One Year Left to Play

After arriving in Toronto, Zhang Hao stayed in his room and didn’t go out, looking at the sports newspaper delivered by the attendant.

Last night, apart from O’Neal, all 11 of the top 50 stars took the stage.

Some performed well, some performed average; Robert Parish definitely had an average performance, which is exactly why the Bulls signed him back to deal with O’Neal. The Bulls signed a total of three backup centers during the off-season, which is quite telling.

Olajuwon’s mediocre performance left Zhang Hao feeling regretful; Olajuwon seems to have lost his edge after failing to achieve a three-peat championship.

There were quite a few reports about their Lakers and New York Knicks game, but none were considered hot news because just looking at the score at the end of the third quarter and the final score, it seemed like the Lakers were clearly ahead of the Knicks. The stars of the Lakers had rather balanced performances: Zhang Hao with 30 points, Barkley with 26 points, Kenny Anderson with 15 points and 7 assists, and the Magician with 7 points and 5 assists, lacking any explosive moments.

After resting for a day at the hotel, November 3rd came, the regular-season second game of the Lakers, challenging the Raptors on their home court.

At 6 p.m., the Lakers and Raptors game started.

Unlike when playing the Knicks, when facing the opposing five starting players’ intimidation, the Lakers were very focused and adjusted their tactics quickly, today the Lakers treated the game as a tactical rehearsal.

In addition, Barkley had no motivation at all for playing against the Raptors, just honestly did the work of scrambling, grabbing passes, and grabbing defensive rebounds, but playing against the Raptors, no one on the Lakers cared if Barkley was working hard or not.

Sure enough, after mainly running tactics, Kenny Anderson and the Magician had stellar performances when alternately on the court, Kenny Anderson scored 16 points and had 4 assists in the half, Magician scored 10 points and had 5 assists in the half, and their playing time still didn’t overlap with Kenny Anderson playing 13 minutes, Magician 11 minutes.

But defensively, the Lakers were far less serious than they were against the Knicks; far from doing well against the Knicks.

The Lakers scored 59 points in the first half, while the Raptors also scored 53 points in the first half!

A 6-point lead this time didn’t provide much cushion; entering the third quarter, Damon Stoudamire scored 17 points and had 4 assists in a single quarter, helping the Raptors explode with 34 points in a single quarter, beating the Lakers 34 to 26.

After three quarters, the Lakers went from leading by 6 points to trailing by 2!

In the final quarter, the Lakers wanted to get serious, but the Raptors had already gained momentum. Despite the Lakers trying hard offensively with Kenny Anderson, Doug Christie, and Zhang Hao, and despite Zhang Hao using the "Little Flying Hero’s Physical Pool" for two consecutive games, it merely stabilized the situation, with scores tightly clinging, and the Lakers continuously trailing by 3 to 5 points.

By 11 minutes and 16 seconds of the game, the Lakers were trailing the Raptors by 4 points with 116 to 120!

Finally, Barkley stepped up during a critical moment; as Zhang Hao shot a three-pointer against Walter Williams and missed, Barkley grabbed the offensive rebound and converted it to a 2+1!

In the subsequent defensive round, when Damon Stoudamire dribbled to waste time, Zhang Hao guarding Stoudamire accurately predicted the opponent would come himself and decisively chose to block the shot, successfully interfering, and Damon Stoudamire, who scored 38 points tonight, missed a crucial point shot; Zhang Hao himself grabbed the defensive rebound.

When Zhang Hao grabbed the rebound, only 7 seconds were left until the end of the game; without calling a timeout, he directly launched a counterattack!

In 4 seconds, he grabbed the rebound under the basket, charged to the front court, and completed a dunk. The speed at which Zhang Hao started wasn’t at all like he’d played 17 minutes in the first half and full-on in the second half!

"Slaying (Gold)" was triggered!

As the Raptors, after a timeout, inbounded the ball, giving Damon Stoudamire a three-pointer attempt that missed, the Lakers at the last moment relied on Barkley’s offensive rebound 2+1 and Zhang Hao’s critical defensive counterattack fast-break almost buzzer-beater dunk to execute a 5-0 run, narrowly defeating the Raptors with 121 to 120!

Damon Stoudamire scored 38 points, had 10 rebounds, and 14 assists tonight, achieving his career’s first triple-double. His performance of 27 shots and 14 hits couldn’t have been better, but he still lost to that guy opposite!

Although only 7 shots made 3 at halftime, including 2 shots and 1 three-pointer and 2 made of 2 free throws scoring 9 points, he played full third quarter only entering with 6 points, but after playing 29 minutes in the first three quarters, he exploded in the final quarter, scoring 15 points in single-quarter and shooting the almost buzzer-beater!

Zhang Hao gave the impression to his opponent that he played even fiercer in the final than in the first three quarters!

Especially in the last play, as one of the league’s fastest players, Damon Stoudamire couldn’t keep up when rushing out, just watching Zhang Hao accomplish that fierce fast-break dunk.

Damon Stoudamire looked at his triple-double, wondering what he was fighting for tonight...

Compared to Damon Stoudamire’s bewilderment at losing the game in the last 44 seconds, Zhang Hao on his side breathed a major sigh of relief once the final buzzer sounded.

Just a tiny bit more, just a tiny bit more, the "Rat Exterminator" mission would have failed right at the beginning of the new season.

"Rat Exterminator:

Goal: Zhang Hao must secure victory every time he faces Damon Stoudamire.

Task reward: Zhang Hao will earn life extension days equivalent to the number of consecutive wins against Damon Stoudamire; if achieving cross-season consecutive wins, the final life extension is equal to the consecutive wins multiplied by cross-season length (currently 4 consecutive wins, cross-season length of two seasons).

This task, Damon Stoudamire still in the Raptors, this bottom-feeding team, would have collapsed right from the start, how unfortunate!

As the final buzzer sounded, looking at Damon Stoudamire, who made a baffled long three-point miss, Zhang Hao was seized by a whim and lowered his head to say to Damon Stoudamire: "Seems like, your comeuppance is indeed me."

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