The Mavericks' opening opponent of the new season is the Bulls.

The Mavericks won the championship in the park and also went to the park to receive their championship rings this season.

Although there was no championship parade and there were doubts from the outside world, making this championship seem to lack a bit of gold content, it is still a championship after all. Especially for most of the Mavericks players, this is their first championship, so excitement is natural.

Moreover, Ballmer's competitive spirit has been triggered. Not only did the ring he made this time cost over a million US dollars, but he also customized a low-end version for all the staff in the park. The total investment in the ring exceeded more than 30 million US dollars, and the main theme was to show his extravagance and inhumanity.

He even gave himself a ring like the ones his teammates had. When he gave out the rings, he was so excited when he hugged his teammates that his love for basketball was obvious.

It's really hard not to have a good team atmosphere when playing in a team with such a boss.

The Mavericks players were very excited, but the intensity of this opening game exceeded many people's imagination.

The Bulls' lineup this season has not changed much compared to last season, but in terms of the game scene, their competitiveness has improved greatly.

It's not just that Thibodeau promoted Murray to the starting lineup, but more importantly, it was a familiar state, just like the Mavericks in the park last season. It can be guessed that they should have conducted high-intensity training like the Mavericks last summer.

The two teams were evenly matched and the game continued until the final moment of the quarter.

During this period, Butler and Xu Yong started to argue with each other.

Xu Yong made a near buzzer beater against Butler's defense before the end of the game, but Butler took advantage of Aldridge's screen and made a drifting mid-range shot to tie the game, directly dragging the score into overtime.

This game was exciting and Butler once again refreshed the fans' perception of him.

However, in overtime, Xu Yong put on a dominant performance, scoring 10 points alone, helping the Mavericks win the game with difficulty.

After the game, Xu Yong gave Butler a big hug.

The Bulls lost in the Eastern Conference Finals for two consecutive seasons. If it were someone else, they would have run away and joined a team, but Butler not only did not do that, he didn't even ask the management to strengthen the team. He just kept improving himself and might even have forced his teammates to improve, and ultimately made further progress every year.

At the post-match press conference, Xu Yong also came up with a classic quote.

"In this league, Jimmy is most like me."

Coming from Xu Yong's mouth, these words were the highest honor.

After all, Xu Yong's historical status is already here.

However, after the game, those fans who had originally questioned the Mavericks started again.

It was so difficult to beat the Bulls, so the Mavericks were just an exception last season.

Although neither the Mavericks management nor the players made any substantive response to such remarks, they immediately went on to win ten consecutive games.

Then, those fans suddenly disappeared.

Actions are always more convincing than words.

However, when it came to the end of January, the Mavericks suffered a wave of injuries and their record began to fluctuate.

Not only was Rose injured, but DeRozan also suffered some hand injuries.

This is not a coincidence, but is clearly a sequelae of last season's high-intensity training and competition.

However, by the beginning of February, the Mavericks started their winning streak again. It was not because the team suddenly got rid of injuries, but because someone stood up.

The man who stepped up to fill the pressure on the back line was Jordan Poole.

Poole didn't have many opportunities in his rookie season and struggled.

But his performance this season proves one thing: he has a strong ability to seize opportunities.

This also made the outside world sigh, lamenting that Xu Yong's joining the Mavericks not only strengthened the strength of the Mavericks, but also improved their luck.

This statement is very apt.

Because unlike his time with the Bulls, Xu Yong did not participate in the management's decision-making on the Mavericks.

Last year's draft selected Poole, and this year's draft selected Bane. It was simply that person who was the best choice at that position.

So when you talk about something like fortune, it seems illusory, but sometimes you really have to admit it.

It was at this time that a small incident occurred in the alliance.

This episode originated from the first meeting of the season between the Mavericks and the Lakers.

This should have been the most anticipated matchup by the outside world. Whether the strengthened Lakers can challenge the Mavericks is a question that many people are curious about.

But this issue was ultimately not confirmed because James chose to rest in this game.

When the outside world questioned James' behavior and thought that he was afraid to compete with Xu Yong, James' team came up with a new concept: [Load Management]. As the name suggests, it means choosing to rest in some games to avoid injuries.

This is very reasonable. You see, the Mavericks have a wave of injuries. My Lakers have many veteran players, so they should be rested appropriately. James is a 36-year-old veteran, so it is even more reasonable.

Naturally, James' behavior also attracted complaints from many fans. After [smart injury] and [smart basketball], James invented a new term that combines the two: [smart basketball].

Of course, James did not take these complaints seriously. After all, if you say this is inappropriate, go find Popovich, because he was the one who started it.

But this time, after losing the support of Nike and even the fact that Silver was no longer the league's president, he was quickly slapped in the face.

The league introduced a new rule a few days later: teams would be punished if they did not rest injured players in nationally televised and back-to-back games.

The speed of this new rule is exactly the same as the speed of the "Vertical Jump Rule" of that year, but this time James has gone directly from a beneficiary to a victim.

As expected, things change over time, and any advantages you once gained will eventually have to be paid back.

The Mavericks finally entered the All-Star Game as the No. 1 team in the Western Conference. Although Malone was unable to continue to serve as head coach due to the rules, Xu Yong and Jokic were still selected into the All-Star starting lineup.

The most eye-catching performance in this year's All-Star Game was Antetokounmpo.

You know what, Xu Yong's words last season, which strictly speaking should be considered trash talk, really motivated him.

But this is normal, after all, this is a piece of trash talk that transcends time and space.

Antetokounmpo eventually won the All-Star Game MVP, but unfortunately, he was not the most popular person in this year's All-Star Game.

