Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Gradually, he found his rhythm near the free throw line, and from then on, it became one of his sweet spots for offense.

Tonight, the Brooklyn Nets were not lucky.

Yu Fei started by sinking two jumpers from the free throw line and then split through the defense, allowing Sprewell, who was lurking in the corner, to hit a three-pointer.

The Nets might be the best team in the League at using a zone defense, but a zone is fragile in the face of precise shooting.

Being bombarded on defense and hitting iron on offense, Fei ignited a counterattack, and in less than half a quarter, the Bucks had already taken an 11-point lead.

From that second on, until the end of the game, the Nets never managed to cut the lead to single digits.

At the final buzzer, Fei notched a triple-double with 32 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists, leading the Bucks to a victorious start in the Eastern Conference Finals.

"Hey, Coach Scott," Fei greeted Byron Scott warmly after the game, "It seems like your MVP disappeared tonight. I hope you find him before the next game starts. I miss him as much as you do."

In this game, Kidd delivered a stable performance with 4 out of 17 shots for 10 points, 4 rebounds, and 10 assists—a shooting percentage that was sore to the eyes, but the 10 assists redeemed him.

However, since Fei on the opposing side also had 10 assists, plus an additional 22 points and a shooting percentage above 32 percentage points.

As both teams' absolute cores, the gap became evident upon comparison.

"You could almost say we didn't want to win because we let Frye do whatever he wanted on the court," Kidd said to the media, not in a friendly or calm manner, implying some blame on the team.

One could say the tone for the Eastern Conference Finals was set in Game One.

Or perhaps, this tone was established during the regular season.

The Nets were strong, able to compete even against the championship favorites from the Western Conference, but they had no competitiveness against the Bucks.

Because Kidd, the core around which the Nets were built, was facing a player who was taller, more talented, and had a more versatile offensive skill set.

And the Nets' zone defense, eying the Eastern Conference, was also found wanting against the Bucks' team filled with sharpshooters.

Zone defense emphasizes collectivity and rotation; because its defensive core compresses space, it inevitably sacrifices covering opponents with poorer shooting performances in the lineup.

However, the Bucks could field a lineup with five players handling the outside shots, and of this lineup, Fei had the lowest shooting percentage from beyond the arc (36%).

The Nets, having to leave some players open to secure defensive compactness, could only pick those shooters with lower percentages who still had shooting percentages above the League's average. As a result, they got bombarded.

So what if they didn't employ a zone defense and switched to man-to-man, which old-school coaches favor?

Then, Fei would use pick-and-roll tactics to initiate the "X-Offense," continuously exploiting the Nets' weaknesses.

The Bucks' strengths were pinpointed against the Nets' weaknesses so much so that ESPN's Jack Ramsey wrote in his famous series of articles, "Dr. Jack's Diagnosis": "This may be the first time in history that the best team in the Eastern Conference has completely overpowered the second-best team. It's not about the difference in strength; it's about the style matchup. The Nets can't possibly defeat the Bucks."

And then, Ramsey issued a terminal diagnosis for the Nets at the end of his article: "Incurable."

In Game Two of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Nets identified Fei as the reason the Bucks were so troublesome.

In theory, they were not wrong.

When Fei, the tall and versatile ball-handler, was in good form, the Bucks' shooters could reach their highest potential.

But guarding Fei closely could only suppress his personal scoring, not his ability to pass the ball.
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To lock down Fei could not be achieved by just one person, so the Nets had to focus their defensive resources on the court to do so.

The Bucks would have more players getting open shots.

All Fei needed to do was pass the ball.

The process was different from Game One, but the outcome was almost identical.

The Bucks once again trounced the Nets, with Fei's personal scoring limited to just 17 points, yet he still racked up 10 rebounds and 11 assists.

This was his second consecutive triple-double in the division finals.

Kidd's performance was "consistent", following up his 4 for 17 in Game One with 6 for 19, a total of 14 points, 8 rebounds, and 10 assists for the game. Despite the low shooting percentage, it was still near a triple-double, but for the most part, he was nowhere to be found, prompting Fei to ask Byron Scott once again, "Where is your MVP?"

But this time, Fei's sarcasm cut deeper: "He didn't already buy a plane ticket to San Antonio and make a run for it, did he?"

Kidd was the biggest fish in this year's free agency market.

As an MVP-level point guard, who has not yet reached an agreement to renew his contract with the Nets, there is the possibility that he could leave the team as a free agent.

And who is the front-runner for Kidd's services? None other than the San Antonio Spurs, who are about to free up a significant amount of salary space due to David Robinson's retirement.

The Spurs have the cap space for a maximum contract, enough to sign Kidd outright.

Consequently, rumors of Kidd joining the Spurs next season to play alongside Duncan have never ceased.

Fei's question was like a knife to Byron Scott's heart.

For the Nets, having Kidd meant having hope. Losing Kidd meant losing everything.

Subsequently, Game Three moved to the Brooklyn Nets' home court, a match they had to win.

Kidd, who had been off target for two games, finally broke the jinx and performed extraordinarily well at home, scoring 11 out of 24 shots for the highest team score of 30 points and 12 assists, locking horns with the Bucks up to the last thirty seconds. Fei controlled the ball and called for a pick-and-roll.