The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 532 - 35: The Meat Grinder (True)

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From Gan Guoyang’s rookie season, Dick Motta wasn’t very fond of Ah Gan.

In the game where Gan Guoyang shattered the backboard, Motta likened Guoyang to a circus lion or tiger, thinking of him as a plaything for the amusement of fans, rather than a serious basketball player.

As time passed, Motta finally understood that Ah Gan was indeed a fierce tiger, but not a plaything for amusement. Instead, he was a ferocious beast who came to dominate the League and to teach antiquated coaches how to play basketball.

Motta personally witnessed the changes and compromises of Jack Ramsay.

How the Portland Trail Blazers transformed from an agile and quick light cavalry and infantry combo into today’s heavy cavalry archer team.

Before the game started, when Jack Ramsay tried to come over and greet his old friend, Motta refused, waving his hand to indicate he did not want to shake hands with him.

Wes Unseld came over to shake hands with Ramsay and apologized, saying, "Dick thinks he is an assistant coach and shouldn’t shake hands with a head coach. Sorry, Jack, good luck tonight."

Ramsay thought to himself, what on earth is wrong with this old geezer, since when does being an assistant coach mean you can’t shake hands with me?

The reason Motta acted this way was that he had prohibited his players from contacting Ah Gan, so naturally, he should lead by example and not shake hands with his old friend Ramsay.

It was evident that Motta was determined to mold a completely new Bullets team.

Last year’s first-round playoff upset against the Supersonics pained Motta deeply.

Actually, the Mavericks had no intention of replacing Motta; they still recognized his coaching abilities, and with a core roster so young, they could completely aim for greater achievements in the new season.

But Motta had spent too much of his life in Dallas. After the season, he revealed to reporters he might leave Dallas and wanted to try a new coaching experience somewhere like Phoenix, New York, or elsewhere.

These words were leaked to the Dallas media by a reporter, and Dallas fans thought Motta had betrayed the team. Talk show hosts and news columnists lashed out at him.

The team owner Carter hoped Motta would hold a press conference to clarify that he was not leaving the Mavericks.

But in Carter’s office, Motta stated he wouldn’t clarify anything. Instead, he immediately held a press conference, announcing his retirement and departure from the head coaching position of the Mavericks.

This stubborn old man never took threats lightly and did not like following the same routine. He never revealed what he had been planning at that time until his death.

After leaving the Mavericks, he didn’t end up with the Suns or Knicks but made a halfway return to Washington—he was very interested in assisting Unseld and coaching Charles Barkley.

His ultimate goal was to lead the team back to the finals stage and then to defeat either the Trail Blazers and Ah Gan or the Lakers.

When a person or a team has a tangible goal, they will be more driven in what they do.

And this goal must be specific, not abstract.

Like a writer saying, "I want to be successful," this goal is too abstract.

If it changes to "I first want to figure out how to make 500 dollars today," then, by making an effort to write a few thousand words, he can earn that fee.

Further, if he wants to earn more, he must write more and write better. Then he will be closer to success.

The goal Motta set for Barkley and the Bullets was Ah Gan and the Trail Blazers.

He did not establish Jordan, the Bulls, or Bird, the Celtics, or the Pistons as the targets.

For the Bullets, the goal had to be high enough and visible enough to stimulate enough motivation.

Moses Malone stood at mid-court ready for the jump ball, looking at Gan Guoyang across from him, feeling a strong will to battle inside him.

It had been a long time since he had felt this way; since winning the championship in 1983, Moses had been unable to reclaim his peak form.

Although his stats were still decent and his game performance satisfactory, he couldn’t play an MVP season anymore.

This year he was just 32 years old, still one of the league’s most popular centers.

But in front of a new type of center like Ah Gan, he felt like an old tractor facing a Peterbilt 379 equipped with a 12-cylinder diesel engine—this guy, like a 007 vehicle, could extend two missiles from the sides to deliver a fatal blow to you.

The two long-range missiles from Gan Guoyang in the All-Star game changed the outcome and humiliated the Eastern team. They also made Moses Malone feel the gap between himself and the new number one center was getting bigger and bigger.

As a tractor, he lacked many features. He would just tirelessly work the small patch of land in the three-second area, relentlessly fighting for rebounds and drawing fouls.

Before the game, the words from Dick Motta and Unseld inspired him, "You have your way of playing; so long as the final result is a victory, that’s all that matters."

Malone didn’t win the jump ball against Gan Guoyang; the Trail Blazers initiated the attack first.

However, the first score from either side took a while, with both teams scoreless in the first two minutes.

The Bullets started out with an extremely aggressive defense, with Malone constantly moving to prevent Guoyang from receiving the ball inside.

Because of Dick Motta’s presence, they applied the most effective strategy against Gan Guoyang: a half guard by the center, with the helper fully harassing, willing to leave the outside open rather than letting Guoyang easily shoot.

