The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 59 - 58: Promotion

Chapter 59: Chapter 58: Promotion

After defeating the Clippers, Su Wan faced his first "back-to-back" game in Indiana, losing to the Kings by a score of 89-96.

There was a chance to win that game.

Su Wan’s remark, "Peja, how long will you be Chris’s lapdog?" directly broke his defense and sent him into "Lone Wolf Mode", but the Kings had too many "scoring options," and they were in exceptionally good form tonight, establishing a big lead early on.

Even though Peja was out of sync with the Kings’ system, the Kings still defended their victory.

But then, the Pacers beat the Warriors, Bucks, and Hawks in succession, achieving a record of 4 wins and 2 losses.

Not particularly outstanding, but certainly "worlds apart" compared with the Cavaliers.

Moreover, LeBron’s partner was a genuine peak All-Star, the 30-year-old "Big Z" who was selected for the All-Star team in the 02-03 season and was approaching the prime age for impact as a five-position player.

What about Su Wan?

Apart from 39-year-old Reggie Miller, outsiders couldn’t even name the other players on the team.

If you swapped their roles...

By December 18th, the Pacers’ ranking had stabilized at fifth in the Eastern Conference, creating a two-win gap from the sixth-place Chicago Bulls.

Before Su Wan’s arrival, they were ranked sixth in the Eastern Conference and were precariously close to falling out, leading the seventh-place team by only one game, and the eighth-place team by two games. A losing streak could easily drop them out of the top eight in the East.

Given such a situation at the time, it’s no surprise the reaction from Indiana was so significant.

After all, the team’s goal before the season started was the Championship Trophy!

But now, all that was in the past.

The ranking stabilized, and with the date of Jermaine O’Neal’s return looming, the atmosphere between Pacers fans and players had softened considerably. Even when Artest appeared on the home court, he wasn’t met with severe jeers anymore.

Of course, Artest’s words after the Clippers game had also touched many Pacers fans, and the tension between the two sides had naturally eased.

It seems that once O’Neal and Stephen Jackson return and the team climbs higher, they would be even more forgiving.

The only thing that was not as good as his time with the Cavaliers was...

Compared to his time with the Cavaliers, his rate of gaining zone values had somewhat decreased.

Mainly because he had to assume a lot of responsibilities on the Pacers, responsibilities on the offensive end and in helping with defense, all of which greatly depleted his physical fitness. He couldn’t just engage "The zone" mode recklessly until the game was over, only to end up sitting on the bench before the game ended, could he?

From his first day with the Pacers, that conversation had brought him and the old-timers of the team to a delicate balance.

Everyone consciously avoided bringing up the "boss" issue and just did their job on the court.

Su Wan was working meticulously for just this reason.

Rick Carlisle made his one-on-one tactics the core strategy of the team for this stage, so he focused all his energy on offense and neglected defense?

Wouldn’t that make him "the Pacers’ LeBron"?

As long as everyone was aiming to win, Su Wan didn’t mind if his rate of reaping zone values was slower, contributing more to the team and leading by example.

"Offensive Attributes:

Field of View: 52→54 (70); Dribbling: 57→76 (85); Passing: 55→58 (60); Breakthrough: 61→70 (80); Layup: 61→63 (66); Dunk: 61→68 (70); Finish at the Basket: 52→55 (67); Close Shot: 57→60 (68); Mid-range Shot: 55→64 (86); Three-point: 55→56 (62); Free Throw: 72→75 (80); Post-up: 45 (65); Off-ball Movement: 54→59 (70);"

"Defense Attributes:

Defensive Rebound: 58→60 (65); Offensive Rebound: 51→55 (63); Off-ball Single Defense: 69→70 (73); On-ball Defense: 69→72 (78); Help Defense: 71→73 (79); Steal: 61→66 (74); Block: 50→52 (60); Pick and Roll Defense Awareness: 78 (78);"

Opening the system panel, it was clear to see that in this period of training with Artest, his Dribbling and Breakthrough had improved the most.

Then, the recent "zone" points he had obtained were successively channeled into "Mid-range Shot".

His appearances for the Pacers had unconsciously reached 10 games.

At first, other teams in the league didn’t quite understand his "solo core" play style, so their efforts to contain it were inevitably ineffective. But now, with plenty of material available, his tactics had been studied.

Coaches of other teams had realized that his shooting ability after a breakthrough wasn’t that great, tending to finish with layups and dunks instead.

Therefore, most teams’ interior defenders wouldn’t rush to help too quickly but would wait until Su Wan got near the basket, close to the Reasonable Collision Zone, before stepping in to help. In this way, the helping defender could create interference and still recover in time, preventing the situation where the opponent could create a "2v1" under the basket.

Su Wan was well aware of this, and he had spotted this vulnerability of his own even after the first game against the SuperSonic Team, so he specifically looked into it.

Now he had two paths to choose from: one was to improve his Passing ability.

But Passing required Field of View to complement it.

To raise both potentials to 85 points required a large amount of zone points.

The progress was too slow, and the cycle to see the effects was too long.

Alternatively, he could enhance his mid-to-long-range jump shot ability, which would not only add a new option to his arsenal but also draw the interior players out to the maximum extent.

And...

Most Strong defensive teams would leave the mid-range open.

Such was the case with the legendary Spurs.

With only so many zone points available, if Su Wan wanted to achieve results with the Pacers this season, he had to improve in a targeted manner.

Having settled on the mid-range jump shot, Su Wan didn’t save the zone points but added them as soon as they were available. After that, once the team’s daily training was over, the gym gained an additional presence practicing mid-range shots.

The duration wasn’t long, about 40 minutes, which was the limit for Su Wan.

He still needed to continue tempering his one-on-one skills with Artest.

To be honest, even if he still had zone points to develop potential, he no longer had the energy to improve other areas.

The initial results of these extra sessions were not good, but as his potential in mid-range grew, he could feel a noticeable improvement recently.

It was only in the past few days that Rick Carlisle noticed Su Wan was practicing mid-range shots, and he couldn’t help but show a relieved smile.

These days, he too had noticed the opponents starting to target Su Wan’s shooting weaknesses and devise tactics accordingly. He had just planned to talk to Su about this. Yet Su himself had already noticed and acted so swiftly!

Therefore, even though the Pacers lost the next two games, and Su Wan struggled a bit, scoring 7 out of 19 in one game, and 8 out of 21 in another, he remained composed, "Uncle, he’s just a rookie who has shown phenomenal performance. It’s normal for him to experience a slump. All rookies encounter the rookie wall. Don’t forget how young your nephew is; he’s over four months younger than LeBron!"

In addition, there was another reason:

On December 22, in the game the Pacers lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, it was O’Neal Jr.’s 15th game suspended.

After this game, O’Neal Jr. could return to the court.

For this, O’Neal Jr. was very much looking forward to it: "I did something wrong, and this was my punishment. Sitting on the sidelines for the past 15 games was torture, and I can’t wait to get back on the court to help the team win!"

"Do you think you will become good partners with Uncle?" fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

"...We both came together to win games, so I believe we won’t have any problems." In fact, O’Neal Jr. himself was worried about becoming just "background" to Su Wan, but remembering Reggie Miller’s words "The most important thing for us now is to win games" that he’d been reiterating these days, and Su Wan’s attitude on the court, he decided to say something that would unify the team.

"Anything to say about the next game?"

As O’Neal Jr. listened to the reporter’s question, his expression turned serious: "We will give it our all, not just because it’s a big Christmas battle, but because we need to win!"

The Pacers’ next game, the "Christmas Battle," highly anticipated, would be against...

The Detroit Pistons!

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