The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 451 - 69: Making a Phone Call

The Eagles’ defense is indeed one of the strongest in the League.

Head coach Mike Fratello has toiled for many years in Atlanta, establishing a solid and aggressive defensive system.

Fratello has served as an assistant to many well-known coaches such as Hubie Brown, Carpanelli, Tom Carmody, and others—all of these NBA and college coaches are exceptions when it comes to emphasizing defense.

Fratello has established for the Eagles a defense with the Twin Towers as its core, which features tight trapping and excellent rotations—especially their trapping defense, which could be the best in the entire League.

The most difficult part of trapping is that when you play two against one, one opponent is inevitably left unguarded; the defensive side has to figure out how to cover this vulnerability with good formation and timely rotation.

The Eagles were actually good at this, but after the timeout, when Guoyang received the ball in a very far position, the Eagles made a wrong defensive choice and Wilkins ran to the wing to double-team Guoyang.

Guoyang passed a long ball to Vandeweghe on the right, Vandeweghe took a three-point shot and scored, 3:7.

The Trail Blazers broke the scoring drought, and their offense began to move.

Fratello did not criticize Wilkins for this mistake.

Clearly, the entire Eagles squad was tense, swarming Gan Guoyang as soon as they saw him with the ball.

Against the Bulls, the Eagles started with a double-team right out of the gate.

Later on, when they really couldn’t stop them, they triple-teamed, but still couldn’t contain them.

The Bulls’ outside shooting is a lot worse than the Trail Blazers’, allowing the Eagles to confidently shrink in defense.

Yet the Trail Blazers boasted the best offensive spacing in the League, posing a challenge for the Eagles.

However, the Eagles players seemed not to care; as long as Guoyang scored less, that was fine.

Preventing Guoyang from scoring was impossible, and right away, he got a steal on the defensive end.

Rollins tried to receive the ball in the low post, but Guoyang suddenly struck and intercepted the ball, then took it down for a fast break himself.

He scored with a one-handed dunk! 5:7—Trail Blazers quickly put points on the board, Gan Guoyang scored his first point of the game.

Back on defense, Gan Guoyang chatted with Rollins, "What’s the point of playing in the low post if you’re only going to score 5 or 6 points a game?"

Rollins was angry but could not retort.

Back then, all the post players had the capability to attack from the low post, even if they only averaged 4 or 5 points, they would still get a few shots in each game.

However, on the Trail Blazers, like Mychal Thompson who almost gave up all low-post offense, focusing only on alley-oops, mid-range, and second-chance scoring.

Only in some special key moments would Thompson occasionally emerge; the rest of the low-post opportunities were all handed over to the efficient Gan Guoyang.

Rollins still tried to get into position in the low post, as that was their strategy to initiate set offense.

On the left Rollins, on the right Willis—it was either him or the other, similar to all Twin Tower tactics.

The Eagles’ outside line dared not pass the ball to Rollins anymore, so they switched to the other side to Willis.

Although Willis had shorter arms, he was tall and strong, muscling past Thompson with a turn and scoring forcefully with a layup.

The two sides began an intense struggle for the inside position.

The Trail Blazers cleared one side to give Guoyang the ball in the low post.

As Guoyang got the ball, three Eagles players closed in to trap him.

Guoyang passed the ball to Drexler in the middle, who took it to the basket for a dunk.

Both ball movements were beautifully executed, and the Trail Blazers kept close in score.

It seemed as if the Eagles were determined to trap Guoyang, even if it meant leaving other players open to score, just to prevent Guoyang from taking a shot.

Soon after, Wilkins, facing Vandeweghe’s defense, drove hard, stopped abruptly, and made a jump shot.

While for the third time in the low post, Guoyang was trapped and he passed the ball to Porter on the wing, but Porter’s shot did not go in.

The Eagles took the ball and counterattacked, Rivers advanced quickly, and Randy Wittman scored with a mid-range jumper.

The Eagles came to this game well-prepared, and their strategies were effective.

On defense, they insisted on trapping—two men if not enough, then three, as they had the height inside.

On counterattacks, they focused on shooting, knowing that Guoyang was good at blocking shots, they did not rashly drive to the basket.

Even Wilkins resolved to use jump shots, avoiding challenges against Ah Gan to reduce the Trail Blazers’ chances for fast breaks.

Gan Guoyang started to adjust, he no longer went to the low post, instead moving to the elbow to run pick-and-roll plays with Porter.

After the screen-and-roll, Porter cut to the middle, passed the ball to the wing Drexler, who then charged again.

After two assaults, the Eagles’ defense shrank, and Drexler passed the ball to Gan Guoyang in the corner, who decisively shot and scored from mid-range.