Gan Guoyang began with three passes to his shooters on the outside, but none of their shots hit the mark.

All three attempts were three-pointers.

This is a disadvantage of the three-point shot; while its efficiency might be high over a long period, in a specific time frame, in a particular game, its success rate can be especially low due to touch and defense.

Stability is the Achilles’ heel of the three-pointer.

The Bullets firmly controlled the defensive rebounds and then slowed down the game’s tempo to a crawl.

The Washington Bullets were one of the teams with the lowest scoring and fewest possessions in the League this season, and they had a lot of confidence in their half-court game.

In this regard, the Bullets and the Trail Blazers were similar, but the Trail Blazers relied on a half-court system centered around Gan Guoyang, incorporating both inside and outside tactical strategies.

What the Bullets relied on were offensive rebounds in the paint and isolation plays on the perimeter.

The offensive strategy of the Bullets could be described as straightforward and brutal: shoot from the outside, grab rebounds on the inside.

They boasted the League’s best offensive rebounding and the worst assist numbers.

This was a new system designed by Dick Motta and Wes Unseld for the Bullets, tailored to the team’s player characteristics.

With two rebounding monsters inside and two scoring guards who couldn’t pass effectively, not a single player on the team averaged more than five assists a game.

The team’s highest assist player was the backup guard Muggsy Bogues, averaging 4.9 assists a game.

With such a lineup, it would be unrealistic to expect them to play fast breaks or intricate offensive plays.

Instead, they ground out in the half-court, competing in defense, rebounds, and the minute details and willpower of the game.

Dick Motta set the strategy, while the burly Wes Unseld executed these tactics, with the entire team using militaristic management and iron discipline to reshape a winning culture.

After Dick Motta arrived, the most noticeable change for the Bullets was that Charles Barkley slimmed down.

The guy shed his baby fat from his rookie season, along with some excess fat, making him look even more muscular and fierce.

The first point of the game came from his offensive rebound.

Gan Guoyang had to deal with Moses and couldn’t attend to Barkley, who scored on the put-back.

Strictly speaking, the Bullets’ pair of big men weren’t really Twin Towers.

Barkley was quite short, even capable of playing as a small forward.

Moses wasn’t a tall center either, standing at 6 feet 10 inches he seemed just slightly shorter than Guoyang and could defend further out.

This made it difficult for Guoyang to pull off a two-on-one situation.

The Bullets once had a tradition of strong inside play, epitomized by Unseld and Hayes.

Unseld too was a shorter big man, essentially a super blue-collar worker.

Unlike the Houston Twin Towers, which revolved completely around the paint on both offense and defense with resources heavily tilted toward the twin big men,

All Guoyang needed to do was go hard against one while keeping an eye on the other, throwing off the Rockets’ distribution of resources.

The Bullets’ pair, however, consisted of a power forward with the height of a small forward who could play on the perimeter, along with a master of drawing fouls and an offensive rebounding king.

Much of the Bullets’ offense was launched from the perimeter, with the shooting guards King and Jeff Malone taking unhesitant shots—if they made it, great; if not, the inside would battle for the rebound, and if all else failed, Moses and Barkley could isolate. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

With such a resource distribution, Guoyang couldn’t deal with the Bullets’ duo single-handedly as he could with the Rockets’ Twin Towers—it was too scattered.

Especially with the high unpredictability of offensive rebounding as an attack method.

Guoyang could handle one Moses, and he could deal with one Barkley,

But when both charged in with all their might, holding ground was not so simple.

The two teams engaged in a grueling battle in the paint from the first quarter.

On the Bullets bench sat Bol, Mahorn, and Alari, making for an overwhelmingly rich set of resources in the paint; this configuration was aimed at Ah Gan, as well as at Detroit and Boston.

The scoreboard was at a painstaking low; the Trail Blazers scored 15 points, while the Bullets scored 14 in the first quarter.

Guoyang alone grabbed six defensive rebounds in a single quarter but also let Barkley and Malone snag four offensive rebounds against him.

Even more concerning was that Moses Malone drew a defensive foul from him just over three minutes into the game.

This affected Guoyang’s defensive choices considerably—as he had to play cautiously in a highly physical game to avoid picking up fouls too early.

Fortunately, the Trail Blazers weren’t just Guoyang’s one-man team.

Drexler took advantage of the Bullets’ perimeter weaknesses, scoring on consecutive shots.

Porter, too, exploited screens to drive to the basket and score, helping the Trail Blazers take the lead in the first quarter.

The Bullets weren’t bothered, and in the second quarter, Rick Mahorn took the court.

Unseld gave the order, "Keep pressuring Ah Gan. Tonight’s goal is to keep Ah Gan’s scoring below 30 points!"