The referee did not respond to the demands of Tang Shuai and other teammates, and the referee even crossed his hands and opened them again, indicating that the game was over.

At this time, Billups couldn't sit still at this time and walked to the referee with Xiao.

Billups had been fighting in the league for 17 years and had won it. He was still very familiar with the referee. Now that he went up to communicate, the referee's attitude was obviously much better.

But at the end, Billups also frowned and walked back.

The game is over.

"Tang, let's go back to the locker room first." Bilups pulled over Tang Shuai, who was a little excited, and directly signaled the others to go back to the locker room first.

Tang Shuai's psychological quality was already very stable, and he was even calmer, but because of the Warriors and the various things before the game, he was a little emotional.

On the way to the locker room, Billups kept talking to him again, and his emotions gradually stabilized.

At the post-match press conference, Tang Shuai and Billups attended the press conference together.

Under Billups' instruction, Tang Shuai did not answer too many questions from reporters, and the subjects of the questions were focused on Billups.

"Changxi, this is your first game as a head coach. The opponent is the Warriors, but the team played an impressive game. How did you do that?"

"Well, the Warriors are strong, but I believe every team has weaknesses, and we are not without advantages. We have five new members, including me, who do not have enough historical data, so we are strangers to the Warriors, on the contrary, we are familiar with the Warriors, and my players performed well enough that although they did not win the game in the end, I am proud of them."

"Steve won the championship in his first season as coach of the Warriors, and led the team to set a new regular season record last year. He faced such an excellent coach in the first game. Will you feel the pressure?"

"You're right. Steve is a successful player and he's also a great coach." When facing the reporter's question, Billups said with a smile, "But I didn't feel the pressure, because to be honest, he has been a head coach for less than a year more than me."

Cole has coached for 2 and a half seasons for the Warriors this season, and more than half of them were absent due to injury. Billups had been an assistant coach for the Clippers for a season before. This statement is correct, but using coaching time to answer this question is not correct, but it inexplicably makes people catch a certain point, which is quite a way for Vicky to answer questions.

A reporter at the scene couldn't help but laugh on the spot.

Tang Shuai couldn't help but smile. Seeing Billups dealing freely, his previous depression also relieved a lot.

"We saw two key turning points in the game, one was Tang's fourth foul and the other was the last minute foul. It can be said that these two penaltyes changed the trend of the game and even determined the result of the game. Do you have any opinions on it?"

"Well" Billups was silent for a while. The most sensitive question was raised by the reporter. He did not answer the reporter's questions in person, but said to himself, "I have played basketball in the league for 17 years. I know that referees are not easy. There will be some improper punishments in the game. However, I still hope that there will be more correct punishments in the next game. After all, players should perform the most exciting part of competitive sports."

"Are you not at all dissatisfied or unwilling to give up? After all, this is a good opportunity to end the Warriors' 20-game winning streak." The reporter asked.

Billups shook his head: "Many of our players have just joined the team, and the team still has a lot of room for improvement. I care more about the competitiveness shown by the team, rather than being entangled in a game, especially the win or loss of the regular season. To be honest, I don't want to be the one who ends anyone in the media too early."

Tang Shuai couldn't help but nodded. When the player channel was in the game, what Billups said to him was similar to this.

"The last question, do you have anything to say to the Warriors or the Oakland fans?" The reporter said and looked at Billups.

Billups paused for a moment, then looked up and only four words popped out of his mouth: "See you in the playoffs."

The press conference ended, and although they did not win the game, the Lakers ultimately failed to do what Billups wanted, and they still made the headlines in the media.

In one game, Billups' coaching ability and the Lakers' new style of playing still illuminate the fans. Including the "See you in the playoffs" at the press conference, it attracted great attention.

Maybe the reporters at the scene didn't think too much, but after the media reported it, this sentence seemed very meaningful.

The Lakers are now at a disadvantage in the playoffs, so to fulfill this sentence, the first thing to do is to achieve outstanding performance in the second half of the season to enter the playoffs, and exclude the eighth place that may appear. If you want to meet the Warriors during the playoffs, the Lakers must at least reach the Western Conference Finals.

