The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 472 - 89 Leave it to me

"The most intimidating thing about Ah Gan was that the higher the intensity of the game, the more challenging the situation, and the stronger the opponent, the more excited he became, and the better he performed. This was the intrinsic factor that drove him to constantly reach new heights; he reveled in those intense competitions, as he was born for the basketball battlefield."

————Published in 2004, "Dr. Jack’s Leadership Lessons Learned From A Lifetime In Basketball," by Jack Ramsay, excerpt.

Gan Guoyang’s three-pointer on the counter-attack extended the Trail Blazers’ lead.

Gan Guoyang knew that against the Lakers, dragging them into a positional warfare quagmire was extremely difficult.

Unlike the Celtics, the Lakers had two stable low-post scoring options in Jabbar and Worthy during positional plays.

At the same time, Magic Johnson was at his peak; there was simply no way to hold back the Lakers. The only hope of winning the series was to engage the Lakers in a shootout.

He had to establish his offensive rhythm right from the start; otherwise, falling behind would make the game progressively harder to play.

This year’s Lakers were entirely different from those of 1985 and 1986; they were even more ferocious on the offensive end. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Following Gan Guoyang’s three-point shot, the Lakers called a timeout for a brief adjustment.

Returning from the timeout, Johnson took a mid-range jumper and hit it without any hesitation, bringing the score to 16:11, with the Lakers trailing by five.

Vandeweghe’s mid-range shot missed, and Johnson grabbed the rebound, pushed the ball up to the front court, took one step inside the three-point line, shot from mid-range again, and hit it!

It was hard to imagine this was the same Magic who, back in the day, would hesitate for a long time before taking a shot even when given two steps of space—now his transition jumper had become so strong that it defied defensive pressure.

Since no one dared double team Johnson, and most backcourt defenders were half a head shorter than him, he could shoot at will, guided by his own instinct.

With such a mid-to-long range shot at his disposal, the difficulty of defending him skyrocketed, and Drexler felt immense pressure.

Perhaps because of the stress on defense, Drexler made a mistake on offense; his lob pass to Gan Guoyang got intercepted by Worthy.

The Lakers were keeping a tight watch on Gan Guoyang. Riley had progressed from demanding double or triple teams to having every team member actively engage in Gan Guoyang’s defense.

Of course, there was a prerequisite: keep cool, take turns on the defense, and switch after the play.

This was the latest version of Riley’s "Ah Gan Rules."

Riley was not prepared to assign one person to mark Gan Guoyang all game long; Rambis was a warning, this guy could push someone to a mental breakdown.

So, why not have everyone share the burden? Worthy would defend for a while, then Jabbar, then Green, and even Cooper would take a turn.

With everyone defending, the psychological stress was distributed.

One moment Gan Guoyang was pounding on Green; the next, Worthy would step in, allowing Green to rest and help out on the defense.

Riley demanded that defenders don’t engage in any scuffles with Gan Guoyang, nor provoke him, let alone be influenced by him. If there were issues, the team would bear it together, diluting the significant risk.

It was clear that to deal with Gan Guoyang, Riley and the entire Lakers team had put in tremendous effort—continually revising their strategy so as not to have history repeat itself.

However, not only were the Lakers and Johnson evolving, but Gan Guoyang was evolving as well.

His concentration on the game and his insight were improving, and his impact on the game was deepening.

He was everywhere.

After a Lakers steal, they launched a counterattack that no one could stop.

Johnson assisted Green, who scored a layup. The Lakers closed the gap by two more points, 16:13, just 3 points behind now.

At this moment, Gan Guoyang prepared to inbound the ball from the backcourt; as he received it from the referee, he launched a super-long cross-court pass that reached Drexler.

Drexler leapt high to catch the ball and promptly passed it to the cutting Porter down the middle. Porter received the ball and scored a layup, quickly adding two points for the Trail Blazers.

Then the Lakers replicated the move. Jabbar got the ball and threw a similarly long pass to the frontcourt. Scott caught the ball and took a mid-range shot, but it missed.

Johnson grabbed the offensive rebound and turned to lay it up, but his attempt was disrupted by Gan Guoyang and missed. Worthy rushed in for the offensive rebound and tried a follow-up, only to have it blocked by Gan Guoyang. The Trail Blazers took possession.

With both sides exchanging blows at an ultra-high pace, the fans in the arena and those watching on TV were dazzled by the spectacle.

This was the supreme offensive and defensive battle between the top two teams in the league; any other team would have been overwhelmed within half a quarter, trailing by at least 10 points.

The teams were evenly matched, and although the main scorer for the Trail Blazers was Ah Gan, the rest of the players were holding up in terms of the offensive and defensive rhythm.

This was only the beginning of the match, the start of a series—the pace and intensity would have to be maintained throughout the entire series. Without a powerful physique and resilient nerves, it was impossible to endure.

