Attend the enemy's funeral only to confirm that he is cold.
—Joel Embiid
Leaving the underground passage of the Phu Quoc Center requires a spiral upward walk and passing by three or two Franklin Blue Dog-shaped balloons that are somewhat discouraged. The spotlights at the top of the two sides of the passage never seem to go out, and the whole process of leaving is always accompanied by light, until the dark area dotted with scattered and blurry lights in front of it grows larger and larger, and finally appears in an almost square form, which is the end of the passage, the exit of the Wells Fargo Center.
At this time, only a few staff members gathered in the passage to look up at the wall-mounted TV. Through the polarization membrane, the upper glass substrate, the color filter, and the mating membrane, you can see that the liquid crystal molecules are constantly changing their arrangement under the action of the electric field, and eventually these changes present a message in your brain:
Steve Nash called out a timeout.
The players of both sides who returned to the bench each paced out two clear and intersecting paths on the field, just like the workers who completed the last handover in the aisle of the old factory building of the state-owned enterprise that was about to close, all of them did not leave the ground, dragged their heels, rubbed shoulders with their eyebrows and clenched their teeth, while trying to avoid any physical contact with each other, everyone knew that there was not much time left for them, and the physical energy left for them was as rare as the time left for them. Now they only need one touch to fall down, and in this instant, they would rather never get up again.
The game came to this moment and was too tired. The DJ's voice in the pause gap became distant and hollow, and the roaring music around him seemed to be only the rhythm of the drums. The young children had fallen into a deep sleep, and the men and women of Philadelphia in the stands stood up, as dumbfounded as prisoners of war after torture waiting to be shot. Next to the player's bench, which the camera can't sweep, in the front seat, Kendall Jenna, who has just finished fixing her index and ring finger nails, is raising her palm and looking through her fingers at the dome screen, which shows some information about the game:
Time remaining: 00:00:06
Scores between the two sides: Philadelphia 76ers 90-89 Brooklyn Nets
01
Joel Embiid sat at the head of the bench, and he thought about going back to his childhood, when he could kill a lion with his bare hands, but now he was sweating profusely and a little tired, and after 3 hours, in fact, the seventh time in half a month, he felt that he could not even pinch Ben Simmons. In the centre of the boundless weariness is the growing area of remorse – if it hadn't been for the fucking retreat jumper in the offensive round just now, maybe the game would be over by now.
Embiid finally remembered that no one in history had ever made a series with a step-back jumper. Lillard didn't kill, Owen didn't kill, Jordan, Cole, Fisher, Holly, Sampson didn't... Neither did the man.
Embiid waved his hand as if to sweep this ominous thought out of his mind, and he wanted to make a point, and he remembered that he still had the possibility of deciding the game in another way at the end of the game, thus deciding the whole series, and he could do everything with a single cap like his African predecessor, Olajuwon.
He tried to meditate on this final ending. As Iverson said, "Imagine your own movements, the feeling of the ball bouncing off your crotch and then changing direction, taking off, the ball pulling out of your hand." Imagine it all and then you can make it on the pitch. ”
Embiid calculated that there are 6 seconds left in the game, enough for a person to dribble 2-3 times, do 1 change of direction, if it is fast enough, there may be 2 times, and then he must jump shot, to cross his 2 meter 26 arm span, he must lose his center of gravity, and after being blocked by himself, the probability of falling to the ground will be a little greater. Embiid understands this mentality, if he falls down after being covered, he can make a picture of being fouled.
Anyway, the man who had been capped by himself had now collapsed on the floor, and the whistle did sound, but it was the sound of the game being announced, and the crowd on the sidelines hadn't looked back, before the cheers exploded — Embiid felt he could step over this guy, but he wasn't sure if he would be punished by any additional blows, maybe just standing in front of him and looking down at him, as James did with Curry in 2016.
Both schemes are great, the first one looks more inherited, a little bit of drama, a little bit of sassy, and a little bit of, and people here have never forgotten Iverson, and now they will have two equally classic crossovers..
It was decided that at that moment, I would put two hands in my ear, one more hand than Iverson, until my teammates threw me down, until the cheers drowned me...
"Joel, focus..." Doug Rivers' ass-rubbing voice interrupted Embiid's train of thought, and a black light suddenly flashed before his eyes, and joy and ecstasy instantly withdrew from his body, and fear and sorrow came as suddenly as a child waking up in the middle of the night:
He's the MVP of the 2021-22 season, he's the strongest man of the year, but he's never reached the divisional finals, and now it's only the first round, he's already forced into the seventh, and he's still Simmons' team, and then he's been killed again. He will not only become another internal MVP who was eliminated in the first round, he may become the biggest joke in history, he is sure that he will cry when he returns to the player channel, and at the same time he is sure that this scene will be recorded, becoming the most classic shot of this year and even his career, together with the video of the retreat jump shot being blown away and the opponent's opportunity to kill in violation of the law, it was repeatedly played by YouTube and made into a ghost animal by Bilibili. There is no longer any double "crossing". Only double "crying".
