When the Lakers' chartered plane landed at Boston Central Airport, the Lakers' players saw countless signs and flags on the streets as they left the airport, boarded the bus, and headed for the hotel.
Nearly all of them were provocative and mocking the Lakers' all-China roster.
As the bus entered downtown Boston, the taunting atmosphere along the way was almost tangible.
The lamp posts lining the streets were covered with banners bearing insulting slogans.
"An all-China roster? Get out of the NBA!"
"The Lakers have betrayed basketball! Wang Yi is leading a bunch of weaklings here to die!"
"North Shore Garden doesn't welcome outsiders! Tonight, we'll send you home in humiliating defeat!"
Quite a few Celtics fans had gathered by the roadside, waving flags printed with mocking images at the Lakers' bus. Profanities constantly spilled from their mouths as they hurled every imaginable insult at the China players inside.
They held up signs featuring ugly cartoons that grotesquely caricatured the Lakers' players, along with the words: "Five losses in six preseason games. Trash team."
The boos and curses of the fans could be heard clearly even through the bus windows. Some even threw Water Bottles at the bus, provoking them to the utmost.
Yet inside the bus, none of the players panicked. Every China player stared fixedly at the angry fans outside the window, each of them gripped by a shared sense of standing united against a common enemy.
Wang Yi, meanwhile, looked outside the window with calm indifference and said to all the players:
"This game is not just the Yellow-Green Battle, nor is it merely about the old grudge between the Lakers and the Celtics. It is also a battle for our all-China roster to prove ourselves!"
"So I demand that we not only win this game, but