The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 151 - 49 Handsome is for life

Consecutive victories can become a burden, and when everyone expected the Trail Blazers to achieve the best start to the season in history, losing to the Lakers timely relieved the players of some pressure.

The even better news was that, at the beginning of the season, the frequent traveling finally came to a brief pause, and the Trail Blazers would have a week to play games in their own city.

They could sleep comfortably at home, spend a steady, relaxing day, then drive to Memorial Coliseum in the evening for two hours of play, and go home after a shower.

No need to stay in hotels, no need to rush for flights, let alone wake up early; everything could proceed at a leisurely pace.

Ramsay gave the players half a day off, then organized a two-hour training session on the afternoon of the 10th.

Since the beginning of the season, the Trail Blazers had been running ragged and hadn’t been able to organize a proper training session for some time.

Ramsay desperately needed such a stable period in Portland to properly digest the recent observations from the team’s games.

When the old coach arrived at the training gym, he heard friction sounds between the floor and shoe soles, along with the sound of successful shots from inside the gym.

Standing at the door for a while, he heard mostly "swoosh," "swoosh" sounds, and he could determine that it was definitely not Drexler.

Upon entering the gym, sure enough, it was Gan Guoyang. He was, as always, the first to arrive and was already drenched with sweat.

Ramsay wondered if Gan Guoyang had moved in and was living at the training gym, always the first to come and the last to leave.

Given the dampness of his jersey, he had been practicing for at least two hours, it seemed like he didn’t rest at all during the half-day off in the morning.

Ramsay joked, "It’s a good thing the team pays by attendance, not by the hour, otherwise no team could afford you."

Gan Guoyang wiped off his sweat and said, "By the hour? I’d train until the boss goes bankrupt."

"It’s a pity your stamina isn’t being used to join the Navy. Come on, join me in the video room to enjoy yesterday’s game."

"What? Enjoy yesterday’s game? If you want to torture me, just say so, Dr. Jack. I don’t want to watch it."

"You must watch; it’s a good opportunity to discuss tactics and strategy."

"Discuss tactics and strategy? That’s the coach’s job. Pay me more."

"I’ll give you half my salary, stop dawdling and let’s go."

Helpless, Gan Guoyang went to the locker room to wipe off the sweat and changed into a new set of clothes, then followed Ramsay to the video room.

In a short while, assistant coaches Adelman and Buckwalter also arrived at the training gym and joined them in the video room.

Before ’83, the team only had Buckwalter as an assistant coach, who also doubled as a scout; back then, NBA teams were really bare-bones and stingy.

Of course, Buckwalter’s multitasking was nothing compared to Gonzaga’s Coach Delong.

Later, Adelman joined the team as the second assistant coach, and one of his important tasks was to help record the games and edit them.

The team had installed seven cameras in Memorial Coliseum to capture the entire game from multiple angles. If the editing was fast, the footage from the first half could be delivered to the locker room during halftime to inform the coaches’ tactics.

However, coaches like Ramsay always had a certain resistance to new technology; he more often used videotapes for post-game reviews, and for mid-game commands, he still relied on his own experience and intuition.

A few people gathered around a television video recorder, with Ramsay holding a remote control, and started analyzing the game between the Lakers and the Trail Blazers from the previous night, starting with the first quarter.

The Lakers, after losing consecutively to the Trail Blazers, Nuggets, and Warriors, had encountered a three-game losing streak.

Riley, heavily criticized by the Los Angeles media, adjusted the starting lineup. He no longer fixated on an all-out offensive lineup but instead promoted defensive stalwarts Cooper and Larry Spriggs to the starters.

The Trail Blazers played well in the first quarter, buoyed by their home crowd, they took a 9-point lead in the first period, and the Portland fans believed for a moment that the Lakers’ domination had collapsed.

But from the start of the second quarter with lineup rotations, Byron Scott’s outbreak and the Lakers’ smooth transition between the first and second units allowed them to keep close and gradually catch up with the score.

"Yesterday’s Lakers were like us on the 4th, basketball is like a marathon, leading too soon doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good, those who stick close often have the strength to surge in the last leg. My lineup adjustment was too simple," Ramsay did not criticize the players for playing poorly, but believed that his lineup adjustment was not as targeted as Riley’s.

By the third quarter, the Lakers began to gradually exert force. Cooper, Spriggs, and Jabbar triple-teamed Gan Guoyang.

Gan Guoyang was troubled by fouls and double-teams in that game, though this did allow Thompson to get more scoring opportunities, ending the game with 25 points.

