Chapter 574: 574
At the NBA headquarters in New York, President Adams opened the NBA news column on a website and glanced at the headlines .
In the most visible spot on the website, there was a headline that read: "Ten Overtimes in Three Games, the Los Angeles Clippers Create a New NBA Record . "
"The Clippers were able to make the headlines . Then again, there has been quite a lot of news about the Clippers lately," Adams said to himself .
The NBA had games every day . Except for the teams that received the most attention, it was really difficult for most games to make a headline . The current Clippers didn't have top stars and the team was one of the worst . It was not easy for them to make the news .
It's very rare to reach overtime in three consecutive games . Playing ten overtimes in three games is even more incredible . I didn't expect that this change in leadership for the Clippers would make them so tenacious . They have really surprised me . Adams couldn't help but check the recent schedule for the Clippers .
"In the past three games, they've won twice . The next opponent for the Clippers is the Orlando Magic . The Magic have been deliberately tanking so as to get the number one draft pick . It seems that the Clippers can win again," Adams said to himself .
. . .
Orlando . The Clippers were the away team challenging the Orlando Magic at the Amway Center .
In the player's locker room, Cassel looked at the players . He could tell that the players' conditions were completely different from previous games .
Previously, the Clippers had a very bad record . They had lost too many games . The players had started to become disinterested . They did not care if they won or lost . It was as if they were going to work every day . Punching out after working for 48 hours . Even if the team lost, no one was frustrated . They would still go to nightclubs and hook up with girls .
After the last three games, having played in ten overtimes, the Clippers' players took on a different attitude . They gained a new kind of resilience . Cassel could feel that the desire for victory was returning to the players .
In the three away games, their opponents were all teams at the playoff-level . Getting two wins and one loss could indeed cultivate confidence and let the Clippers' players feel that they could compete with strong teams . This provoked their desire to win .
After all, players in the NBA were all leaders amongst the people in their age groups . Even the worst substitutes were very good basketball players . Many of them had been winning games since they were young . They were all people with a strong desire to win . It was just that, previously, the Clippers were doing terribly . Even if they were people who had the desire to win, it was slowly wiped away after losing constantly .
The current victories allowed the Clippers' players to regain their confidence . Victories that were achieved after playing in overtimes seemed even more hard-fought . The continuous overtimes made the Clippers more resilient . This was the biggest gain for the Clippers .
As a weak team, resilience was an important attribute and it was difficult to cultivate . For professional players, losing was acceptable but giving up was not .
The current Clippers had gradually developed resilience through these past few games because of the overtimes .
Cassel remembered the anger and unwillingness on the players' face swhen they played four overtimes and lost to the Indiana Pacers . Cassel felt the depths of the players incomparable longing for victory . This was completely unlike a usual team that was ranked at the bottom .
I really didn't expect that, in just three games, the team could have undergone such a big change . Cassel though this and looked at Dai Li, who was a little further away . He realized that all these changes happened after Dai Li came .
Does Coach Li really not understand basketball? Cassel felt that the Dai Li in front of him was getting harder and harder to figure out .
. . .
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The Clippers' opponent was the Orlando Magic .
The Magic were ranked second last in the Eastern Conference . They were half a game away from being ranked last .
A team in such a position would naturally want to tank so that they could get the best draft pick . There was still a team under them in the rankings . The Magic was very desperate to lose, so as to "catch up" to the bottom as soon as possible .
The Clippers also had a terrible record . Although the Clippers' own draft picks had already been traded, the Magic didn't want to have a team that had a record as bad as theirs to compete with . Therefore, the Magic were eager to lose to the Clippers .
The Clippers definitely wanted to win . The players' desire to win had been aroused and the opponent was even weaker than the Clippers . The Clippers were naturally going to go all out this game .
One wanted to lose, the other wanted to win . The result was obvious .
The anger and unwillingness the Clippers felt when they lost to the Pacers after playing four overtimes were vented out in the game . They started with a fierce attack at the beginning of the game . The Magic were happy to lose to the Clippers . They put up some symbolic resistance for a while, and then they basically surrendered .
Dai Li did not use "Evenly Matched" for this game, because Dai Li knew that the Magic would come in last in the Eastern Conference if they lost this game . They were "begging to lose . " They wouldn't put up a fight against the Clippers .
