by the ball-handling skills of players his own size because he himself was an expert in that area.

Young LeBron at ABCD Camp was the first big player who surprised him with his handling, followed by McGrady, and then, Stephen Jackson.

As a tall handler, as long as you meet two out of the three criteria—size, athletic ability, offensive skills—you're an NBA starter.

Among these, athletic ability and offensive skills are the most critical.

Jackson's strength lies in his size and offensive skills. As a ball handler, all his skills seemed tailored for offense, but due to his lack of explosive power, he didn't have the ability to shake off defenders instantly.

This round, guarding Yu Fei, he first made a change of direction, then feigned a shooting motion, before suddenly breaking towards the middle.

Yu Fei's defense was only a fraction slow, but he caught up with his speed and heavily disrupted Jackson's floater.

Jackson's shot missed, but Duncan, like a monster, grabbed the rebound, powered back up, and successfully put the ball in.

"Did you see that?"

"See what?"

"Even if you stop me, Tim will grab the rebound!"

"Not all," Duncan humbly corrected his teammate, "At most 50%, Stephen, please respect our opponents."

If Duncan had only said this, it wouldn't have sounded special.

What was key was the sound he made as he passed by Yu Fei: "Humph!"

Then he ran off, just like a humanoid learning to speak who suddenly made a quirky noise.

Some trash talk doesn't need to hit the core directly.

Yu Fei, with a dark face, yelled at a gloating Mason, "Can you still smile? You old fart, have you no shame? Didn't you hear what he said? The ability to grab 50% of the rebounds!"

Mason had already passed the ball and showed no reaction to Yu Fei's stimulating accountability.

When Yu Fei got to the front court, the Spurs still had Jackson guarding him.

When George Karl saw Yu Fei setting up for an ISO, he knew this young man was once again provoked by the opponent and had forgotten the meaning of the team.

This sort of thing happened often with Yu Fei; he wasn't mature yet.

However, no team had managed to take advantage of Yu Fei's immaturity to make the Bucks suffer.

Karl wondered if Duncan, a psychology bachelor, would use that to his advantage?

Just as Karl was pondering this, Yu Fei accelerated past Jackson and, before Duncan could come up to help defend, passed the ball with a bounce pass to Mason.

Mason was "pleasantly surprised"; he thought he'd hardly catch any passes from Young Master Yu that night, but it turned out the young master was like someone with a sharp tongue but a soft heart—he might appear to dislike him on the surface, but actually, he was still willing to feed him some sweet shots.

Mason jumped powerfully and scored with a dunk.

"I really wish I was up against Bruce. Playing against these kinds of defenders who can't play defense is going to make my level drop!" Yu Fei didn't even look at Duncan, his barrage aimed completely at Jackson, "Humph!"

Stephen Jackson was both embarrassed and enraged, just about to retort when Popovich's hairdryer mode was already turned on over him being blown by Yu Fei in one step.

What displeased Popovich wasn't Yu Fei tearing through the defense, but rather how easy his offense was.

The lack of complicated tactical coordination, yet one man holding the ball up high was unstoppable—what did this indicate? Their defense had serious issues.

Did they really need to switch to playoff mode (with Bowen defending) just to deal with the Eastern first seed?

Seeing Martial Saint with a "happy" face running over, Yu Fei asked with concern, "I hope your coach treats you well, it's not your fault, it's completely because I'm too awesome."

"Shut up, rookie!"

"I'm in my second year, not a rookie."

"Shut up!"

"I won't!"

Jackson took the ball and aggressively chose to drive hard.

This was theoretically the worst choice.

Because Jackson didn't have McGrady's first step that could ignore defense, tough drivers are either physically strong or explosively powerful, and Jackson was neither, thus wasting his excellent offensive skills and giving Yu Fei the perfect opportunity to completely lock him down on defense.

Jackson's drive reached Yu Fei, and the two collided, with the stronger Yu Fei forcing Jackson back. As Jackson lost balance and couldn't protect the ball, Yu Fei stole it.

Yu Fei dashed to the front court. Parker, the only one who could catch up, was powerless to stop Yu Fei at full speed and ended up giving up defense, watching as Yu Fei slammed the ball in for a score.

Popovich no longer wanted to see Yu Fei toy with Stephen Jackson, whose IQ seemed to be zeroed, and proactively called for a timeout.

During the timeout, Popovich inevitably gave Jackson a Larry Brown-style greeting, then replaced him with the veteran Steve Smith and adjusted the defensive matchups and offensive strategy.

Popovich got a little more serious than at the start of the game.

First, he had Bowen defend Yu Fei, then he told Parker to run more plays with the inside players.

Inside one-on-one was still not the focus of the Spurs' offense.

Not because their inside players were out of form.

For Popovich, the Spurs' advantage in the paint went without saying; even against the Lakers, letting Duncan go one-on-one was their last resort for the offensive end when they had no other options.