At that point, he would say, "I regret that I didn't choose to retire after my first surgery." ”
But the whistle sounded, and the last pause ran out. Whatever the outcome, Embiid needs to meet these last 6 seconds, perhaps the most important 6 of his career. He patted his ass and stood up, hearing Rivers still wiping his ass behind him.
02
No one knows why both teams got to this point. It was perhaps the best first-round series since 2008, and the start of the feud was not as complicated as expected, with the two sides playing nine overtime in the first four games, close together, but Philadelphia already had a 3-1 lead.
Philadelphia has a few sets of formed tactics, but the Nets are really just simply unable to defend Embiid, Clarkston is like a leaf on Embiid, Aldridge is beaten to restart and consider retiring, as for Chuang Shen, he may be Embiid's favorite match in his life, and Brazilian supermodel Anne de Paula can only rank second.
Harden's side is not much worse, he frantically showed his 300 pounds of tendon flexibility on Curry Jr., Mills, Thomas and Dragic, starting, stopping, crotching, starting, layup or withdrawing shots.
Then there's the free throws, the endless penalties. Who can defend unguarded Embiid and Harden on the free throw line?
As for why the two sides are still so anxious on the scene, Irving's twice lighting sage at the Wells Fargo Center arena is only a metaphysical reason, and the core of the strategy that really allows the Nets to maintain their superficial dignity is nash using Durant for 52 minutes per game. The most advanced competitions often appear in the roughest way.
After winning G4, Embiid looked relaxed and said in his post-match press conference with a smile: "If this year is not 2022, but 2002, we have now started to think about the next opponent." ”
2002 was the last time the NBA played a 5-game, 3-win format in the first round. An African big man who knew American history so well, the room was suddenly filled with a lively atmosphere, and Rivers, who was sitting next to him, also smiled with his teeth, and suddenly locked his brows, feeling that something was wrong.
This wasn't the first time he'd had such a hunch. In fact, he is the record holder in the league's history who had this hunch that was finally fulfilled.
But this time it should not be, because in game 5 there was another major advantage sent to Rivers, Durant strained his hamstrings and left the court on crutches. Nash was sad after the game but didn't panic: "I don't know the relationship between playing time and a tendon strain. I think he should be fine. It's a new injury and he could come back if it's the Finals now. ”
But now it's not the Finals. When Durant was injured, there was still a quarter left in G5, And Philadelphia was still in the lead, harden looking at Embiid, embiid looking at the sky, a look of joy but not at this point. Embiid, of course, thinks that's it, it's the final game.
But he misunderstood the meaning of Harden's eyes. He didn't know what would happen in the next section of the game. By the time he understood, he was already sitting at the press conference, with Rivers beside him sinking like water. The reporter asked Rivers:
"Do you think Harden is the point guard of the championship team?"
Embiid also thought about this problem, but he did not think too clearly, nor did he have time to think about it, who is the point guard of the championship team at this moment is no longer the most important question, the most important problem is two points:
First they lost the fifth game that could lock in promotion.
Then in the final quarter, after Durant withdrew from injury, Harden was distracted by two eyes in the fourth quarter, when he was knocked off the technical platform by Griffin during a possession. Embiid didn't know what he was thinking, but he rushed onto the pitch.
Simmons pointed this out to the referee at the first moment.
Embiid was banned.
So they had to leave for the Nets to play game six at home.
03
From the bustling Wells Fargo Center, drive the bus all the way northeast, take the S 11th St into I-95 N, from I-278 E into Brooklyn, close your eyes for 1 hour and 45 minutes, and another bustling area, barclays Center, will appear in front of you, which is the home of the Brooklyn Nets. As long as you don't look at the street scenes on both sides of kensington Avenue, and close your eyes from bustle to bustle, it's easy to think that the world is peaceful and peaceful within 100 miles, just as if you only knew the past and present of the Nets and the 76ers, you wouldn't notice how thrilling turmoil this team has had in the past two months.
