The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 239 - 125 Wild Duck

On the evening of April 23, the Portland Trail Blazers played the third game of their series against the Dallas Mavericks at the visiting team’s court.

The game took place at the Reunion Arena in Dallas, marking the third time this season that Gan Guoyang had competed here.

This arena, which from a distance looks like a gas station, was built in 1980, coinciding with the year the Dallas Mavericks were granted a franchise to join the NBA.

Although the Mavericks were down 0:2 in the series, anything was possible now that they were back on their home court.

In the playoffs, two home games can sometimes work miracles, allowing the home team to rest well, make serious adjustments, and with the encouragement of their home fans, they can completely turn the tide.

Tonight, over ten thousand fans will pack the Reunion Arena to capacity, a venue that can accommodate more than 17,000 spectators, with an atmosphere in Dallas that is by no means inferior to Portland’s.

Before the game began, Gan Guoyang warmed up on the court with a calm and collected hook shot, while occasionally some fans shouted unpleasant things at him from the sidelines.

Such occurrences were rare during the regular season, but in the playoffs, it was different. This was no longer a mere show, but a war—a do or die battle.

The Mavericks had no room for retreat; one more loss and their season would be completely over.

As the game drew near, the players returned to the locker room for final preparations.

In the Mavericks’ home locker room, Dick Motta was giving a pre-game pep talk.

He banged on the tactics board with a thunderous noise, hoping to motivate his players to show their spirit on their home ground and give the Trail Blazers a run for their money.

"If we’re swept by the Portland people on our home court, it would be a disgrace to our season! With 17,000 spectators in front of you, you must bring the Portlanders down from their horse, no matter what!"

"Especially Sunny Gan. Tonight’s goal is to not let him score 20 points again! The target is to keep him below 20 points and kill his momentum!"

In the regular season, coaches don’t usually yell at the players like this, casually giving a pre-game pep talk.

At this moment, the Mavericks players were filled with strength, yet there was a bit of doubt: Could we really kill Ah Gan?

Or would we be the ones to be killed?

After several encounters throughout the season, coupled with the first two playoff games, the Mavericks really began to doubt their life choices due to Gan Guoyang’s play.

Especially center Sam Bowie; his touted defensive strategy had some effect during the regular season, but in the playoffs, it completely failed.

Everyone was on war footing, everyone’s nerves were taut, and no one would relax their guard because of a few words.

From the 1984 NCAA Final Four to today, a year had passed, and Bowie had watched helplessly as Gan Guoyang grew stronger and stronger.

He had thought that with the increased intensity of the playoffs, and everyone being more defensive, Guoyang’s performance would be curbed.

But he was wrong; in the first game at Portland, Bowie was directly fouled out by Guoyang, who made all 17 of his free throws, practically shattering the Mavericks’ interior defense.

After the game, Dick Motta furiously criticized the referees, believing the game had been home whistling, aiming to ensure Guoyang scored high and giving him 17 free throw attempts.

Dick Motta was fined 1,000 US dollars by the League.

In the second game, Guoyang didn’t have as many free throws, but he still led the Trail Blazers to victory over the Mavericks with stable defense and efficient offense.

The Mavericks played quite well in the second game, with Bowie securing 15 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 blocks on the inside—a commendable stat line for a rookie.

Dick Motta knew how to use a defensive center, and no matter what, Bowie’s stature was a lot taller than Unseld’s.

Yet, in Ah Gan’s shadow, Bowie increasingly felt dim and insignificant, and the second game’s loss plunged the entire team into a predicament.

As the players were about to take the court, Dick Motta pulled Bowie aside and said, "Sam, remember, you are you, and Ah Gan is Ah Gan. Ah Gan is an eagle soaring in the sky, and you might just be a wild duck beating its wings halfway up... don’t get mad at what I’m saying."

Bowie bowed his head to listen. He shook his head and said, "I’m not angry, coach. You’re right."

"But when a wild duck is protecting its nest, it can still drive away the eagle. Wild ducks have their own way of survival. Eagles soar in the sky, while wild ducks swim in rivers, dive underwater to catch fish and insects, and can hide in the bushes. You need to find the best way to cope with Ah Gan, understand?"

Dick Motta knew that if they wanted to defeat the Trail Blazers, it was crucial for Bowie to contain Ah Gan, even if it just meant reducing Guoyang’s shooting percentage by three points or preventing just two baskets; that could win them the game.

In the playoffs, victory and defeat can hinge on the smallest margins.

Bowie understood what Dick Motta meant. He too had constantly been adjusting his mentality, from the high school superstar who beat Sampson in ’79, to the gifted center whose career was plagued by injuries in the ’80s, to the Kentucky Twin Towers whom Guoyang had crushed in the 1984 NCAA Tournament.

Since joining the Mavericks, Bowie had failed to meet expectations. Fans in Dallas thought they had a super center who could rival Jabbar.

However, injuries had hampered Bowie’s growth, and he had wasted too much time in Kentucky. Judging from his performance during his rookie season, it was already good enough if he could become a star center like Parrish in the future.

Parrish sounded very impressive, but under Ah Gan’s radiance, he indeed paled in comparison.

"I understand, Coach. I will strictly execute the tactics, I will defend well, I will make good use of our ’brush’," said Bowie with a calm and resolute tone. His eyes no longer held the confusion and helplessness of early in the season.

Originally, when Dick Motta asked him to take on Ah Gan, Bowie couldn’t believe his ears. If I could handle Ah Gan, then I should be in Portland, not Dallas.

After a season of being dominated, combined with grueling training and Dick Motta’s careful guidance, Bowie knew he couldn’t handle Ah Gan, but he no longer feared facing him one-on-one.

