The Whip of the God of Basketball

In June, it started to rain in Boston. It was midsummer, and the warm Atlantic sea breeze brought abundant moisture. When encountering the cold air mass descending from the Appalachian Mountains, continuous rain began to cover the entire Boston.

A year ago, the Boston Celtics surprisingly reached the NBA Finals, allowing Boston to taste the taste of hosting the Finals again after 16 years. But the taste is just as bitter as it was 16 years ago. They lost the Finals, losing two of the three games in Boston.

The champion's champagne failed to spread its fragrance in this place, so the people in the entire city couldn't wait to return to the supreme arena and compete for what they had lost for too long.

In a small bar in the South District, a boxing match was going on. The owner of the bar, Marn Pitt, was sitting on a high chair behind the bar, looking up at the TV hanging on the ceiling. ESPN was replaying the Eastern Conference. The highlights of the finals. Obviously, the TV station can only rely on these videos to pass the time before the NBA Finals officially begins.

"Ding, ding, ding!" The ringing of the bell came from the boxing ring in the center of the bar. One round was over. Pete turned his head and looked at the two boxers. Sweat and blood flowed from their cheeks. One of them was beaten with bruises and swollen face. , the right eye can no longer be opened. However, the number of spectators watching this boxing match was pitifully small. There were only a few people talking and laughing with beers in their hands, and there was no feeling of passion at all.

Pete has been running this boxing bar for fifteen years, starting in 1989, when the Boston Celtics began to decline. For those young people with countless hormones released in their bodies, go to the bar to drink some wine and watch it up close. A beastly boxing match is the perfect pastime. As a result, his bar grew bigger and bigger, and many amateur boxers from the South District liked to come here to fight.

As the business got better and better, the place was naturally targeted by the mafia in the Southern District. They began to manipulate the results of boxing matches and set up underground gambling houses to make ill-gotten gains. Peter knew that he could not go against these Irish gang members, so he chose to cooperate and acquiesce, since he did not actually participate in gambling anyway. In this way, this place became one of several important gambling houses in the South District. Until that night in the summer of 2000, the boxer and gambler named Fox Leon killed "Ironhead" Clayman with one punch in the ring. Then he punched and kicked three of Flender's men into minor injuries in the toilet and escaped.

Pete knew the ins and outs of this Fox-Leon, a gambler with Puerto Rican descent, who was as strong as his dead father but addicted to gambling. He was once one of the best boxers in the bar, and finally became Frank's pawn in fake punches.

Peter felt that this guy was destined to die. He would be like his damn dad, with his teeth smashed and thrown on the rocky beach of Alder Harbor, where he would be pecked by seagulls. But what happened after that seemed like a fantasy.

Leon did not die, but caused a scene in another bar and was sentenced to prison. Pete felt that this guy's mind was sharp enough, and the Mafia really couldn't do anything to him in prison. But what really shocked him was that after he was released from prison, this guy never appeared in the South District again. Peter thought he would run away, until one day he heard his buddy say that he was watching a game at the North Shore Garden Arena. See Fox-Leon standing on the sideline in a suit like a coach.

Yes, Pete still remembers that it was the preseason game of the 2000-2001 season, the Boston Celtics played against the Milwaukee Bucks, because he did see photos of the scene in the newspaper later, with Fox Leon in a large photo The lower right corner looks like a coach.

Peter thought it was a coincidence, but in the following years, Fox-Leon suddenly appeared in the sky like a meteor that lit up the dark night. He became the assistant coach and head coach of the Celtics, the All-Star head coach, and the NBA's best coach of the season. He led the team to the finals. Pete just felt like a dream.

The most profound experience that made him feel that it was not a dream was that the bar business was getting worse and worse. Especially on game days, when the Celtics played at the North Shore Garden Arena, no one was willing to come here to watch low-level boxing matches. They would rather go to the arena and watch the Celtics win game after game.

"Ding ding ding!" The bell rang again, pulling Peter back from his memories. The duel in the boxing ring was over. The winner raised his arms high, but there was no cheering, no applause, not even a hug.

Pete got up from the high chair, walked out from the bar, invited the two guys to walk to the ring, and said to the boxers on the ring: "Thank you for your hard work, guys, go to the locker room behind and take a rest. Drink some water, there And a little beer, this place is going to be torn down.”

The winning boxer is a middle-aged white man in his thirties. He works as a physical education teacher in a public high school on weekdays. In his free time, he comes here to box to earn some extra money. He has been boxing at Pete's Bar for seven or eight years. , when he heard Pete saying that it was going to be demolished, he asked a little strangely: "Are you going to get a new boxing ring?"

"No, there won't be a boxing ring here anymore. I quit. You are welcome to come and drink from now on, but you can't come to box." With that, Pete removed the ropes around the ring. The two guys also started to remove the foam and mats around the ring bit by bit. It seems that this boxing ring that has stood in the bar for more than ten years will disappear tonight.

Fifteen minutes later, an empty space was opened in the center of the bar. Pete and his men moved a lot of chairs to fill the space, and then moved a large-sized TV from the warehouse and placed it opposite the original boxing ring.

"The latest LCD TV! From today on, there will no longer be boxing matches here, but basketball, baseball and ice hockey games will be broadcast. Starting from tomorrow, the NBA Finals will be broadcast live here in the evening!" After everything was done, Pete announced loudly , the bar boxing business that had been in business for more than ten years ended, and was replaced by the live broadcast of ball sports, which was more popular among young people.

……………………

In the rain, Phil Jackson and the Los Angeles Lakers arrived in Boston, a city that would never be friendly to them. In the midsummer of June, Lakers players could still feel the cold wind blowing after getting off the plane.

"I hate coming to this place, especially in the summer." Jackson muttered to himself as he got off the plane. The last time I came to Boston in the summer was way back in 1974. At that time, Jackson was still playing for the New York Knicks. They were the defending champions and met the Celtics in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The result was terrible. They were defeated by the Celtics led by Dave Cowens and Havlicek. , and eventually the Celtics won the championship that season.

"But there is nothing more exciting than winning here." Old Winter, who was walking behind Jackson, obviously heard Jackson's words. He carefully came down the ladder and said to Jackson.

"Haha, that's right." Jackson recalled the wonderful memories of 1973. Also in the Eastern Conference playoffs, they were wildly abused by the Celtics. That year, the Celtics achieved a shocking 68-14 record in the regular season. In the playoffs, Reed Auerbach did everything he could to torture the Knicks.

In Boston's four away games, Auerbach assigned the Knicks to a different locker room each time, letting keys break and towels disappearing, and always setting the indoor temperature at 37 degrees Celsius. degree or above.

However, such behavior not only failed to defeat the Knicks, but instead angered the entire Knicks team. They worked hard to defeat their opponents in the seventh game, ending the Celtics' undefeated playoff tie-breaker myth and successfully scored Finals and won the championship. This became the sweetest memory of Jackson's playing career.

With this memory, Jackson is ready to fight the Celtics to the end. He knows that as long as Reed Auerbach is alive, he will not give the Los Angeles Lakers good luck in Boston.