On October 29th, 2002, the new regular season of the NBA began.
The Los Angeles Clippers, who had just won three consecutive championships in the past season and established a dynasty, welcomed the San Antonio Spurs 'challenge at home.
The Alliance made this match the opening ceremony of the league tournament. It was scheduled for 7 PM, the prime time slot.
The game had not even started yet, but it had already attracted countless fans from all over the world to watch it first.
Although the Spurs were not the defending champions, they were former defending champions. In the season before the three-time championship for the Los Angeles Clippers, the Spurs were the champions.
However, after three seasons, the Spurs had almost made a big change.
Other than the two towers in the middle that still existed, the forwards, guards, and backfield had all been changed. There were a few new faces.
Especially Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. These two new generation players would form the core of the league's famous GPD troika with the main player, Tim Duncan, in the future. They would win four championships in the Western Conference in the future and would be officially designated as an odd-year dynasty by the league.
In terms of the number of championships and the peak level, they were on par with the Los Angeles Clippers.
The top of the Western Conference was almost the rotation of these two teams. Especially the Spurs, under the core structure of the three carriages, had maintained competitiveness for more than ten years and had always been at the forefront of the league.
If Duke's rebirth and joining the Wizards didn't cause too much of a stir, the Spurs would have been the top team this season.
Therefore, this battle was a dialogue between the strong and the weak, the defending champion versus the future champion.
Regrettably, in this game, and even in the next month, the lakers 'giant inside player, Shaquille O'Neal, would be out for a while due to toe surgery.
O'Neill's surgery could have been resolved in the summer and he would not have missed any games.
However, this guy did not take the usual path. He actually chose to undergo surgery at the end of July, and he did not hesitate to miss the start of the season.
In his words, I was injured during working hours, so of course, I had to recuperate during working hours.
His choice also laid the fuse for his future trade to the Miami Heat.
No boss would like such a willful player, even if the player was the league's treasure.
Without Shaq, the other core member of the OK Team, Kobe Bryant, led the team alone. The entire team had to use high-intensity defense to fight their opponents.
In the end, because of the lack of firepower and defense in the paint, the Clippers lost by five points.
In this match, the two sides had too many high-intensity defensive hand-to-hand combat. The pace of the match was extremely slow and lacked fluency. The focus of the battle made people drowsy.
87:82
The Spurs relied on the existence of the two towers inside the paint to get through the danger.
However, because of the tenacious defense of the Los Angeles Clippers, Duncan's performance in this game was average. He only made 3 of 14 shots. With extremely low efficiency, he got 14 points and 10 rebounded, but he blocked five shots.
His old partner, David Robson, was one of the top four centers in the 1990s. This veteran, by this season, could not provide much support. He only played for 20 minutes in this game and scored 3 of 3 shots. He only got 13 points and 10 rebounded.
On the other hand, Kobe lacked a big brother to attract the firepower. In this game, he was heavily taken care of by the opponent's backcourt. He scored 9 out of 29 shots and got 27 points, 10 rebounding, 5 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocked shots. However, he made 6 mistakes.
The three-time championship team, the Los Angeles Clippers, who wanted to win more championships and build a dynasty of four and five consecutive championships, were defeated by their experienced competitors in their first game of the new season.
It was all the shark's fault!
After the game, some fans were very unhappy.
They were furious at Shark's willful choice and even expressed their dissatisfaction in front of the media.
If he had not been absent, the team would not have lost, and Kobe would not have been surrounded.
O'Neill was pushed to the forefront of the fishing wheel just because of his first battle.
The local media, who were already gloating over their misfortune, added fuel to the fire. The local newspapers in Los Angeles directly criticized O'Neill.
If the Laker continued to lose more games in the future, it was believed that the entire Los Angeles fans would be criticized.
In addition to this match, the other two matches were Digitalized Man vs Magic and Knight vs King.
The former's battle was a battle between the Four Generals 'shooting guards, which was also very interesting.
However, in the end, McGrady led the team to win the game with an even better performance.
95:88
McGrady scored 13 out of 24 shots, scored 31 points, four rebounding, and five assists. He beat Allen Iverson, who scored only 7 out of 25 shots and only scored 18 points, and became the best player of the game.
In the new season, McGrady was one of the most popular four point guards in the post-Jordan era.
In the last game, the Kings were a strong team. In the 01/02 season, the opponent of the Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference was not someone that the Cavaliers, a weak team, could shake.
Throughout the game, the Kings used their powerful and gorgeous offensive strength to defeat their opponents 94:67. They won a clean victory and started the new season.
After the three matches ended, the next day was the most exciting match day for the domestic fans.
On this day, all three of the country's talented centers had matches.
One match after another, it was like a festival. All the fans had gathered early in the morning.
This was especially true for Big Yao and Duke. Today was the first time in their NBA careers, and their performances were what the fans paid the most attention to.
As for the general situation, due to the fall out with the national team in the summer, most of the fans 'perception of him had changed due to the media and newspapers.
The country's heroic movement was almost hated by everyone and had become a sinner of the country.
Especially the failure of the World Championship, the media directly put the blame on him, saying that it was because he was not disciplined, refused to obey the arrangement, and was absent from the national team, which led to the national team only getting 12th place.
Under such circumstances, the domestic fans naturally had other opinions about him. Their focus was almost all on Big Yao and Duke.
On the second day of the match, the Rockets went first.
After his defeat at the World Championship in Indiana, Big Yao came to this place again with the team.
Today, because of his lack of training with the team, he only played as a substitute in this game.
However, this did not stop the fans from being excited.
"It's here, Big Yao's match is here!”
"First, we look at Big Yao, then Duke. This is so f * cking awesome!”
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