The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 397 - 199: The Biggest Softie Appears_3

Chapter 397: Chapter 199: The Biggest Softie Appears_3

But the Dallas media dare not slack off because every step of the Mavericks was on the edge of a cliff, and until they were completely safe, the hearts of the Dallas media could only keep dangling.

They didn’t have to worry for too long.

Two days later, the competition between the Mavericks and Warriors moved to Golden State.

The heart of the Dallas media finally died!

In Game 6 of the series, the Warriors defeated the Mavericks 111-86 at their home court.

Nowitzki completely fell into the abyss in this game, scoring only 8 points on 2 out of 13 shooting.

Bill Walton commented, "Donnie cultivated Dirk Nowitzki, and now, he has personally killed him!"

After the game, Dirk Nowitzki was met with "endless mockery."

Nowitzki’s poor performance in the series, along with the Dallas media’s constant hype for beating Su Wan and raising him up as this season’s regular season MVP, led to a backlash that swallowed him whole.

"Su Wan would never perform this badly, Dallas!" — "Indiana Starlight News";

"Without a doubt, Dirk Nowitzki is the biggest softie in NBA history!" — "New York Times";

"Time to rebuild, Dallas, pick the next star with open eyes!" — "ESPN";

Honestly, the level of skepticism Nowitzki faced at this moment was unprecedented. It was comparable to the sort experienced by Michael Jordan, who had not won a championship in his seventh season.

Even in such circumstances, he did not leave Dallas but slowly adjusted and waited for the "blossoming."

In contrast, a certain individual in 2010 after his defeat...

Even though many media outlets were whitewashing for him, comparing him to Michael Jordan, and hoping he could regroup, in less than two months, he chose to take his talents to South Beach, which was a difficult path.

This single decision skewed the entire decade.

It wasn’t until 2019 Leonard joined Raptors, creating the "Northern Realm myth", and then "Alphabet Brother" put on a "dirty legend" show in the playoffs, followed by the Nuggets’ Jokic and Murray "restoring order", the League finally started to move away from blindly building "Multi-Giants" teams.

Su Wan has always believed that after 2010, LeBron no longer had the right to be part of the "greatest of all time" discussion.

In competitive sports, how could a deserter have any right to talk about "greatness"?

The Warriors thus became the first team to complete a "Black Eight" upset after the seven-game first round format was adopted, and that too in such a stark difference in victories.

That’s what made this Warriors team so unique in "Black Eight" history.

The "Golden State Gang" made a name for themselves for a time.

Stephen Jackson made his name known after this playoff series.

Su Wan likely became the biggest beneficiary.

Many media outlets believed that if Dirk Nowitzki were to end up the season’s regular season MVP, it would be the biggest joke since the award was created.

Nowitzki was already a long shot, and after watching his performance in the first-round loss, any hope of him winning the regular season MVP disappeared completely... Even the Dallas media went silent about Dirk deserving the MVP after the Mavericks were officially eliminated.

With their noise gone, the whole opinion circle became much quieter.

With the Warriors advancing to the second round, the outcomes of the remaining six matchups were also decided.

In the Eastern Conference, aside from the Pacers, the fourth-seeded Heat Team beat the fifth-seeded Wizards to move into the second round of the playoffs, meeting the Pacers in the postseason for the third consecutive year.

This time, however, it was on the stage of the Eastern semifinals.

The Cavaliers also eliminated their opposition 4-1, with LeBron reaching the semifinals for the first time in his career, though his stats were not great, averaging 23.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game.

Shaquille O’Neal, who had an eye for LeBron, not only supported Gibson to take away his ball-handling but even took away his backcourt rebounds.

"Shark" scored 21 points and 10.8 rebounds in the series, preferring to hand the backcourt rebounds to Channing Frye rather than giving them to LeBron.

"King" had no choice; he was good at grabbing backcourt rebounds with the help of his teammates in the paint.

Without Shaquille giving him the rebounds, his average rebound stats quickly dropped to his rookie season levels.

Barkley noticed this and pointed it out to LeBron: "The Chosen One’s rebounding ability is not as good as we imagined, or rather, he has not devoted much effort to rebounding. He always expects his teammates to give him the rebound, rather than fighting with the will to win against the opponent for a frontcourt rebound. With his strength, his speed, his weight, his explosive power, out of an average of 7.4 rebounds in his career, 6.5 are backcourt rebounds? OMG, it’s too sad for centers playing with LeBron..."

"I think I now know why Big Z became a 10.4 rebounds per game master in Heat Team!"

Don’t think Big Z hadn’t achieved much in terms of average rebounds in his career, just 7.3, but among them, 2.9 rebounds per game were frontcourt rebounds.

At the peak of his career, he could even grab 3.8 frontcourt rebounds per game...

This season, his average with the Cavaliers was expected to be 3.1 frontcourt rebounds.

Noticing this, Pat Riley, who originally wanted to trade him but saw he had no market at the moment, decided to let him play and sell when the price was right.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l