But Thompson’s scoring did not have the same impact as Gan Guoyang’s and when it came to crunch time, Thompson fell short.

The Lakers turned the tables and took the lead in this quarter, with Gan Guoyang, who had four personal fouls, sitting out for five minutes before coming back on the court in the fourth quarter.

The Lakers were in full swing, their fast breaks unstoppable like a flood coursing down a hill, and Magic Johnson dished out 18 assists in the game.

Even so, upon his return, Gan Guoyang carried the Trail Blazers through a surge in the last three minutes, unleashing an 11:2 run that narrowed the deficit to just 3 points.

In the end, with no time or opportunity left, Gan Guoyang took a desperate three-point shot that clanged off the rim, and the team lost the game.

This close call gave Riley and the Lakers a real scare, and it was a wake-up call for Riley that a formidable new rival was rising in the Western Conference.

Ramsay finished playing the key clips from the game, the majority of which involved Gan Guoyang, showcasing successful plays as well as failed teamwork.

"Ah Gan, how do you feel after watching these?" asked Ramsay.

"I look pretty handsome playing," Gan Guoyang said.

"This is basketball, not gymnastics!"

"Being handsome is a lifetime thing. In the future, many young fans will come to know me through videos, not games. If I played as ugly as Jabbar, and was bald on top of that, even if I won seven or eight championships, nobody would like me. What do championships have to do with them?"

Adelman and Buckwalter struggled to hold back their laughter on the side while Ramsay’s shiny forehead seemed to protest in silence.

Gan Guoyang felt something was amiss and added, "Uh... being bald can be quite charming too, apparently it’s caused by an excess of male hormones."

Ramsay didn’t want to get sidetracked by this topic with Gan Guoyang and went straight to the criticisms revealed in the video clips.

"First, don’t try so many blocks when you’re full of energy in the first half or focus on disruption rather than blocking. This will help control your fouls. I know you were a block expert in high school and college, getting five or six or even seven or eight blocks a game. But the NBA is different; everyone is very good, making it difficult to block shots. Also, the game is played in so many faster sequences, and you won’t get that many chances to block. Rash attempts will get you into foul trouble," Ramsay advised.

Ramsay’s advice was well-founded, and Gan Guoyang nodded in agreement. Controlling fouls is sometimes more important than blocking an opponent’s shot, especially in the first half.

After waiting for a while, Ramsay didn’t continue, and the silence was puzzling. Gan Guoyang, thinking Ramsay might be having a senior moment, asked, "Dr. Jack, you’ve finished with the first point, what about the second?"

"Second? There is no second; you have to be the first."

Hearing this praise, Gan Guoyang felt a bit embarrassed and silently swore to himself to cut back on the jokes about Dr. Jack’s baldness in the future.

When Gan Guoyang left the video room for practice, leaving Ramsay, Adelman, and Buckwalter alone, the other two were quite surprised.

Was that the perfectionist Dr. Jack they knew? Had he called Gan Guoyang into the video room to watch ten minutes of clips just to flatter him?

Or did he have some other purpose or change his mind at the last moment?

To their surprise, Ramsay said, "Yes, I just wanted to cheer him up. Losing a game is painful, but it’s an experience you have to go through and then move forward."

Adelman felt like he barely recognized Dr. Jack anymore and said, "Jack, you talked about building the system around Gan..."

"It’s a systematic project; it can’t be completed in a day or two. I still need to keep observing and experimenting," Ramsay replied.

Ramsay was correct, building a new tactical system for a team takes at least half a season.

Not only does it involve theoretical training but also practical experience in games, with both coaches and players participating in repeated adjustments.

In 1977, in Ramsay’s first year at the helm of the Trail Blazers, the team won the championship even though they had only 49 regular-season victories.

Tacit understanding, a systematic tactical framework, and mature routines are all built on lessons learned from defeat.

Of course, this process wouldn’t take too long, as successful coaches usually achieve significant results within one or two seasons.

Many championship-winning coaches lead their team to victory in their first or second season.

If a team does not reach the finals or win the championship in three seasons, it becomes difficult to make any breakthroughs later because the patience of the players, the owner, and the fans is limited.

Ramsay then said to Adelman, "Send Clyde to the video room, get his clips ready, I want to have a thorough chat with him."

Ramsay, like a head teacher, was taking the players in one by one to the video room for individual talks.

He knew NBA players had a strong sense of pride; if criticized in front of the whole team during a video session, they would harbor resentment.

So taking out time for private conversations and critiques proved much more effective.

Listening to Ramsay’s tone, Adelman thought that Clyde Drexler was probably about to get an earful.