The Best Point Guard

Megan Fox didn’t voice her opinion, wisely choosing to stay silent.

Meanwhile, the game on the court was growing increasingly intense.

The two teams went back and forth.

Miami was playing very tough, and the Knicks were showing unprecedented resilience and a thuggish streak of their own.

Before this season, everyone said the Knicks were a fallen team, comparable to the Portland Prison Team... Interestingly, this season they even brought in an "outstanding talent" from Portland. This talent had assaulted the head coach twice, surpassing the legend of Sprewell. Now, the only "unbreakable" dark joke left from the "Madman" was: "This much money isn’t enough to feed my family."

With a roster like this, they couldn’t suppress their frantic urge to retaliate whenever an opponent played a hard-nosed style.

So, both the physical contact and verbal clashes in the game began to escalate.

"Lick my black ass!"

"Fuck your grandma!"

"Have your grandma come lick my black ass."

"..."

The trash talk flew back and forth.

The main contributors were Eddie Curry and Zach Randolph.

The two teams traded blows, and after a brief offensive surge from both sides, their efficiency plummeted.

Both teams started bricking shots, turning it into a defensive battle.

The Knicks automatically switched into their iron-fisted, meat-grinder mode.

This kind of frantic defensive battle could easily lead to an escalation of conflict.

After Zach Randolph was pulled down from mid-air on a layup attempt, sandwiched between Anthony Walker and Mourning, he showed the same guts that led him to punch his own head coach and gave Mourning a hard shove.

The referee quickly stepped in to prevent things from escalating.

After all, Randolph was no saint.

And Mourning was a battle-hardened enforcer himself.

He was the same guy who, years ago at Madison Square Garden, got into a brawl so intense that the Knicks’ then-coach Jeff Van Gundy had to desperately cling to his leg just to stop him from pummeling one of his players.

But now, the tables had turned.

In Miami’s home arena, Zach Randolph pointed his finger at Mourning. "Don’t you play dirty with me. I could take you down easy. You’re just a paper tiger pretending to be tough. If you want to go one-on-one, I’m ready whenever. You can pay your own hospital bills."

Randolph was a ruthless character.

He didn’t give a damn about anything.

He had no respect for so-called "enforcers."

Mourning glared at the young buck and realized Randolph wasn’t just posturing—he was stating a fact.

’Now that’s a hard man.’

’After so many years in the league, you learn to be careful when you run into someone who’s genuinely ruthless.’

The game resumed, and less than a minute into the second quarter, another conflict erupted.

Following the first technical foul on Zach Randolph, the referees handed out the second and third. Eddie Curry had just completed a beautiful turn-around hook shot and was roaring in celebration.

O’Neal promptly shoved him aside. In response, Curry grabbed the ball and threw it at O’Neal, and the two immediately got in each other’s faces.

The head referee quickly intervened, handing out technical fouls to both. At the same time, he warned the players on both teams to cut it out, saying that if this continued, things would surely get out of hand.

He did not want a game he was officiating to descend into an all-out brawl.

Especially with the playoffs on the line. If a major incident were to happen, the head referee would face repercussions.

The officiating crew tightened their calls, and the whistles began to blow constantly.

At this point, Wade immediately changed tactics, repeatedly attacking the paint and drawing one ticky-tack foul after another.

Su Xi then tried to do the same, but it was clear that Wade was getting more favorable calls. Perhaps it was the home-court advantage, or perhaps it was the superstar effect of O’Neal—nobody wanted to see the big man foul out early.

However, the Heat couldn’t extend their lead. In fact, Su Xi’s mix of inside drives and outside shots was more efficient offensively than Wade’s strategy of driving to draw fouls.

The Knicks went into the locker room holding onto their lead.

The Knicks were up by only three points.

Meanwhile, courtside, the bond between Meghan Fox and Scarlett Johansson was heating up. They chatted about all sorts of interesting things and were getting along famously.

Scarlett even started sharing her cosplay secrets with Meghan Fox, saying that Jack was obviously more passionate when he was in an "extra state."

Meghan Fox said she was taking notes.

That’s how it is with people. When you look at things from a different angle, your whole world can be turned upside down.

The animosity between Scarlett and Fox had vanished.

Meanwhile, in the locker room, Tony Battie was saying, "Let me at ’em, Jack! Put me in, I’ll beat the hell out of them, and they’ll start behaving. I have to show them how tough ’Battie the Boxer’ is!"

Battie’s voice was booming.

He was a man of action.

But Su Xi told him to stay calm, that they should let their game do the talking on the court.

Eddie Curry complained, "The problem is, they don’t want to settle this with basketball."

The Heat were playing exceptionally dirty tonight.

They gave off a strong "if we go down, we’re taking you with us" vibe. They were playing like men possessed. They knew that losing this game meant losing everything—all the plans and ambitions they’d built since the Shark swam east in 2004.

They couldn’t afford to lose.

So they had to play tough, they had to be ruthless. They had to grab onto the pant legs of Su Xi and the Knicks, trying to drag them down into the mud.

BEEP!

The whistle blew, and the game resumed.

The Heat went on the offensive, their movements aggressive and large. The Miami fans were screaming for blood.

It was as if they wanted to physically destroy the Knicks players. Pat Riley sat on the sideline like the Godfather, his legs crossed, looking every bit the part of a movie supervillain.