The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 248 - 131: Comprehending the Dao
Gan Guoyang’s comments after the game sounded like the wry jokes of someone resigned to a loss.
Down 1:2, with two crushing defeats and one hard-won overtime victory at home.
The Nuggets truly had a stifling effect on the Trail Blazers in terms of lineup and play style, plunging the entire team’s morale into a trough at once.
After the third game ended, Ramsay wandered the streets of Denver alone until two in the morning before returning to the hotel.
Rick Adelman had been waiting in the hotel lobby for Ramsay and only when he saw that Ramsay was unharmed did he say, "Jack, you really have us worried, you hardly ever roam around after a loss these days."
Jack Ramsay had indeed greatly changed that habit this season, but the main reason was that the Trail Blazers seldom lost.
Games as frustrating as the loss to the Nuggets were even rarer.
Ramsay said, "Don’t worry, Denver’s public security is much better than Los Angeles or Chicago; it’s just a bit cold at night."
In May, the evenings in Denver were still quite cool, and the two sat in the hotel lobby discussing what to do for the fourth game.
Ramsay’s brow was deeply furrowed; he felt at a disadvantage in this matchup, which caused him great pain.
In the past, he indeed looked down on coaches like Doug Moe, considering them to have transitioned directly from professional players to coaches without any college-level training, making a mess of the team’s guidance.
Doug Moe was a man with ethical blemishes, having been involved in the 1961 betting scandal orchestrated by Jack Molinas, tarnishing both his and North Carolina’s reputation.
After entering the NBA as a coach, he was constantly embroiled in a string of clownish incidents: he liked walking his dogs, skipped practice to play golf, trained only for an hour a day, publicly called his wife "Big Jane," claimed his mental age would always be twelve, and was voted as the second worst-dressed coach on the sidelines by "USA Today" (first place went to the Jazz’s rotund coach Frank Layden), and so on.
However, in this series, Ramsay felt completely dominated by Doug Moe in every aspect, his game preparations utterly ineffective in the actual contest.
Compared to Doug Moe, Ramsay’s life experiences were strikingly different, with his military career significantly shaping him.
During training with the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Team UDT-30, he served as a platoon leader, where an important part of the training was memorization.
When diving underwater, he had to lead his team to record the coordinates of various obstacles on the seafloor, like concrete blocks, barbed wire, and rock cages, on a small slate on their chests. They had to familiarize themselves with these obstacles to clear the way and guide the landing forces.
Since communication underwater was difficult, thorough preparation plans had to be made before each training, assigning each team member’s area of responsibility, assembly times and locations, and contingency measures for any unforeseen events.
Therefore, Ramsay developed a habit of making thorough preparations before a game. He would watch game recordings over and over, review statistical data, and simulate possible in-game situations in his mind to devise contingency plans.
But Doug Moe?
He was known as a coach who did no pre-game preparations and relied purely on on-the-spot coaching.
Moreover, after video replay technology became widespread, he was the only coach in the entire league who hardly ever watched game recordings.
His reasoning was, "I find watching game recordings can be disheartening."
Doug Moe’s principle was always to look forward. Don’t worry about the game that’s over; the next game will bring its own set of conditions.
As for what exactly those conditions would be, you’d find out by playing.
With such an attitude, as if sliding on a watermelon rind and going wherever it took him, Doug Moe held his coaching position firmly, and the result wasn’t bad either.
After arriving at the Nuggets, he made the playoffs year after year, and Ramsay realized that, had Ah Gan not come to Portland this year, he might not have even matched up to Doug Moe.
Doug Moe could very well say, "If I had Ah Gan, my coaching record would be better than yours!"
This was a significant blow to Ramsay’s mentality, so he needed to wander the streets of Denver at night to alleviate his inner frustration.
Of course, his heart was much more serene than before. In the past, when his temper was at its worst, he would remain silent after a loss, refusing to speak to anyone, causing the team atmosphere to become extremely oppressive.
Or he would angrily vent to the media, criticizing the players for their poor performance, leaving everyone silent as if they were frozen.
Now, he simply went out for a quiet walk and then came back to discuss strategies with his assistant coaches.
Rick Adelman suggested, "Jack, let’s adjust the starting lineup for the fourth game and use that lineup."
The lineup Adelman referred to meant starting Drexler and putting Parkson as Point Guard—it was a lineup with extremely strong offense.
Ramsay shook his head and said, "Making a last-minute change to the starting lineup is a sign of panic, we haven’t reached the most critical moment yet. The players’ confidence is important, so we shouldn’t adjust the starting lineup arbitrarily. If needed, this lineup can still be utilized during the game."
Ramsay, with his experience, dismissed Adelman’s suggestion, and Adelman continued, "Well... then we should give Kossie more playing time to strengthen our defense, the Nuggets are scoring too easily."
Ramsay still shook his head, "Kossie is too inexperienced, how can we expect him to turn things around?"
After being continuously rejected, Adelman thought to himself, if this won’t work and that won’t work, then what’s your great idea?
Right, if you could come up with something, we wouldn’t be down 1:2, wandering aimlessly in the middle of the night.
With his hand supporting his head, Ramsay pondered and then said, "Next game, we’ll expand the rotation to give Kossie more time on the court, but it’s to increase the starters’ rest time. We need to engage in an offensive battle with the Nuggets and we must win the upcoming game."
"An offensive battle? Can we manage it?"
"Why not, our regular season scoring was only slightly lower than the Nuggets’. My preparation approach was flawed. I’ve been focused on controlling the pace, taking it from them, but it led us to be consistently on the back foot. Doug Moe is a disciple of Dean Smith, and they understand the control of possession and tempo the most. I shouldn’t be competing with them, but rather playing to their style, which actually suits us better."
When Adelman heard Ramsay praising Doug Moe, he thought it was incredibly rare and finally, Ramsay remembered Moe was a disciple of Dean Smith.
With "tempo" at the core of Dean Smith’s basketball philosophy, he cultivated a number of coaches who seemed quite different, like Doug Moe’s good friend Larry Brown.
But their differences were often superficial; deep down, they all adhered to Dean Smith’s basketball philosophy, which was the overall control of the game.
By controlling macro aspects like possessions and shot timings, these coaches led their teams to subtly gain the upper hand and then clinched the game with attention to detail.
Ramsay had now caught up to Doug Moe’s line of thinking and figured out how to counteract it. He couldn’t help but recall a line from "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu from China, which goes "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be imperiled in a hundred battles."
"The Art of War" was originally a book that Bob Knight had strongly recommended to Stu-Inman, but Inman, the hapless guy, said he couldn’t understand it and let it gather dust in his office.
Jack Ramsay had also not been very interested in the book, thinking such books were all mumble-jumble, nothing like the detailed and useful things he had learned in the American military.
But after Gan Guoyang joined, he felt the charm of Chinese culture, and later on, borrowed the book from Inman’s office. He would flip through it from time to time, finding some phrases quite enlightening, though they seemed a bit too abstract. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
It wasn’t until this moment that Ramsay had an epiphany. He had overlooked Moe in the past, believing that he understood him and the Nuggets well, as he had watched many of their game tapes.
He now realized he hadn’t truly understood Doug Moe; the answer was clear, Moe’s background and tactical thoughts were explicitly laid out there.
Ramsay had been blinded by his own arrogance, only attempting to solve problems his own way, yet neglecting genuine reflection and flexibility.
Having understood all of this, Ramsay suddenly didn’t feel so upset. He got up to go back to his room to sleep, planning to wake up early for training and to set out the new game plan.
However, the next day, what Ramsay didn’t expect was that Gan Guoyang, who never arrived late for morning training, didn’t show up.