The person who attracted the most attention belonged to this year's dunk contest judge... Wade.

After losing to LaVine in the last dunk contest, Aaron Gordon made a comeback this year and is also considered the biggest favorite to win the championship.

But in the end, because of Wade's 9 points, Gordon lost again.

Wade was nicknamed "Nine-Point Man" by fans because of this.

What is coming will always come. Some history has changed, but some history is destined to remain unchanged.

When it comes to May, the 2020-2021 season also comes to an end.

The Mavericks finished with a record of 58 wins and 14 losses.

Although this record is not as good as last season, it is still the best record in the league.

And just at the end of the season, the league received good news.

The NBA will reopen all empty stadiums for the first round of the playoffs, allowing all teams' stadiums to open to fans, but the NBA will determine the number of fans allowed to a team based on the epidemic situation in each state and city.

This means that after more than a year, the NBA is finally open to outside fans again.

This is also a historic moment.

The Mavericks' home stadium, American Airlines, also welcomed the reopening to outside fans.

On this day, 15,000 fans were given the opportunity to re-enter the stadium.

The Mavericks' first-round opponent is the Warriors.

The Warriors experienced a major setback this season. Their star player Curry only played five games before being ruled out for the season, which greatly damaged the team's strength.

It was this season that fans were able to truly confirm that Curry was the true core of the Warriors, because when Curry fell, the performances of the other Warriors players were very poor.

Green, in particular, is almost a comedian.

However, although he is a comedian on the court, Green is still very smart off the court.

He directly earned himself a suspension with a flagrant foul on the court. As time passed, fans seemed to gradually forget that he was not good without Curry.

Although the Warriors finally made it to the play-offs, they were clearly no match for the Mavericks without Curry.

In the end, in front of 15,000 fans from the Lone Star Republic of Dallas, Texas, the Mavericks slaughtered the Warriors by 30 points.

The Dallas team was really excited. They had been holding it in for over a year, and finally when it came out for the first time, they were thrilled.

The Mavericks then gave their fans a four-time performance.

After bidding farewell to the Warriors in a sweep, Xu Yong also won the seventh MVP trophy of his career, and it was also his second consecutive season MVP trophy.

With this momentum, in the semi-final against the Clippers, Xu Yong played like a new two-time MVP, averaging 42.6 points per game, basically breaking down the opposing Clippers' defense by himself.

He also led the Mavericks to a 4-1 sweep of the Clippers and successfully advanced to the Western Conference Finals.

And their opponent in the Western Conference Finals is still their old rival, the Thunder.

The Thunder are definitely better than the one Xu Yong knows, but they are also like the Knicks of the 1990s. If this were a movie, they would only ever win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

This year is no exception.

Durant's desire to compete is particularly strong this year, and Brooks also adopted the Jordan-style defensive method against Xu Yong this year, but the Mavericks team is in too good a shape.

Or to put it another way, Xu Yong's crazy output in the last round gave the other Mavericks players plenty of physical reserves, and then they all played at full capacity when playing against the Thunder.

And after Poole got into better form, the Mavericks' bench even had more scoring power than before.

4 to 2, the Mavericks gave the Thunder the same score and reached the finals again for the second consecutive year.

But this time, their opponent in the finals is no longer the Raptors, but the Bulls.

The Bulls' performance this season is legendary.

After a miraculous performance in the opening game, their performance in the regular season went smoothly.

But at the end of the season, they suffered a big bad news. Aldridge suffered heart problems and had to temporarily withdraw from the NBA game due to heart rate problems.

This means that the Bulls have lost their starting power forward.

Because it is already the end of the season, the Bulls cannot even strengthen their team, which is definitely the worst unfortunate thing that can happen.

This also made the Bulls, who were originally favored, suddenly become pessimistic. After all, no matter how strong a team is, if they suddenly lose a main player, their strength will be greatly reduced.

But when the playoffs really started, almost everyone was slapped in the face.

Because of Kyle Anderson, the Bulls' sixth man stepped up well to take Aldridge's place.

Although his ability is certainly not as good as Aldridge's, he cannot match the Bulls' excellent form and high morale.

They made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they once again faced the Raptors, the team that had eliminated them for two consecutive years.

Before the Eastern Conference Finals started, the Bulls were still the underdog, but this time, they won.

Butler averaged 32.5 points per game and led the team to kill the Raptors 4-2 with an avenger mentality.

At this time, the fans recalled what Xu Yong said at the beginning, which was indeed very accurate. Butler's performance was really most like Xu Yong.

The Mavericks and the Bulls finally had their final battle at the Forbidden City.

The battle between the two sides was just as shown in the season opener.

The Mavericks won two games in a row, proving that they were the better team.

But then the Bulls, led by Butler, showed their invincible resilience, winning two games in a row and dragging the finals into the decisive stage.

They are also the only team that has pushed the Mavericks to the decisive stage. In the Western Conference Finals, the Mavericks once led the Thunder 3-1.

After seeing this scene, fans also expect the Bulls to go one step further, force the Mavericks into a seventh game, or even overthrow them.

But the next two games became Xu Yong's performance time.

With 48 points in one game and 53 points in another, Xu Yong used two extreme personal performances to help the Mavericks defend the title.

When the game ended, Dallas fans thousands of miles away were in an uproar.

The Mavericks used the same approach this time as they did during the season. When faced with doubts, they responded with concrete actions.

When the game was over, the Mavericks players could finally celebrate in front of the fans.

At this time, Xu Yong finally showed a long-lost smile.

This time, they can have a championship parade.