Without effects of "Evenly Matched," the game did not go into overtime . The Clippers successfully defeated the Magic, and they ended their four away games journey .
Four away games, three of which had been against playoff-level teams, ended with a record of three wins and one loss . People who were unaware would think that this was the record of a playoff-level team .
The Clippers returned to Los Angeles . Their next opponents were the Lakers, who were based in the same city .
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In both Los Angeles and the entire NBA, the Lakers had far more influence than the Clippers . The Clippers and the Lakers shared a home-court, the Staples Center . Therefore, the Clippers' home-court would be flooded with a large number of Lakers fans . The Lakers fans outnumbered the Clippers fans . Very often at the Staples Center, cheers were overwhelmingly for the Lakers when the Clippers were playing at their home-court .
So, for the Clippers, playing against the Lakers was akin to playing as an away team .
The Lakers' record this year was not good enough to enter the playoffs, but the Lakers were not deliberately tanking . One reason was that they had gained three excellent draft picks consecutively . The team was already full of talented players . The second reason was that it was a giant team, so the fans had expectations for the Lakers .
In fact, the Lakers had the top players in the NBA . They had no reason to tank to rebuild the team deliberately . The attraction of Los Angeles and the magnetic attraction of giant teams always attracted superstars . Although the performance of the Lakers was not very outstanding this season, the Lakers was able to form a grouping of three or four superstars .
When facing the Lakers, Dai Li once again used "Evenly Matched . " It resulted in overtime again .
. . .
The head coach of the Lakers felt helpless . This was the first time he had played a match with three overtimes since becoming an NBA head coach .
The young players on the Lakers, although very talented, did not have much experience in such situations . Facing a third overtime, they began to fall apart .
On the other hand, the Clippers were not in a hurry . After all, in the past four games there had been three games with overtimes . For the Clippers' players, playing overtime was normal .
"This game has reached its third overtime . In the last game where the Clippers defeated the Magic, there had been no overtime . I thought the Clippers had broken the overtime spell, but now it seems that they haven't," the live commentator said playfully .
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Another commentator said, "Since the Clippers changed ownership, their games often go into overtimes . It seems that when I commentate on Clippers' games in the future, I should apply for overtime in advance . "
. . .
The Clippers eventually defeated the Lakers in the third overtime . They achieved four wins and one loss in the last five games . In the new NBA rankings this week, the Clippers had risen eight places .
Following this, the Clippers faced a period of great difficulty .
They played on their home-court against the Houston Rockets, the team ranked number one in the Western Conference . The Clippers lost after one overtime . They then played an away game against the defending champions, the Golden State Warriors . The Clippers lost after one overtime again . Immediately after, they played against the Grizzlies at their home-court . The Grizzlies were deliberately tanking . Dai Li did not use "Evenly Matched" and, eventually, the Clippers won . They then played against the Thunder at their home-court . The Thunder didn't give the Clippers a chance to go to overtime . The Thunder's superstars defeated the Clippers in the last second with a three-pointer .
One win and three losses in four games . This was the record of a weak team .
The momentum of the Clippers had improved . The Rockets, the Warriors and the Thunder were all teams that competed for the championship, especially the first two . They were ranked in the top two in the NBA power ranking list . In the current situation, with the Western Conference being strong and the Eastern Conference being weak, whoever dominated the Western Conference would basically win the championship . As for the weaker teams, being able to reach overtime while competing against championship teams gave them a morale boost .
In the next game, the Clippers once again faced the Blazers . This time it was at the Clippers' home-court . The game once again reached three overtimes .
The Trail-Blazers seemed to be suffering from some trauma when they played against the Clippers . It resulted in them making two crucial mistakes during the third overtime, which made them lose the game .
The Clippers then went on to play two away games against the Milwaukee Bucks and the New York Knicks . Both games reached overtimes . They won one and lost the other .
After Dai Li became the head coach of the Clippers, the Clippers had played 12 games . Nine of those games went into overtime . This wonderful situation caught everyone's attention . The gaming company started to offer a special bet to let people bet on how many overtimes the Clippers would reach in their future games .
The fans also joked online that the Los Angeles Clippers should simply be renamed to the "Los Angeles' Overtime Team . "Please download our sponsor's game to support us!