In June, it started to rain in Boston. It was midsummer. The warm Atlantic sea breeze brought plenty of moisture. When the air-conditioning mass descended from the Appalachian Mountains, the rain began to envelope the entire Boston.

A year ago, the Boston Celtics reached the nb finals by surprise, allowing Boston to regain the taste of hosting the finals after 16 years. But the taste is as bitter as it was 16 years ago. They lost the finals. In the three games in Boston, the Celtics lost two.

The Champagne of champions has not been able to radiate its fragrance in this place, so people in the whole city can't wait to return to the highest arena and compete again for what they have lost for too long.

In a small bar in the Southern District, a boxing match is going on. The owner of the tavern, Marne Pitt, sits on a high chair behind the bar, looking up at the TV set on the ceiling. Spn is playing back the Eastern Finals. Obviously before the official start of the nb finals, the TV station can only rely on these videos to pass the time.

"Ding Ding Ding!" The ringing ring came from the boxing ring in the middle of the bar. One round was over. Pete turned to look at the two boxers. Sweat and blood flowed down their cheeks, one of them was beaten with a bruised nose and swollen face. , The right eye can no longer open. However, the audience watching this boxing match was very poor, few people, talking and laughing with beer, without any feeling of passion.

Pete has run this boxing bar for fifteen years. Since 1989, when the Boston Celtics began to decline, for those young people who have released countless hormones, go to the bar for a drink and take a closer look. A beast-like boxing match is no better pastime. As a result, his bar is getting bigger and bigger, and many amateur boxers in the Southern District like to come here to fight.

As the business gets better and better, the Mafia in the Southern District is also eyeing this place. They start to manipulate the results of boxing matches and set up underground gambling houses to earn ill-gotten wealth. Pete knew that he couldn't fight against these Irish gangs. He chose cooperation and acquiescence, anyway, he didn't actually participate in gambling. In this way, it became one of the several important gambling houses in the Southern District. Until that night in the summer of 2000, the boxer and gambler named Fox Leon beat out "Ironhead" Kleiman in the ring. Three punches and two kicks in the toilet wounded Flander's three men slightly and fled.

Pete knows the details of this Fox Leon, a gambler of Puerto Rican descent who is as strong as his dead ghost but is obsessed with gambling. He was once one of the best fighters in the bar, and finally became the minion of Frank's fake punch.

Pete felt that this guy was dead, he would definitely be like his dead ghost father, his teeth smashed and thrown on the rocky beach in Old Harbor, being pecked by seagulls. But what happened after that seemed like a fantasy.

Leon did not die, but made a riot in another bar and was sentenced to imprisonment. Pete felt that this guy's brain was sharp enough, and the Mafia really couldn't help him in prison. But what really shocked him was that after he got out of prison, this guy never showed up in the South. Pete 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. Seeing Fox Leon standing on the sidelines in a suit like a coach.

Yes, Pete still remembers that it was the preseason game of the 20002001 season, the Boston Celtics against the Milwaukee Bucks, because he did see the live photos in the newspaper, Fox Leon in the lower right corner of the large photo. , Looks like a coach.

Pete thought it was a coincidence, but in the next few years, Fox Leon was like a shooting star that suddenly appeared in the sky to brighten the dark night. He became the Celtics' assistant coach, head coach, all-star head coach, nb season's best coach, and led the team to the finals. Pete just felt like a dream.

The deepest experience that made him feel that it is not a dream is that the bar business is getting worse and worse, especially on match days, when there are Celtics games in the North Shore Garden Arena, no one wants to watch low-level boxing matches here. They are more willing to go to the arena to watch the Celtics win one after another.

"Ding Ding Ding!" The bell rang again, pulling Pete back from the memory. The duel on the boxing ring was over. The winner raised his arms, but there was no cheer, no applause, or even a hug.

Pete got up from the high chair, walked out from the bar, greeted the two buddies and walked to the ring together, and said to the fighters on the stage: "Thanks for your hard work, go to the locker room behind to rest. Drink some water, there. There is still a little beer, which will be taken down here."

The winning boxer was a middle-aged white man in his thirties. He worked as a physical education teacher in a public high school on weekdays. When he was free, he would come here to punch for some extra money. He has been punching in Pete’s bar for seven or eight years. After hearing Pete said that he would take it apart, he asked a little strangely: "Are you going to get a new ring?"

"No, there won't be any boxing ring here anymore, quit, you are welcome to drink in the future, but you can't come to punch anymore." With that, Pete unloaded the rope around the ring. The two guys also started to remove the foam and mats around the ring a little bit. It seems that this boxing ring that has stood in the bar for more than ten years is about to disappear tonight.

Fifteen minutes later, there was an empty space in the center of the bar. Pete and his men brought in a lot of chairs to fill it up, and then took out a large-size TV from the warehouse and placed it on the opposite side of the original ring.

"The latest TV! From today, there will be no boxing matches here, but basketball, baseball and ice hockey matches. From tomorrow, the nb finals will be broadcast live here in the evening!" After everything was set, Pete announced loudly. The bar boxing business, which had been in business for more than a decade, ended and replaced it with live broadcast of ball sports, which was more popular and popular among young people.

In the rain, the entire team of Phil Jackson and the Los Angeles Lakers arrived in Boston, a city that would never be friendly to them~lightnovelpub.net~ In the midsummer of June, the Lakers players who got off the plane could still feel the bursts. The cold wind blows.

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

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

"Haha, that's right." Jackson remembered the fond memories of 1973, also in the Eastern playoffs, they were madly abused by the Celtics. That year, the Celtics achieved a shocking record of 68 wins and 14 losses in the regular season. In the playoffs, Reed Auerbach did everything to torture the Knicks.

In the four away games in Boston, Auerbach was assigned to a different locker room for the Knicks each time, and the keys were broken for a while, the towels were missing for a while, and the indoor temperature was always set at 37. Degree above.

However, this behavior not only failed to defeat the Knicks, but angered the entire Knicks team. They fought hard to defeat their opponents in the seventh game, and ended the Celtics' unbeaten myth in the playoffs. The finals and won the championship. This became the sweetest memory of Jackson's player career.

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