For the few minutes left in the third quarter, both teams had clanked shot after shot. Then, in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, they kept right on clanking.
The Sacramento steel mill and the Milwaukee steel mill had both been running at full capacity tonight.
James and Jordan could only shake their heads.
James grinned at Jordan. "If your team played like this in a game, what would you do?"
Jordan laughed. "I'd kill them all. If they didn't want to die, they'd have to stay late and practice until three in the morning! And they'd better win the next game by a landslide, or they'd face the torture of playing one-on-one against me every day!"
Everyone knew that playing one-on-one against Jordan was a miserable experience.
He didn't just crush you with his skills; he also tormented you with trash talk every chance he got.
And the worst part was that after he outplayed you, he'd trash-talk you, and there was nothing you could say back.
You couldn't help it. When you weren't good enough, your words didn't carry much weight.
Most of all, he was rich. He could show off in front of you all he wanted, and there was nothing you could do about it.
Once, a rookie who'd bought a car showed it off to his teammates. For the next week, Jordan showed up to practice in a different luxury car every day.
The rookie was completely stunned.
James nodded. "Every team goes cold sometimes, but the Kings have been unusually ice-cold tonight. It's downright bizarre. It reminds me of the Rockets in a certain season, when they faced the Warriors in the Playoffs and missed 27 straight three-pointers in the most important Game 7."
That Rockets team had followed Moneyball theory to