The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 470 - 87: The Door

Ever since his victory over the Supersonics, Gan Guoyang returned to Portland and began to abstain.

Apart from training, eating, and watching game videos, he no longer engaged in any other activities.

Wang Fuxi prepared him the most nutritious meals and turned down all basketball-unrelated matters—including leaving herself in the spacious and comfortable master bedroom while Gan Guoyang stayed in a guest room on the second floor.

Their relationship had been strong since marriage, deeply compatible both emotionally and physically.

On idle winter days, they could lie in bed from dawn until dusk, warding off the cold Portland rain and snow with passion and love.

But at this moment, everything had to give way to basketball, to the Los Angeles Lakers, whom Guoyang was convinced would be his biggest opponents this season.

As long as they could defeat the Lakers and break out of the Western Conference, the Trail Blazers were confident they could take down whoever stood on the stage in the Eastern finals.

The Celtics were too old, the Detroit Pistons still too green, only the Lakers had honed their strength to its peak over the season.

After resting at home for two days, Gan Guoyang and the team flew to Los Angeles, while Wang Fuxi did not follow but took a plane back to her Los Angeles home alone, preparing to join her parents at the Great Western Forum to watch the game.

Gan Guoyang’s father-in-law announced he would organize over a hundred "little brothers" to go to the venue to cheer for his son-in-law, but Wang Fuxi told him he couldn’t get that many tickets and advised her father not to make a fuss.

Wang Zhengmin said that all Chinese people in Los Angeles were Ah Gan’s support, to which Wang Fuxi rolled her eyes at her father and said that Ah Gan was actually your support.

In the two days since returning to Los Angeles, Wang Fuxi didn’t disturb Gan Guoyang, understanding her husband well enough to know from his serious demeanor that this playoff series would not be easy.

After 82 regular season games, Gan Guoyang knew the weight of every opponent like the back of his hand.

Although the Trail Blazers led the Lakers 3:2 in the regular season, they were utterly defeated in the two encounters following the All-Star game.

Clearly, the Lakers were in exceptionally good form entering the sprint stage, rampaging through the league, unstoppable.

Over the past two days, Gan Guoyang seriously watched the Lakers’ playoff videos edited by Spoelstra, where in the first two rounds, the Lakers simply swept through opponents like the Nuggets and Rockets, who couldn’t even last through the first half, collapsing by the third quarter, only reaching the fourth when the Lakers mercifully eased off.

Doug Moe bluntly stated after the first round that "this is the Los Angeles Lakers’ year," indeed the Lakers were very strong.

The Trail Blazers were likewise formidable but seemed a tad lacking; however, the real proof would come in the playoff series.

The Lakers, too, placed great emphasis on this series, fearing the rise of Portland.

Jerry West was still brooding over not acquiring James Donaldson before the trade deadline; Kevin Duckworth was excellent, but he was too young and ultimately a rookie.

Now that the playoffs were here and the rosters were set, it was up to the players to perform.

On May 16th, game day, the Great Western Forum arena was off-limits to Gan Guoyang in the morning and noon, as usual.

Only at 3:30 in the afternoon were Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers allowed to enter the arena for warm-up.

The Trail Blazers had protested the unsatisfactory policy of the Great Western Forum, but Guoyang himself didn’t mind.

He always believed such prohibitions stemmed from fear and weakness, and the more the opposition resorted to such measures, the more confident he became.

Around six o’clock, players from both teams were preparing in the locker room, with both teams in a tense state.

Pat Riley and Jack Ramsay were showing their players videos of the previous two rounds, highlighting various details they needed to pay attention to during the game.

Bobby Berman looked somewhat vacant, having slept poorly over the past few days, constantly studying data on both teams. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The same situation occurred in the Lakers’ locker room, where Pat Riley and his assistant were also manipulating data to locate breakthrough points for the game.

After suffering a bitter defeat last summer, Pat Riley devised his "best career plan".

He demanded his players to escalate their efforts in the new season and bring forth the best performances of their careers.

The core of this plan was a very detailed data recording system which Riley had been perfecting over the past few years.

To understand the career progression of his players, Riley even dug into their high school data, incorporating the statistics into his system.

Riley processed this data, comparing players against their former selves and also against other players in the league.

Of course, from this observation, we can tell that Bobby Beelman’s data analysis differed from that of Riley’s.

Beelman’s statistical approach aimed at discovering patterns in the game to better advise the coaching staff on player utilization and tactics.

Whereas Riley used his data to motivate his players, to push themselves to become better and to extract their potential.

This reflected the different coaching styles, with the same basketball tools yielding different results in the hands of different coaches.

Riley was a coach who liked to motivate his players in various ways and among the so-called "motivational coaches," Riley was indeed the king of kings.

Before the game, both sides had made extensive preparations.

Bobby Beelman distributed a booklet to each player, with information on the Lakers players’ offensive habits and basic defensive strategies.

From Jabbar to Johnson, from Scott to Cooper, these were the fruits of Beelman’s entire regular season’s experience, as well as his recent overtime success collaborating with Adelman.

With a family and a regular job, Adelman kept normal hours, whereas Beelman truly made his home in the training facility, spending most of his time accompanied only by Little Spoelstra—a child laborer with an extraordinary zeal for work.

Riley made similar preparations but focused mainly on Gan Guoyang.

His "Ah Gan Rules" were close to becoming a comprehensive manual, written in great detail.

However, Riley was well aware that containing such a top-tier superstar, who averaged 38 points during the regular season and once scored 81 points in a single game, was impossible; no rules could contain him.

The most effective strategy was to rely on the overall talent of the team, especially their impressive backcourt—Johnson, Cooper, and Scott. Whether they could match Gan Guoyang in firepower would be pivotal to the direction of the series.

As Jabbar stepped down from his central role to become an important role player averaging 17 points and 6 rebounds per game, the rest of the Lakers were unleashed on the offensive end.

During a large number of their offensive plays, they did not need to feed Jabbar anymore or run plays around him, but could instead rally around Magic Johnson to launch attacks on the basket.

AC Green and Kevin Duckworth, the two young big men, had performed very well, and now they were ready to face the League’s top challenge in the Western Conference Finals.

Riley, of course, hoped to secure a victory in the first game at the Great Western Forum, which was crucial for setting the tone for the series.

But Riley knew that Gan Guoyang always performed terrifyingly well at the Great Western Forum; he would definitely go all out to win the first game.

So Riley had a Plan B. If the team lost the first game, as disastrously as in the Memorial Day Massacre against Boston in 1985, Riley was prepared to use certain methods to motivate his players and shock them into awareness.

In this regard, Riley, long immersed in Hollywood, certainly had first-rate skills in drama and acting.

Before the players arrived to warm up, Riley came early to the locker room and inspected a door there.

The Lakers’ home locker room had a door that directly accessed the coach’s office; it was split into an upper and lower section with a short table in the middle, on which beverages like Coke and Gatorade were placed.

Riley checked the lock on this door to make sure it was not particularly strong; it was a standard, easily kickable wooden door.

He then discussed with the trainer and team doctor, "If we lose the first game, I’ll be very angry and shout at the players, and at that time, please stay away from this door."

The trainer and team doctor immediately understood what Riley intended to do; the master of performance art always knew how to inspire his players, albeit with truly crazy methods.

When the evening came and the game was about to start, as the players left the locker room to take the court, Riley glanced at that door, which was properly closed.

He hoped that after the game that night, it would still be intact.