Champion Creed

In fact, it’s not just Gary Payton who feels this way; most players who faced Roger this season felt that his defense was exceptionally tenacious. It was already tough before, but this season it’s particularly so!

Facing Roger’s defense is like Stallone in "Rocky III" when he first clashed with the main villain, Clubber Lang, mumbling fearfully in the corner, "I can’t shake him off!"

Look at how Chauncey Billups couldn’t even release a critical shot when facing Roger’s defense against the Pistons.

And in the match against the Pacers, see how Paul Pierce was lost on the court at a crucial moment because of Roger’s defense.

Now in his 11th professional season, Roger is willing to devote more energy to defense because last season the team’s defense was really poor, making him realize he had been too well protected by excellent defensive players inside.

Even during the season they lost Big Ben, Kurt Thomas and Dream were excellent defenders, and the Hawks’ interior defense level was still stronger than many league teams. For years, having such ace defenders behind him made Roger develop a habitual reliance: I don’t need to give my all on defense; the team’s defense is good enough.

Of course, Roger’s defense has always been outstanding; he’s been selected to the All-NBA Defensive First Team for five consecutive seasons. But everything that happened last season made him kick the habit of relying on top-notch inside players, and this season he’s putting in more effort on defense.

However, if a person’s energy is 100, then if you allocate 10 more points to defense, you’ll have 10 fewer points for offense.

Now that Roger is exerting more effort on defense, his offense is inevitably affected, but Roger doesn’t mind letting Allan Houston and Amar’e Stoudemire share the load.

So it’s really not Payton’s fault; any player Roger has targeted this season has suffered on offense.