March 31, 2003, Away Locker Room, Madison Square Garden, New York.

The Eagles players are ready to start a new chapter!

There is no madness of the night when I just lost to the Bulls two days ago, there is no silent and impetuous heart practicing calligraphy to cultivate sentiment, and there is no going to watch the dunk performance of high school students to relax.

The moment they stepped into Madison Square Garden, Liu Mang and his teammates felt the enthusiasm of the New York fans, especially when the two teams started the game, and the boos seemed to cover them up.

The fans in New York are very interesting, the record is not good, they do not boo their own team's players, but cheer for the opponent, such as last year, when the Knicks had a bad record, Liu Mang came here to score 41 points, the fans in the audience turned to cheer for Liu Mang.

But at the beginning of the middle of this season, the Knicks suddenly broke out, and there was a drop in hope of losing the playoffs, although there was not much hope, but it was hope, especially last season when they thought Alan Houston's 100 million yuan contract was a garbage contract given by the team, but I didn't expect Alan Houston to play the best performance of his career at the age of 32 this year, which was better than the performance in the Pistons and Grant Hill, and better than the peak performance in the previous years in the Knicks, which brought hope to Knicks fans. I don't think there is much hope of making the playoffs this season just because they didn't play well in the first half of the season, and they have to enter the playoffs next season, because their win rate in the second half of the season reached 63 percent, which is only a little worse than the Hawks' 65 percent win rate in the second half of the season, and it is only because they "recover" a month later than the Hawks that they will be four or five wins worse than the Hawks, otherwise they are likely to be in the eighth position.

So now the Knicks fans have become the most "loyal" fans again, full of hostility towards the visiting Hawks, especially because of Liu Mang's rampage here last season, which made them still have past hatred.

Because of the two meetings in the first two meetings this month, the Knicks defeated the Hawks twice on the road, giving Knicks fans more confidence!

The loss is that Liu Mang has already felt the enthusiasm of the New York fans yesterday, otherwise he is really uncomfortable, New Yorkers are so fickle, they still called him Xiao Tiantian at this time last year, and he will be booed to death this year.

In addition to the enthusiastic fans, there are also opponents who are very warmly welcomed, the Knicks are excited, and the Knicks owners and players are in shame! Because they felt the "humiliation" again yesterday!

Since 1986, except for the occasional event in Los Angeles or Washington, the McDonald's All-Star Game has been held at Madison Square Garden, and the opening guests are all the stars of the Knicks, in 1986 it was the Knicks superstar Bernard King, in 1988 it became Ewing, and then it was Ewing for several years, and after 2000 it became Alan Houston, and last season it was Alan Houston as the opening guest.

This year, when the McDonald's All-Star Game was still held in New York, Alan Houston had already prepared for his best individual performance in his career, as a "successful model" in the eyes of high school players, with 100 million yuan to play the best performance of his career in the second year, he was full of confidence that his peak had just arrived, and Jordan was 33 years old before entering the most inexplicable time in theory, they were all pitchers, and Alan Houston was also very confident that he had just entered the peak.

However, the McDonald's All-Star Game was held in New York, and the opening guest was actually an Eagles player!

This is literally a slap in the face of Alan Houston!

The Hawks who went to the game yesterday didn't take it seriously at all, but the Knicks were different, they just felt humiliated.

When I saw the Knicks players being interviewed before the game today, they criticized the McDonald's All-Star Game organizers for not respecting them, and Dolan announced that they would not provide a venue for the event in the future, and the Hawks players knew that the Knicks attached so much importance to this matter, but they didn't expect the Knicks to become more hostile to them because of it.

But......

The Hawks, on their side, don't care at all about the hostility of the Knicks players or their bosses, they are here to take revenge, and they will definitely make the Knicks players unhappy, since this is the case, let them be hostile if they are hostile!

Liu Mang enjoyed the boos and practiced shooting for a while, and after the pre-game preparation time, he returned to the bench and chatted with Boozer waiting for the game to start, not caring about the boos at all.

Liu Mang and Boozer talked and laughed, which not only made the fans angry, but the Knicks players were even more angry, but they couldn't do anything about Liu Mang.

Liu Mang just likes to see the feeling that the opponent hates him but can't kill him, and he just likes the pleasure of running in the hostility of the other party.

On the Hawks' side, the starters are still Jason Terry, Prince, Raheem, Mohammed, and Ratliff.

The Knicks, for their part, sent Howard Easley, Alan Houston, Sprewell, Kurt Thomas, and Ocella Hanington.

Generally speaking, at the beginning of the game, after the two starters have done their pre-match actions and other things on the court, the boss of the home team will come up to say hello to the opponent's starters, give high-fives or punch each other.

Even Kobe Bryant will come up and clap his hands with Rahim, and the relationship between the two is not bad.

But the Knicks said no this time!

No one took the initiative to greet the Hawks players, directly ignoring the scene of "friendship first, game second", both teams are hostile like this, although it is a unilateral hostility of the Knicks, the Hawks don't regard the Knicks as a competitor at all, but they have already torn their faces, the Knicks don't give face, and the Hawks don't want to give face!

Originally, the Hawks were unhappy with the first two times when the Hawks almost lost to the Knicks when the schedule almost made the Hawks unable to hold on, and now they want to kill the Knicks more determined, so they use this game to start the playoffs!

Jump Ball!

Ratliff and Hanington made their way to the center of the court, and the referee blew the whistle to kick the ball into the air, with Ratliff winning the jump ball with a clear height and reach advantage.

The Eagles attacked first, and the opening game was still handed over to Raheem.

Most of the time, Raheem chiseled at the beginning, was invincible, and then helped the Eagles starting lineup to open up the situation.

However, this time Raheem had just settled on the inside, and Sprewell's ferocious top defense made Rahim very uncomfortable!

Sprewell puts aside his personality, he is indeed a good player, especially this year is his contract year, and he has played the feeling of a giant player on both offensive and defensive ends, people only see Alan Houston's brilliant performance on the offensive end, and feel that the Knicks' outburst in the second half of this year is Alan Houston's good play, but they don't see the contribution made by this bewitching man with Nezha-like pigtails behind the scenes.

Sprewell has played a very good defensive performance this year and has become the defensive gate of the Knicks' guard line, otherwise Alan Houston and Howard Easley, who was originally just a backup to Mark Jackson, are at best average, and the Knicks will not be able to play more than 60% wins in the second half of the season.

Raheem was made difficult to catch the ball by Sprewell's rough forward movements, mainly because he was not prepared at all, and Rahim was not there in the first two meetings between the two teams this season!

And the other small forwards of the Hawks are not low-post single-player, and none of them are the main point of attack, and it is not Sprewell who defends them at all, so I don't know that Sprewell will be so rough when defending in the low post.

Jason Terry saw that Raheem was a little sleepy, so he came himself!

Defending Jason Terry is Easley, who played less than 50 starts in eight seasons before this season, and this year was extremely lucky, Mark Jackson was sent away by the Knicks in the second round, he became a starter, and he played really hard this year, especially in the second half of the season.

Easley's defense is not great, but he is positive! Especially today, the whole Knicks team was very desperate, and Easley gave Jason Terry a lot of interference, and Jason Terry came up to try his first pullup jump shot and missed!

Hanington, who formed the Texas duo with Francis, of the Rockets, relied on a fat body to squeeze away Muhammad and grabbed the defensive rebound!

The Knicks are a bit fierce today!