Chapter 128: Pay Attention

Chapter 140: Pay Attention

The 76ers, the Trail Blazers, and the New York Knicks all fell in Dallas, allowing the Cleveland Cavaliers to score another victory. The Cavaliers had now won three games in a row, officially breaking the fifty-win mark.

Yet those victories brought Su Feng no sense of achievement. Their opponents—the Miami Heat, the Houston Rockets, and LeBron James—had all been defeated with relative ease. Beating them was certainly important, but it was not enough to prove anything.

Thus, even after winning three straight games, Su Feng remained troubled. The man, it seemed, had grown far too attached to LeBron James.

In the final two games of the month, the Cavaliers won again, defeating the Orlando Magic and the Houston Rockets to extend their winning streak to five games.

But during the postgame press conference, when a reporter asked Su Feng, “How would you describe the Cavaliers’ outstanding performance since the start of the regular season?” Su Feng found himself unable to answer.

Outstanding performance?

Defeating those five opponents could only be called a normal performance. It was nowhere near outstanding. Su Feng was still waiting for an opportunity—an opportunity to prove himself and make up for his previous failure.

Then the regular season entered its final two months, and the Cavaliers’ first opponent in March was a team with enough strength to matter: the San Antonio Spurs.

After waiting for so long, Su Feng had finally found a truly powerful opponent against whom he could prove his ability. The Spurs were unquestionably strong enough. If Cleveland could beat them twice, just as it had in the past, perhaps Su Feng could finally overcome the obstacle in his heart.

The Cavaliers wanted to win, while the Spurs and Kobe Bryant wanted victory just as badly. The Spurs had already lost two games in the regular season, and Kobe was every bit as stubborn as Su Feng.

So that day, the Spurs seemed to grow five years younger overnight, scoring 68 points in the first half.

The Cavaliers, by contrast, received a poor performance from their bench and were forced onto the defensive from the opening tip. San Antonio’s reserves outscored Cleveland’s by twenty points. That was not a gap that could be ignored, and Su Feng spent the entire game desperately chasing the deficit.

In the end, however, they still failed to catch up.

The Cavaliers lost, and the defeat became another thorn in Su Feng’s heart. It should have been the perfect opportunity for him to resolve his lingering doubts. Instead, the pressure only became heavier.

After losing two consecutive games—even against opponents who were not at full strength—the Cavaliers were once again pushed into the center of public criticism.

The label “paper tiger” began to stick more firmly to them. Many people believed that Cleveland had reached five wins by feasting on weak teams that had practically handed them victories. The moment they met a true contender, the Cavaliers would fall silent.

Su Feng was furious.

By the end of the regular season, he had become exceptionally irritable.

In the following month, it seemed that fate itself was mocking the Cavaliers. They could still win most of their games in convincing fashion, but whenever they met a powerful opponent, the result became increasingly unfavorable.

Every time Su Feng faced a strong team, his calm and steady style disappeared. In its place came reckless attacks and a desperate hunger for points.

He wanted victory too badly. He could not accept the Cavaliers losing every time they encountered a powerful opponent. That obsession clouded his judgment and left him fixated on scoring.

It was not the best choice for the team.

LeBron shook his head. One day, Su Feng would have to let go of that defeat. Until then, his emotions would never return to normal.

The regular season continued into April. Although the Cavaliers had conceded plenty of points throughout the campaign, they still put together ten beautiful victories.

On April 1, five days before the playoffs began, the Cavaliers defeated the Phoenix Suns at home, 111–98. The result cast a shadow over Cleveland’s postseason prospects.

Their regular-season record now stood at 68–11. Those 68 victories surpassed the Cavaliers’ previous franchise record from the 2006–07 season and became the most wins in a single season in the history of the organization.

Even the Miami Big Three had managed only 66 victories the year before.

Everyone was delighted after the game. Breaking the franchise record and moving into fifth place in league history was a tremendous honor for the entire team.

Yet in front of the reporters, Su Feng remained gloomy and silent. Compared with the glory of 68 wins, he cared far more about what had happened in the eleven losses.