Gan Guoyang was thrilled; the Lakers were indeed very strong. His team couldn’t afford even a minor error. Once a mistake was exploited, the game could be lost.

After a series of rapid attacks and defenses, both teams slightly slowed down the tempo to catch their breath.

Gan Guoyang received the ball in the low post, turned around, and faced a triple-team, passing the ball to Thompson, who missed the mid-range shot.

Johnson also slowed down, delivered the ball to Jabbar in the low post for a one-on-one, who turned around and scored with a hook shot.

18:15, the gap remained at 3 points.

The Trail Blazers began to spread out, leaving Gan Guoyang to play one-on-one in the low post.

Defending Jabbar on the strong side was no easy task.

Gan Guoyang showed off his superb low-post skills, using his footwork and explosiveness to make a fake turn towards the basket, then suddenly cut along the baseline for a one-handed slam dunk!

The move was too fast for Jabbar to react, he thought Gan Guoyang was going to drive baseline after turning towards the basket, but Gan cut to the free-throw line instead, and nobody was there to stop him.

The situation was unfavorable for the Lakers as they couldn’t contain Gan Guoyang at that spot, being pressured on the scoreboard.

However, the game was still long, and the Lakers had many options. Worthy took Vandeweghe in the low post, turned around, and scored with a layup.

At the sideline, Jack Ramsay signaled for Thompson to guard Worthy, and for Vandeweghe to switch to Green.

But Green was no easy matchup either, his energy and speed would give Vandeweghe a hard time.

Porter missed a jump shot on a drive, Johnson seized the opportunity for a fast break, delivering a classic bounce pass long down the court to Green!

Green scored with a layup! But the referee on the sideline immediately called a foul, indicating that Green had pulled Vandeweghe during the fast break.

The crowd booed, but the referee’s decision would not change, and the Lakers’ offensive play was nullified.

Although Vandeweghe couldn’t keep up with Green, he managed to cause trouble for the Lakers in his own way.

Both teams contributed high-level offensive and defensive opposition in the first quarter, and with Gan Guoyang’s outstanding performance, the Trail Blazers ended the quarter with a 4-point lead over the Lakers, 34:30.

Gan Guoyang scored 17 points in the quarter, along with 6 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 3 assists, with no fouls and no turnovers, a flawless performance.

The other members of the Trail Blazers were commendable on both ends of the floor, keeping up with the Lakers’ pace, which was most important.

Many teams were brought down by the Lakers’ fast pace and high intensity, unable to hold on even for one quarter, let alone an entire game or a series.

Jack Ramsay knew the immense toll a game against the Lakers could take, and he started making rotations early, substituting Jerome Kossie for Vandeweghe and Parkson for Terry Porter.

In the interior, Bill Walton joined in for the second quarter, allowing Gan Guoyang to rest for a while, entrusting the Trail Blazers’ offense temporarily to Drexler.

However, without Gan Guoyang, the Trail Blazers immediately fell behind on both offense and defense.

Walton’s slow speed made it hard for him to keep up with the Lakers’ offensive pace, and he got caught on back-to-back plays by the Lakers.

34:34, the score was tied.

Even though Johnson took a break, the Lakers’ speed was still very fast.

Ves Matthews and Kevin Duckworth took charge of the Lakers’ reserve offensive efforts.

Michael Cooper continually harassed Drexler on the defensive end, the Glider unable to initiate an attack, hence passing to Walton inside.

Walton caught the ball and made a beautiful behind-the-head pass to Kossie, who slammed it home!

Walton still had something left on offense, but in the playoffs, he could only contribute 15 minutes, or even just 10 minutes of high-quality performance.

He could no longer play 20 minutes like last year, pairing with Gan Guoyang in the Twin Towers to dismantle the opponents’ defense, nor could he form a big three, allowing Gan Guoyang to go to the small forward spot and exploit mismatches.

This was the difference in physical talent, Jabbar at 40 was still full of life, while Walton at 34 was barely hanging on in the basketball court.

But with this last bit of energy, Walton gritted his teeth and kept up in the second quarter, giving Gan Guoyang sufficient rest.

Ramsay and Bobby Beelman were almost timing it, waiting patiently, and when Gan Guoyang said he could come back earlier, Ramsay refused.

Although the Lakers were slowly evening out the score, Ramsay knew this wasn’t about temporary gains or losses, he was looking further ahead.

He didn’t want a repeat of the 1985 Western Conference Finals, where Gan Guoyang was exhausted, saying he was too tired; that situation couldn’t happen again.

Midway through the second quarter, after Jabbar got back on the court, he scored with a one-on-one play and caught a reverse pass under the basket for a slam dunk.

With the score tied at 45:45, Jack Ramsay called for a timeout, Walton sat down for a rest, and Gan Guoyang returned to the game.

Walton and Gan Guoyang high-fived, Walton saying, "Sorry, that’s all I can do."

Gan Guoyang responded, "It’s enough, Bill. Leave it to me."