Even if Ah Gan scored forty points on him, Bowie would still try his hardest to cause trouble for him to secure a victory for his team.

At 7:30 PM, after the opening ceremony, the game officially began.

The noise in the Reunion Arena was at least 10 decibels higher than in the regular-season games. The players could feel a buzzing in their ears even before the jump ball.

It is said that after spending a long time in the NBA, one might become a bit deaf, similar to shipyard workers, all due to the noise at the scene.

Bowie, with firm conviction, stood at center circle to jump ball against Ah Gan and touched the ball first in the scramble, allowing the Mavericks to start the first offense.

The Mavericks’ opening strategy on offense was crystal clear: play the perimeter, avoid the interior, dodge the spot where Gan Guoyang was and let Blackman and Jay Vincent lead the offense.

This approach had been repeatedly validated by many teams, especially the Lakers—it was better to avoid Ah Gan than to confront him directly, after all, Ah Gan could not be in more than one place at a time; he couldn’t create shadow clones.

Off to a start, the Mavericks, bolstered by the home-court momentum, quickly seized a lead of 2:8, with Vincent and Blackman scoring consecutively. Blackman also drew a defensive foul from Gan Guoyang in the paint.

It was a clear block by Gan Guoyang on Blackman’s layup, supposedly a clean play, but the referee called it a hand foul on Gan Guoyang.

The TV broadcast replayed the scene twice, showing it was a clean block. However, at that time, the referees didn’t look at replays, and they wouldn’t casually change a call in the first quarter.

Gan Guoyang took an unfair hit early on in the away game; maybe the League didn’t want to see this series end too quickly.

Dr. Jack Ramsey was furious at the sideline, cursing the referees. Ah Gan went over to calm Ramsey down, assuring him that it was fine and he wouldn’t commit another foul in the first quarter.

Ramsay calmed down and didn’t get the team a technical foul, which would have gifted another point.

In the 70s and 80s, the zero tolerance policy did not exist, and referees were more restrained in calling technical fouls. Sometimes players almost came to blows with the referees without drawing a technical foul or ejection; such was the court culture of the time.

The Mavericks played with overwhelming vigor in the first quarter, executing continuous fast breaks, perimeter jump shots, and demonstrating cohesive teamwork along with decisive shooting, firmly suppressing the Trail Blazers.

The Mavericks’ lineup on the court was the then-uncommon strategy of one big and four smalls: center Bowie, forwards Mark Aguirre and Vincent, and guards Blackman and Davis.

This lineup was flexible and fast on offense, with four players capable of outside shots. Blackman, Aguirre, and Vincent all had the level to average 20 points per game, offering a very powerful offense.

Of course, the issue with such a lineup lay in defense. Bowie could handle most situations, but against Ah Gan, he was powerless. Without a strong power forward to help him, it was tough for him to guard Gan Guoyang one-on-one.

In the first two games, the Mavericks were thoroughly broken by Gan Guoyang’s shooting, hitting nearly 70 percent of his shots in the paint. That level of performance was hard for anyone to withstand.

Although Aguirre also overwhelmed Vandeweghe, when it came to the fourth quarter, the Trail Blazers let Gan Guoyang switch to guard Aguirre, causing Aguirre’s offensive efficiency to plummet.

The Mavericks lost the second game in the final moments in exactly that fashion. If their ace couldn’t outperform the opponent, and the rest of the players had no advantages either, all the Mavericks could rely on were tactics and morale.

By the sixth minute of the first quarter, Ah Gan still hadn’t scored, missing two shots—not just because of poor shooting touch, but almost every time he got the ball, he was surrounded by three defenders.

The Mavericks weren’t simply double-teaming Ah Gan. Instead, they employed strategies from the "Lakers Ah Gan Rulebook"—skirting illegal defense, preemptively setting traps around Gan Guoyang.

The key to this entrapment was Bowie; he changed his strategy from the regular season and the first two games. Adhering to Ah Gan and doggedly fighting him wasn’t effective due to his flexibility.

Rather, Bowie became the "distractor," positioning himself near the paint regardless of whether Gan Guoyang was nearby or not, always trying to block the central lane to prevent other Trail Blazers from receiving the ball and driving to the basket.

Meanwhile, Mavericks’ forwards, Aguirre, Vincent, and Kiki Vandeweghe were always ready to abandon their own assignments to fully defend against Ah Gan.

In essence, Bowie concentrated half his attention on Gan Guoyang while his teammates gave up their marks to help defend against Gan Guoyang, and Bowie used the remaining half of his attention to deal with his teammates’ abandoned marks.

To execute such defense, pre-emptive double-teaming was inevitable. Bowie tried to stay around the three-second zone, which was clearly zone defense and illegal.

But in the first quarter, the referees called only one illegal defense violation against the Mavericks. Seeing this, the Mavericks intensified their efforts, mastering their system more and more. By the end of the first quarter, they had outplayed the Trail Blazers 21:29, and by halftime, the Mavericks led the Trail Blazers by 11 points, 50:61!

Sam Bowie did an excellent job with his assignment. Although Gan Guoyang still scored 11 points by halftime, the Mavericks’ defense held firm. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Ramsay could no longer hold back midway through the second quarter and finally exploded at the referees, accusing the Mavericks of continuously employing illegal defense.

This time, the head referee did not let Ramsay off and issued a technical foul against Dr. Jack, granting the Mavericks a free throw.

Gan Guoyang pulled Ramsay back to the bench, urging him not to worry. But Dr. Jack glared at Gan Guoyang and said, "You’re not worried? You’re about to be stripped naked!"