Against a notoriously weak interior team like the Bucks, Popovich wanted to know if they had ways to win other than exploiting their advantage in the paint.

The nature of this experimental style of game indicated that the powerhouses of the Western didn't respect Eastern Conference teams, even if the Bucks were ranked first in the League. To them, the Bucks were nothing but big shrimps nurtured in the small pond of the Eastern Conference.

No matter how big the shrimp, their inevitable fate was to be consumed by the whales of the Western.

This was something that Yu Fei and his teammates were determined to rectify.

They were different from the Eastern Conference shrimps that had been repeatedly suppressed by the powerhouses of the Western since 1999.

"George, the Spurs are underestimating us,"

Yu Fei said to Karl during a timeout.

Karl had also noticed that the Spurs were basically not letting Duncan or Robinson play inside—something that should have been their best solution.

The Spurs' twin towers were the core of the team, and yet, their core advantage, which was also the Bucks' weak point, was not being fully utilized. Instead, they were focusing on the outside?

"Underestimating us" was a very polite way to put it.

They were looking down on them.

Since the Spurs chose such a carefree strategy of "trying everything," Karl naturally seized this opportunity to give them a hard hit.

After the timeout, the Bucks subbed out Mason and Gadzuric for Devean George and Christian Laettner.

Moving to a 5-OUT lineup was a sign that the Bucks were about to initiate the "X-Offense."

After the game resumed, Parker's aggressive drive and turn-around layup scored. Ratner's interior protection was still too poor. Enjoy more content from empire

"Don't worry about it," Yu Fei said, "Chris, get ready for the pick-and-roll."

Bowen stayed in the backcourt to put pressure on Yu Fei.

This caused Yu Fei to spend an extra two seconds to get to the frontcourt, and then, he called for a pick-and-roll.

When Laettner moved to the outside, Popovich felt something odd about the Bucks' positioning. Before he could ponder further, Yu Fei had already torn through the defense, scattering the Spurs' defensive line.

The space provided by the four players spread out on the perimeter allowed him to easily enter the paint to score.

Afterward, the Spurs' pick-and-roll offense failed, but their quick transition to defense was enough.

However, the true power of the Bucks' five-out lineup was about to be unleashed.

Since the beginning of the game, Yu Fei had been demonstrating the threat he posed after calling for a pick-and-roll with the ball, causing the Spurs to commit two or three defenders to him almost every time.

The consequence of this was that it allowed the other Bucks players to exploit the Spurs defense through outnumbered tactical cooperation.

As Yu Fei dribbled horizontally, he suddenly spotted Ray Allen open and threw the ball his way.

That was a player with a three-point shooting rate of over 40%, but now the Spurs had no one to guard him?

They couldn't blame Ray Allen for getting hot then.

"Swish!"

"Feels good," Ray Allen said, looking as commanding as a boss, "Another one."

In a few exchanges, the Spurs had lost by 5 points, and the gap seemed to be widening. Finally, they remembered what their advantage was.

Duncan called for the ball in the low post.

This made Yu Fei want to laugh.

You had the chance to play before and you didn't take it, now you want to play? Too late, free throws for my guys.

The moment Duncan initiated his attack, Laettner committed a hard foul.

Duncan went to the free-throw line and made one of two shots.

Worse yet, he missed the second shot.

Yu Fei grabbed the defensive rebound and saw that the Spurs intended to use a tactical foul to prevent a fast break.

Even though Parker was quick, Ray Allen was even quicker down the court.

Gazing at Ray Allen's swift dash, there was almost a certain aesthetic to it, reminiscent of future players who, in pursuit of stats, wouldn't go for the rebound but would instead race down the court immediately—not even bothering to defend, waiting for the opponent to score so their teammate could throw a long pass for an easy steal—such was the beauty of it.

Yu Fei flung the ball with all his might.

The Spurs' strategy for a tactical foul had failed.

Ray Allen caught the ball in the frontcourt, and after a few dribbles, he immediately went for a fast-break chase-down three-pointer.

Another score!

In less than two minutes after the timeout, the Bucks unleashed an 8-2 run against the Spurs.

The Spurs lost their arrogant demeanor because if they didn't take this game seriously, the noble Western contenders could potentially be crushed by an Eastern Conference upstart nurtured within a shrimp pile.

In a critical moment, Duncan stepped up with a 2+1, stabilizing the situation for the Spurs.

However, when they returned to a set offense, the Bucks' expansive five-out formation made the Spurs hesitant in their defense.

Yu Fei called for a pick-and-roll, forcing a defensive switch from the Spurs, then passed to Laettner, who then passed to Devean George, and George hit a three from the perimeter.

A look of surprise was evident on Popovich's face.

The Bucks seemed completely different from the previous Eastern Conference teams.

With their odd lineup, innovative play style, and an all-round rising star, they were a true championship-contending team.

Popovich and his Spurs team realized earlier than other powerhouses that the Bucks were a formidable and threatening team.