Gan Guoyang got 4 points, rubbing his hands together, feeling that his shooting touch wasn’t bad tonight.

Up against a defensive powerhouse like the Eagles, he felt excited, and the matter of becoming the scoring champion was already out of his mind.

Of course, if Gan Guoyang didn’t think about it, there were plenty of people who did, like the journalists on site and viewers in front of the television, with countless pairs of eyes on Gan Guoyang’s stats.

On the other side, Jordan at Boston Garden had already scored 11 points by the end of the first quarter.

The Eagles continued to feed the ball to Kevin Willis, but this time Gan Guoyang came over to help on defense, and Willis’ jump shot didn’t hit.

Grabbing the defensive rebound, the Trail Blazers launched a fast break, with Porter swiftly pushing the ball up the court.

To up Gan Guoyang’s score, the pace needed to be increased, as this wasn’t a game model about slowing down the pace to decide the outcome at the end.

Porter was clear about this, and so was Guoyang, sprinting down fast, he received Porter’s pass, went for a layup, and was fouled, moving to the free-throw line.

The fast break constituted a significant part of Gan Guoyang’s scoring. As a center with speed, his threat was immense and his field goal percentage high when rushing to the basket.

Even though Ramsay didn’t always remind his players to keep running, they would still take quick opportunities, with Guoyang rapidly entering the three-second zone.

If the opponents collapsed on defense, Vandeweghe and Porter would take long outside shots, and if not, they would pass directly under the basket to Gan Guoyang to score, or simply create quick isolation plays, catching the opponent’s defense off balance – these were prime scoring opportunities.

Ramsay had gone from being allergic to three-point shots to gradually recognizing the huge impact of the three-point line on spacing, causing significant trouble for the opposing defense.

Gan Guoyang sank both free throws, now with 6 points, and the Trail Blazers gradually closed the gap in the score.

Then, Doug Rivers suddenly made a sneaky play, as the Eagles also spread out, creating enormous space for the ball handler on the strong side. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Rivers broke through Porter and scored with a layup.

But the Trail Blazers, playing uptempo, quickly inbounded the ball, with Drexler sending a super long pass to the frontcourt.

Gan Guoyang was already under the basket, received the ball, jumped, and with both hands, slammed home a dunk!

He scored, and at the same time, drew a foul from the Eagles, sinking the additional free throw, for a total of 9 points.

Tom Heinsohn’s commentary took a turn, "It looks like Ah Gan is getting into a better rhythm, his teammates are giving him enough support, and he’s not blindly going solo when facing double teams."

Indeed, Gan Guoyang wasn’t relentlessly going solo. He shifted his mindset to be part of the collective offense, but he was waiting for a moment when the Eagles let their guard down.

Rivers took the same route to attack the basket again, and this time Gan Guoyang’s help defense came through, but Rivers passed to Rollins.

Rollins received the ball and dunked it, also drawing a foul from Mychal Thompson.

As a point guard, Rivers was strong, and he played craftily.

The same offensive route twice, with different decisions made, yet both were effective.

In the first quarter, the two teams were evenly matched, but the Eagles held the advantage.

They temporarily contained the unlimited isolation plays of Gan Guoyang through double-teaming on defense.

At the same time on offense, they played skillfully against the Trail Blazers’ defense, with diverse scoring options, and the players had a good shooting feel.

Gan Guoyang had a pretty good performance with 10 points, 4 rebounds, and 2 assists in the first quarter.

But by his standards, 10 points seemed a little low.

Mike Fratello saw Gan Country only scored 10 points in the first quarter and felt somewhat relieved.

He thought to himself, 10 points a quarter, that’d be 40 points in four quarters, not too much.

The Trail Blazers were behind 26:31, trailing by 5 points at the end of the quarter to the Eagles.

As the second quarter began, Gan Guoyang sat on the bench resting, with the CBS camera frequently focusing on him, while the screen switched to Boston.

At the Boston Garden, the Celtics and the Bulls had finished the first half, with Jordan scoring 27 points by halftime. If he kept up this pace, he was headed for 50 points again.

The Celtics were fully committed to defending Jordan, just like they were after he scored 63 points against them in last year’s playoffs, but this year they found he was a bit harder to stop.

No matter if it was two or three people guarding him, Jordan would find the space to shoot and get the ball into the basket.

Moreover, his abilities to fast break, steal points, and draw fouls had grown stronger than last year, making him extremely difficult to contain.

During the halftime break in the locker room, Jordan asked the team staff how many points Gan Guoyang had scored.

"After the first quarter, Ah Gan has 10 points."

"10 points? This weakling. If he doesn’t get 50 points, I’ll give him a call!"