The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 199 - 90: The Unusual Center

The difference narrowed to 10 points, Lakers fans were beginning to enjoy the game more, oblivious to the imminent danger.

Riley was a perceptive coach, he felt a twinge of unease, but his ingrained belief still led him to think that Gan Guoyang’s consecutive long-range hits were just temporary hot streaks.

As for Ramsay, he had closed his eyes and didn’t want to watch anymore, asserting his inability to comprehend what was happening, "Is this the team I’m coaching? Is this our Trail Blazers’ core center? Is this even basketball?"

Magic chose to pass the ball to Cooper before the double-team could set up, who then dribbled across the half-court and received the ball to cut into the basket, throwing a hook shot to dodge Gan Guoyang’s block and score two points.

But then Gan Guoyang coordinated with Parkson, executing a maneuver that Ramsay couldn’t understand at all.

He called for the ball in the low post, and Cooper immediately came over to double-team.

Cooper knew Parkson wasn’t shooting well, and he knew Gan Guoyang had a tendency to attack directly without dribbling after receiving the ball.

So once Gan was in the low post, Cooper would stay very close to Gan, leaving Parkson somewhat open.

The moment the ball was passed, a double-team was enacted to prevent Gan from initiating an attack.

Gan didn’t attack either, passing the ball back to Parkson and then stepping forward to set a screen for him.

But it was a fake screen, because if it were a real one, Parkson would have to go baseline, where Jabbar would instantly close off the route, making it a dead end.

It was just a fake screen to distract Cooper, then immediately pop out with the ball and drive in from the 45-degree angle.

Up until that point, the tactic was quite normal, a commonly seen guard-center low post interplay, very fluid.

When Parkson drove under the basket, drawing the defensive attention of both Cooper and Jabbar, he didn’t attack the hoop or pass the ball to the weak side.

Instead, he turned and made a pass back to Gan Guoyang — where was Guoyang then? He had surprisingly faded to the corner after setting the screen.

Is that where a center is supposed to be? That’s a "dead zone" on the court, a place only meant for finishing plays.

The top of the arc, the low post, and the 45-degree spots are tactical starting points, where offenses can initiate or finish.

Yet when the ball gets to the corner, in most cases you can only take the final shot, and if the ball is passed away, the offense has to reset, wasting previous efforts.

A typical center getting the ball there means the offense has failed; if there’s enough time, pass it out and play on, otherwise, just toss it up and get ready to defend.

Gan was clearly not typical, he intentionally faded to the corner, and Parkson, quite in sync, passed him the ball, with no one in front, like a shooting drill.

Another arc of death, with the corner’s deadly arc often being more magical than from the top, due to the closer distance and higher arc.

The fans’ heads behind the basket followed the ball just like Scott and the others did that morning, watching it rise and fall, finally dropping right into the center of the hoop.

After making the shot, Gan excitedly spread his arms wide, and the bench of the Trail Blazers jumped up, with Vandeweghe, Parkson, and Thompson all pumped.

Ramsay knelt by the court with his face covered, rubbing his eyes, indicating he didn’t see anything, "What kind of ghost tactic is this? I don’t understand it, nor do I want to."

Drexler just shook his head, unable to learn, "I couldn’t possibly learn this, I’d throw the ball into the stands if I shot a three from that position."

With that three-pointer, the score came to 61:70, the gap falling to single digits, and only 5 minutes had gone by in the third quarter.

Gan Guoyang, 3 for 3 from three-point range, had already scored 13 points. Riley paced the sideline, hands on hips— he hadn’t seen this situation before. How to defend?

When the Trail Blazers successfully stopped Worthy’s offense again, and Gan grabbed the defensive rebound, Riley cursed under his breath.

He tugged at his shirt collar and tie, feeling them tighten, and when Gan received the ball up high, drawing the defense of the Lakers players.

...then made a direct pass under the basket to Parkson, who caught it and scored with a layup, Riley felt like someone was choking him, nearly unable to breathe.

"Damn!"

Riley pulled at his tie forcefully again, then stormed toward the referee to call for a timeout during which he loudly criticized how terrible the players’ defense was.

The third quarter was not even half over, and Riley had used up two timeouts.

"You’re getting scared by a center shooting three-pointers! What the hell is this? Just because Bird made two dunks, should we get him to join a dunk contest? We stick to the original defense, don’t worry about that guy shooting threes. Consistency and repetition are the keys to excellence!"

Riley asked his players to stick with their normal defense, to ignore Guoyang’s three-point flare-up, considering it unsustainable.

"Consistency and repetition are the keys to excellence," a famous saying by Adolph Rupp, the ’Baron of the Bluegrass,’ coach of University of Kentucky.

Riley’s basketball coaching tactics were inherited from Jack McKinney’s fast-break system tailored for Magic Johnson.

But his philosophy on coaching management came entirely from Rupp, his coach during his time at Kentucky, a highly controversial figure for opposing the recruitment of black players. Rupp had high demands for his players, liked to put them under great pressure in training to push them to their limits, and ruthlessly criticized any mistake in day-to-day management.

In a college basketball atmosphere heavy with zone defenses, Rupp was a staunch advocate of man-to-man defense. He believed that only man-to-man could make each player fully understand their role on the court, be responsible for their actions, and force themselves to be the best.