Since the start of the regular season, the Cavaliers had lost more games in the past two months than they had during the entire six months before that. Su Feng could not ignore the warning.

The shy young man, wearing a shy smile, had already begun to establish his rule over the entire league.

The All-Star Weekend ended perfectly with Su Feng receiving the Most Valuable Teammate award. This year’s All-Star Game had not left fans with many unforgettable memories, but it had been perfectly acceptable. A peaceful life was itself a kind of victory.

After the All-Star Game, Su Feng and Vignali said goodbye in New Orleans. The more time they spent together, the harder every farewell became.

A few days earlier, Su Feng had felt as though he were about to die in bed. Yet when the moment of parting arrived, he still felt they had not spent enough time together.

“When winter comes, I hope to receive your Teammate of the Year ring,” Vignali said with a smile as she waved goodbye.

In truth, the young Spaniard was also trying to hint at something else.

“In winter, I’ll be waiting for you to marry me.”

Of course, the blockheaded Su Feng failed to understand her meaning. He merely nodded at Vignali and waved farewell.

Two hours later, Su Feng boarded his own plane and flew to Dallas. The Cavaliers had a game the following day, and the team would resume training that afternoon.

In other words, the moment Su Feng stepped onto the plane, his vacation was over. No matter how relaxed he had been a few days earlier, he now had to remain alert. The regular season was not yet finished, and the battle continued.

Tomorrow’s opponent would surely make the Cavaliers feel the pressure of playoff basketball at once.

Up to that point, Cleveland had lost only eleven games in the regular season. Each defeat had come at the hands of a different team.

Most of those losses had been caused by Su Feng’s suspension or by the Cavaliers’ own poor condition. There was only one game in which Cleveland had played normally and still been unable to win.

That opponent was also the team LeBron and Su Feng feared most during the season: the Miami Heat, the league’s best defensive team and the force that had dominated the NBA for the past two years.

In a sense, the relationship between the Heat and the Cavaliers seemed destined to continue.

In 2006, the Cavaliers had reached the Finals with a 2–0 lead, only to lose four straight games and watch their dream of becoming the greatest team in history collapse. That Finals series had made one man’s name famous throughout the league: Dwyane Wade.

In 2011, Cleveland had reached the Finals again, where they faced the Miami Heat. Although the two teams had changed considerably by then, fate still brought the Heat and the Cavaliers together once more.

The fans were not happy either. The spirit of the aging Big Three had begun to show signs of weakness before the younger generation.

Neither team disappointed in the Finals. Neither side could stop the other. Every possession was filled with tension. Cleveland’s offense was slightly better overall, while Miami played superbly behind the all-around brilliance of LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade.

Then, with only a few seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, LeBron hit three consecutive shots from outside and suddenly gave Miami a four-point lead.

Kobe Bryant had done everything he could, but once LeBron entered scoring mode, he was almost impossible to stop.

After the third shot, LeBron’s personal total rose to 40 points, and his shooting percentage reached an astonishing 69.6 percent.

“Kobe defended LeBron the way he had defended him on previous possessions. He never expected LeBron to rise up and fire directly from beyond the arc—and make it. You cannot blame Kobe. He made the correct judgment and the correct choice. The only person to blame is LeBron, for producing such an incredible performance tonight!”

After LeBron scored four straight points against the Cavaliers’ defense, Kobe Bryant could only marvel at his performance.

The game now came down to one final possession. Cleveland trailed by four and needed a miracle to win. A three-point shot was the Cavaliers’ only hope.

For several weeks, Cleveland’s opponents had mostly been weak teams.

From October 2013 through the middle of January 2014, the Cavaliers had lost only five games. But from the middle of February through the middle of April, they had already lost eight.

Among those eight defeats were losses to teams such as the Houston Rockets, the Spurs, and the Clippers.

Why?

Why had the Cavaliers been unable to defeat their powerful opponents?