But at G6, it's like going back to zero. The Nets don't have Durant and Irving, and who would have thought that two months ago, they would have had Durant, Irving and Harden at the same time. Now one dream is shattered, another dream is like never waking up, they were once forced to the brink of a 1-3 elimination, but now they are back at home with two wins in hand, Durant sitting on the sidelines in a suit and praying, and the inadvertently exposed top of his head always reminds people of Jamal Murray at some point. For brooklyns, that association would certainly bode well, as the kid once led the team to a 1-3 flip, the same year, twice in a row.
Harden was still standing on the court, but wearing his opponent's costume. The Nets look like a real G-League and Big3-league hybrid team, with the combined salaries of the starting 5 people not as high as the opposite Harden.
Someone once said: The playoffs are the stage for superstars. Now there's a super giant Harden opposite, and a top-paid player, Tobias Harris. No one knows how to play this game, Nash on the sidelines doesn't know, Max on the high stage doesn't know either, but he has already thought about it, after this game, it is the long summer of 2022, and it is time to prepare for the summer of 2023.
Between the sidelines and the high stage, with 19,000 equally overwhelmed Brooklyn fans at barclays center, how can people cheer for something that is impossible? They also don't know. But at this point the scattered people have begun to cheer, some people have stood up, more people have stood up, the fans in the distance do not know what is happening on the field, they look up at the central screen and cheer, the camera tells them what they want to know, in the camera, the Nets base salary, old, young players began to appear one after another, before playing they only have one unified action, 2 hours later, Bruce Brown told everyone that this is from his advice:
All Nets players wore headbands.
Two hours later, the series came to 3-3. The camera was given to Rivers, who crossed his waist on the sidelines, shook his head slightly, and even wanted to laugh a little. He said it was like a dream in which he kept climbing to the top of the building, and then stumbled and fell, before falling to the ground, but found himself climbing the stairs again, and the door of the roof was half open, revealing a white light. Many times he thought he was awake, many times he doubted it again.
04
Rivers woke up in the last six seconds of the first round of the First Round of Seven games in the East, his team was still one point ahead of his opponents, and since he couldn't take a penalty in the last minute, he didn't have to talk about any tactics. Harden had been sitting on the bench for 8 minutes, but Rivers wasn't going to send him on the court yet, he squeezed his right hand into a fist and handed it to Harden, "There's still a long game ahead, we still need to..." His fist was opened by Harden's slap. It didn't matter, no matter what, today Rivers was going to end this long dream, and he only believed in people he was willing to believe. But his top pick, Embiid, had just given his opponent a chance to kill with a clumsy walk violation.
Told him early on that it was walking. It has been said since day one.
Rivers looked at Embiid and saw that his MVP's eyes were confused and confused, so he shouted, "FOCUS! ”
Embiid heard Rivers wiping his ass with sandpaper and returned from the swim, he glanced to the other side of the field, Irving had already begun to prepare to return, he cut 40 points like himself, if there was a chance to kill, the ball would only give him.
Embiid was pretty sure, he knew he would be very angry if the killer ball wasn't passed to Irving. No one wants to make Owen angry, there are so many demons he serves, you don't know which one will work.
Irving's side is Simmons, also preparing to debut, the "DEFENSE" in the Wells Fargo Center stadium is like a mountain, and the body of Chuang Shen, who has been out of the field for a long time, has been a little cold, he stood up, turned to face the Philadelphia fans, and used his index finger to compare a boo. The shouts of the audience were even louder.
The last 6 seconds, the last ball, started. Nash glanced at Forth, who was ready to hold his head in both hands. This may be the legendary "1 to 3PTSD" syndrome, nash thought so, Irving has received the pass and started to start. There was an instant silence in the stands, and the speed from noise to silence was as fast as the start to the end of the Russo-Ukrainian war two months ago, and you hardly realize that there were 19,500 other living people breathing in the arena in addition to the 10 players on the field.
Irving broke through from the top of the right wing arc and Sebel followed suit. Embiid knew where Irving would go, with a 45° top of the arc on the right, where Irving would shoot another three-pointer for another dead end.
Then things are easy to manage, and he has already thought of a plan on the bench: Olajuwon, The Light of Africa.
Embiid pounced, but Irving didn't stop dribbling, and Sable was blocked by Embiid.
The game goes into a real head 2 head, ace vs. ace, two giant heads head-to-head.
Irving didn't stop, and with one move Shamembiid pulled the ball to the bottom right corner, shot a back-up jumper before his body almost floated off the bottom line, and the ball slipped above Embiid's fingertips and went straight to the basket and bounced up.
It's still bouncing.
Not 1，Not2，Not3，Not4。
The ball finally popped out of the basket and fell down, the red light was about to turn on, and a familiar figure flashed under the basket ——
Simmons appeared there, clutching the ball in his hand.