The Charlotte Hornets, founded in 1987, have always been troubled, they have never been a strong team, but they are in the history of the NBA. Left their own footprints on. They had hoped for a wave of glory at the beginning of this century, but for various reasons they left Charlotte, the "land of the first birth.". "Queen Bee" Byron. Davis almost took the team to a higher height, but they fell at the feet of the Bucks and Nets for two consecutive seasons. Immediately after, the conflict between the team and the city broke out, leading to the final relocation, and when they returned to Charlotte, they found that things were not human, and new troubles came. Here's the story of the Hornets losing to the Bucks in the 2000-01 Eastern Conference playoffs.
"Charlotte Troubles" (I)
This is the first major game since Marshburn stepped into the NBA. His Sixth Seeded Team in the East, the Charlotte Hornets, will challenge the Bucks, who are runners-up in the East in the regular season, in the first game of the Eastern Conference semifinals. By this time, it was already 8 o'clock in the morning, less than 4 hours before the opening whistle of the game sounded. Like his other Hornets teammates, Marshburn yawned profusely and stretched out his long loins as he sat in the spacious and bright hotel lobby, absentmindingly pulling on the golden, mouth-watering loaf of bread and ham in his hand, "I can almost fall asleep right now." He said with a wry smile.
According to the usual game conventions of NBA teams, this kind of game scheduled in the morning is tantamount to a double mental and physical destruction for players who are accustomed to playing at midnight. But under NBC's rules for broadcasting games, small city clubs like Charlotte and Milwaukee must officially kick off by 11:30 a.m. local time to ensure that prime time is given to metropolitan clubs with greater commercial hype value. "The last time I had this situation was when I was playing in the AAU University League." "Every time I encounter this situation, I always force myself to try to think of the present time as night as possible, and adjust the biological clock myself," Mashburn said.
After breakfast, the players made a brief stop and took two buses (one carrying the team's rookies, substitute players and staff, and the other carrying the team's veteran players and main players) straight to the Bradley Center. When they arrived at the players' dressing room, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the previously chaotic away team's farmhouse had disappeared, replaced by the spacious and comfortable home lounge that had been owned by the Milwaukee ice hockey team. It seems that the courtesies that the visiting teams receive during the regular season and the playoffs are really very different. But, in the words of Scott and Blair, "there's still a smell of hockey here."
After arranging their respective luggage, the team members began to deal with a series of personal matters, ranging from calling home to cook porridge on the phone, sending game tickets to friends and family who had been waiting at the door of the arena for a long time, and wearing hair bands on their heads (a symbol of unity designed by the Hornets for the playoffs). After all the clutter, the vast majority of the players had changed their jerseys, walked into the stadium in pairs, familiarized themselves with the lights and other facilities in the stadium, and then collectively carried out various pre-match warm-up activities, only Marshben remained in the locker room with his personal fitness coach Ed. Dawns did some pre-race stretching exercises together. When Marshburn was still playing for the Miami Heat three years ago, he had already followed Pat, who was still playing for the Miami Heat. Riley's son, Daunes, a judo instructor, began fitness training. At that time, Marshburn could not even bend down to touch his toes, and now it was a small paediatric to him. When Marshburn moved to the Hornets last summer, he brought his fitness coach here, which was a big boon for the other Hornets. Today, up and down the Hornets, inside and outside have set off an unprecedented fitness boom brought by Marshburn, and there is a good trend that is intensifying.
What was feared before the game finally turned into a harsh reality. The nine-day off-season made these usually lively players sleepwalk in today's game, not only unresponsive when touching the ball, but even the cooperation between them seemed so disorganized. When Charlotte trailed by as many as 22 points from his opponents, Coach Paul Silas still maintained his usual succinct tone: "Hurry up, kids, come on!" It was something he learned from Pat, Riley, on the bench while he was a staff assistant coach for the New York Knicks in the 1991–92 season. "Pat was able to walk the aisle in front of the bench for 48 minutes every game, almost blinding our eyes." Silas smiled and recalled, "But I appreciated his succinct speaking style, because the staff didn't like to listen to the nagging of the coaches in that tense situation."
Despite the Hornets' slight counter-offensive shockwave towards the end of the game, they lost the first game 92-104. Perhaps the loss of this game has long been expected by the players, and there is not much atmosphere of disappointment and tears in the dressing room after the game. Substitute striker Nelson shakes his head and listens to the CD while packing up his duffel bag; The team members in the bathroom sang pop tunes loudly while planning the evening's play arrangements. In the hallway outside the dressing room, the two teams gathered together, and it was as if the lawyers of the two opposing sides were sitting together for lunch during an adjournment of a lawsuit. And voila, Derek. Coleman is warmly hugging his former Philadelphia teammate, bucks sixth-man Tim. Thomas, look at that, they haven't seen each other for a long time; Bench guard Hawkins and his former supersonic teammate, Bucks center Ervin. Johnson is greeting each other on the latest situation of their families, the growth of their children, and the arrangements for today's lunch; Organizing guard Kassel sat side by side with several other Bucks players in front of the TV set next to him, intently watching the live broadcast of the Lakers' game against the Kings. When O'Neill shark made another super shot at the head of the opposing center, Cassel couldn't help but sigh, "Who else can stop this big monster, you say?" Laughter and conversation echoed through every corner of the hall.
The 57-year-old Silas obviously couldn't understand the joyful atmosphere that existed between the two sides of the enemy, but he also realized that he couldn't stop it. "If it were in our time, we would have stuck our opponent in the neck and slapped him." The old guy, who had been racing in basketball from 1964 to 1980, shook his head and said, "Especially in a tense moment like the playoffs, it's absolutely impossible to have such a shoulder-to-shoulder intimate scene, which is really incomprehensible." Coleman next to him was quite unimpressed by this old stall theory of the coach, "This is not a flesh and blood field, it's just basketball, my coach." He glued the coach's back with a big white eye, and gently said to himself: "More questions we may become teammates in the year, this is not certain."