The enormous shadow of LeBron James seemed to linger in Su Feng’s mind. He was the only one who failed to notice it.

This continued until April 16, the final day of the regular season.

“I cannot pick the stars and the moon for you, but perhaps I can give you the best teammate ring in the world. Maybe Su Feng will get married this year. Or perhaps I’ll remain single for the rest of my life. Who knows what will happen next?”

That victory allowed the Cavaliers to surpass the 76ers, who had won 67 games with Wilt Chamberlain, and the Portland Trail Blazers, who had matched that total in the 1971–72 season with Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain. Cleveland had now tied for second place in league history.

The only record still ahead of them was the Rockets’ incredible 70-win season.

People remained astonished by Houston’s 66 wins. After all, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, only three teams had won more than 65 games: the previous year’s Houston Rockets, the 2008–09 Cavaliers, and the 2006–07 Cavaliers.

Yet only one game later, Cleveland broke the record with its 69th victory.

Without question, the result gave Su Feng a tremendous advantage in the Most Valuable Teammate race.

If any other team had won 69 games, the entire league would have exploded in celebration. But when the Cavaliers reached that mark, the reaction was entirely different.

Instead of admiration, most teams questioned the legitimacy of Cleveland’s record. The Cavaliers’ performances over the previous two months had been less impressive than those earlier in the season, leaving the public with an unfavorable impression.

More importantly, Cleveland had performed poorly against top opponents and appeared to be slipping at precisely the wrong time.

The most famous example was undoubtedly the year the Cavaliers won 67 games. They had massacred their opponents throughout the regular season. Without resting during the final few games, they might have won even more than 67.

Yet that same team, which had made the entire world tremble during the regular season, was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the eighth-seeded Warriors.

The “Black Eight” upset became the darkest memory in Cavaliers history.

With the lesson of the 2006–07 season still fresh, the skepticism surrounding Cleveland was understandable.

They had won more than sixty games again, but who knew whether they would return to their old form once the playoffs began?

The media was preparing to write about how the Cavaliers were destined to fail in the postseason. But an hour later, the result of another game made Cleveland’s fate even more uncertain and caused every journalist to throw away his draft.

They had suddenly been given a far more exciting story.

At the Pepsi Center in Denver, the Golden State Warriors lost to the Denver Nuggets, 116–112.

At first glance, the game had almost nothing to do with the Cavaliers. Yet after the Warriors lost, they were overtaken by the Memphis Grizzlies and fell from seventh to eighth place in the Western Conference.

The first-seeded Cavaliers facing the eighth-seeded Warriors was astonishingly similar to history repeating itself.

After seven years, Cleveland had once again entered the playoffs as the top seed in the West. Seven years was more than enough time for countless things to change.

Dirk Nowitzki had been the only Cavalier to win 67 games seven years earlier. The Phoenix Suns, who had lost the championship seven years before, could no longer even reach the playoffs. The Celtics, once the second-worst team in the East, had experienced the glory and breakup of their Big Three. The Seattle SuperSonics had vanished completely from the league. The Miami Heat had changed the rules of championship contention. The Trail Blazers had won two consecutive titles. Yao Ming had retired, and Derrick Rose had been born.

The league had changed enormously over those seven years. Some teams had risen and fallen, while others had withdrawn from the stage of history.

But some things never changed.

The Spurs and the Lakers still dominated the league, and Kobe still wore purple and gold. Yet no one could have imagined that seven years later, the Cavaliers would once again win sixty games, finish first in the West, and face the eighth-seeded Warriors.

“This must be the will of God. Otherwise, how could such a coincidence exist?”

“Seven years later, the top team in the Western Conference is still facing the Golden State Warriors. In the old saying, this is enemies meeting on a narrow road!”

“The Cavaliers were destined to meet the Warriors again. Perhaps we are about to witness another great eighth-seed miracle?”

Every team in the league went wild overnight. This astonishing coincidence filled the entire league with excitement before the playoffs even began.

Yet the truly unusual thing was that almost everyone was rooting against the Cavaliers.