After reading it carefully, the confidence contained in it was shocking.

Los Angeles fans are very excited. After all, Billups demonstrated his mature coaching ability in the first game, and they are particularly looking forward to what height they can bring the team to in the second half of the season.

However, this also made him fall into the forefront of public opinion again.

Originally, the contract of 40 million yuan for four years was enough to attract criticism. Now, I just used a game to dispel some doubts and immediately said something like "see you in the playoffs", which made some media people really unable to sit still.

Especially those media commentators who have just been slapped in the face seem to be more and more striving to suppress Billups.

In the eyes of most of them, the Lakers' players' talent is too limited. Now is no longer an era when players can win games with a single core. Tang Shuai alone is not enough. They are waiting for the end of the season to see the jokes between Billups and Tang Shuai.

In the following period, Billups focused on training the players' physical fitness and tacit understanding.

During this process, Tang Shuai also gained a further understanding of him.

When he was with the Clippers, although Billups was the chief assistant coach, he was mainly responsible for the team's tactics, and he had never taken care of things like training.

But now when he is conducting daily training with the Lakers, his biggest feeling is that everyone in the team is very important and is an indispensable part of the team.

This feeling is very terrifying. It seems to be a normal training class, but it constantly condenses the tacit understanding among the players, making the team slowly turn into a solid team.

Slowly, Tang Shuai seemed to feel that the team was moving towards the Pistons, or a more perfect team.

This change is visible. In the following games, the Lakers showed a completely different competitive state than before the All-Star game, and even this state puzzled many experts.

On February 26, the Lakers challenged the Jazz, the seventh in the Western Conference away game. Tang Shuai scored 46 points and 6 assists again, helping the team defeated their opponent 111-103.

On February 28, the Lakers played against the Bucks at home, and Tang Shuai scored another 40 points and 9 assists to help the team defeat his opponent 97-86. It is worth mentioning that this is his fourth consecutive game of 40 points after the trade deadline.

On March 2, the Lakers won a back-to-back game. In the first stop against the 76ers, Tang Shuai only played in three quarters, easily scoring 28 points and 8 assists, helping the team defeat their opponents 110-89. In the next day's game, he scored 52 points and 3 assists, helping the team defeat their strong rival Rockets again.

After winning the Rockets, they won a four-game winning streak, which was also a four-game winning streak in Billups coaching the Lakers.

The record of 4 wins and 1 loss is comparable to the scene when Kerr first arrived at the Warriors, and what is even more shocking is that the strength of this Lakers is much worse than the Warriors at the time.

After this wave of winning streak, the Lakers' record reached 31 wins and 18 losses, and suddenly rose from the tenth place in the West to the fifth place in the West.

With this performance of the team, Tang Shuai returned in March after falling off the list in February, and held third place, only lower than James and Durant.

This seems to be what Billups said when he first arrived at the Lakers. He didn't need to prove anything, because everything was just let nature go.

On March 4, US time, after a day of rest, the Lakers welcomed their strong rivals Spurs at home.

This game is a big test for this new team. The Spurs performed poorly at the start of the game, but they finally got back to their form before the All-Star Game. Now the record of 36 wins and 13 losses is much better than the Lakers, ranking second in the West.

The Lakers have just won four consecutive victories and are in good shape. It is definitely a fierce game against their strong rival Spurs.

The game was indeed as fans expected. In the first half of the game, Tang Shuai still beat the crowd. Green, the top defender, seemed powerless in front of him. Both sides tied 52 in the first half.

Billups was in a disadvantage in the fight with Vic in the first half.

When the second half came back, the fans thought that this game would be the last moment like they did against the Warriors more than ten days ago, but after the third quarter began, the game fell into an incredible scene.

Vicky holds the highest coaching contract, and he needs no need to say much about his ability, and the weird tricks he often uses in the game are even more unpredictable.

Less than three minutes after the third quarter started, Vic used his tried-and-true chopping people in everyone's surprise.

And the target of being cut this time was actually Shuai Tang! To be continued.

...
Chapter completed!