The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 574 - 1 1988-1989_6
The Heat, led by Riley and Drexler, secured a 37-45 record, which, for a brand-new team, is quite a respectable outcome.
To some extent, Drexler proved himself, believing his choice was not wrong.
The biggest winner of the regular season was the Detroit Pistons, who, after the season started, traded from the Mavericks for Mark Aguirre and acquired Rick Mahorn from the Bullets using James Donaldson, completing the full body of the "Bad Boys."
The well-equipped Pistons clinched their best team record in history with a 65-17 in the regular season, proving invincible as they swept through their competition.
In the playoffs, the Pistons swept their old rivals, the Boston Celtics, in the first round, and swept the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round. In the Eastern Conference Finals, they defeated Jordan’s Chicago Bulls 4:2—this was the most fierce resistance they encountered in the East.
Jordan was becoming more influential; despite being extremely dissatisfied with Krause trading away Oakley during the offseason, to the point of nearly breaking with Krause,
once the playoffs began, Jordan’s Bulls eliminated the New York Knicks, which had a good regular season record and had acquired Oakley.
Bill Cartwright was quite useful against Ewing, and Horace Grant’s performance outshone Oakley’s.
However, in the conference finals, the savage Pistons managed to hold Jordan’s scoring average down to 29 points and his shooting percentage to 46%.
In the end, the somewhat inexperienced Jordan and the Bulls fell at the feet of the Pistons, unable to enter the Finals.
The Pistons, after a year’s absence, made it back to the Finals, anxiously awaiting the birth of the Western Conference champion, eager to face the Trail Blazers again in the Finals for revenge.
However, after the Trail Blazers easily eliminated the Nuggets in the first round, they encountered an unexpected challenge against the Suns in the second round.
The day before the start of the Western Conference semifinals, bad news came from New York: Larry Flesher suffered a sudden heart attack while playing squash with Gan Guohui and was rushed to the hospital, but passed away.
Gan Guoyang got the news immediately, Guohui called him to tell him that Larry was gone.
Within a mere twenty minutes, he received the information of Flesher’s death. However, due to the game, he couldn’t immediately go to New York.
Flesher’s death dealt a huge blow to Gan Guoyang, who initially felt almost unable to participate in the next day’s game.
However, he managed to pull himself together and took part in the game, helping the Trail Blazers win against the Suns at home.
The first and second games were both victories, and during the break between the third and fourth games, Gan Guoyang went to New York to pay his respects.
David Stern and a host of other NBA executives, along with retired stars like Robertson, all attended. After the funeral, Gan Guoyang flew to Phoenix overnight for the game.
The travel exhaustion coupled with emotional trauma led to a mediocre performance by Gan Guoyang; the Suns managed to win two games in a row at home, evening the series at 2:2.
The series was dragged out to a game seven by the Suns, where ultimately, Gan Guoyang had to grit his teeth through the pain, securing the win over the Suns in an overtime battle.
The Lakers had already been waiting in the wings for the Western Conference Finals, having dispatched the Jazz with a swift 4:0 victory, and were waiting for the Trail Blazers.
The Trail Blazers had not only expended a lot of energy in the semifinals, but Hornacek and Thompson had both sustained injuries.
Gan Guoyang was greatly affected, and the dense schedule meant he had no time to adjust his mental state.
To defeat the Trail Blazers, the Lakers team prepared for an entire season, and this time, they were truly ready to strike while the iron was hot.
The Lakers quickly took a 2:0 lead in the first two games; the Trail Blazers struggled to even the score back at home.
In the crucial fifth game, just like in 1988, the Lakers didn’t repeat their mistakes.
They viciously clung to Gan Guoyang, adopting a three-guard lineup. Magic Johnson delivered the strongest playoff performance of his career, notching a super triple-double with 40 points, 21 assists, and 10 rebounds.
112:120, the Lakers finally won against the Trail Blazers on their home court, securing the match point.
Game Six, Memorial Coliseum, Gan Guoyang, who had supported the Trail Blazers for four years, slipped again.
110:109, the Trail Blazers narrowly lost to the Lakers by one point, with a series score of 2:4, being eliminated.
The Lakers narrowly advanced, returning to the finals after three years, where Magic Johnson and Jabbar hugged each other and cried.
It was as if they had been transported back to 1979, the first game of Magic Johnson’s professional career.
Jabbar’s hook shot that clinched the game against the Clippers, Johnson held Jabbar, as happy as a child.
A full decade had passed, and victory no longer brought laughter, but tears shed after surmounting high mountains.
Unfortunately, it was not Jabbar’s final game of his career, and their celebratory tears were premature.
In the finals against the formidable Detroit Pistons, after seven hard-fought games, friends Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas went from kissing each other’s cheeks before the match to becoming enemies by the end. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
In the end, the Pistons, with the home-court advantage, defeated the Lakers 4:3 to secure the championship they had longed for.
The NBA 1988-1989 season came to a close after a series of dramatic games.
Gan Guoyang experienced a season filled with joy and sorrow, loss and gain.
Larry Flesher’s death was sudden, without leaving any last words, nor a chance to say goodbye.
However, he left Gan Guoyang a final legacy in basketball: he successfully brought Sabonis and Petrović to the NBA, to the Portland Trail Blazers.
At the turn of spring and summer, Gan Guoyang returned to China with mixed feelings to initiate various activities.
Although he had lost the Western Conference finals, he was still China’s basketball hero. In the tumultuous final year of the 80s, his arrival became a vent for people’s emotions, their focus gathered on a single basketball player.
Like America, in China, politics could be dissolved by entertainment, and Gan Guoyang accelerated this process.
His failure did not lead the people to doubt him; instead, it elicited public sympathy—thanks in no small part to journalist Tang Yizhou’s feature reports.
In his narrative journalism, he extensively described Gan Guoyang’s years in American basketball, painting his successes and failures in a heroic and moving way.
Gan Guoyang traveled from the south to the north, sitting on hard-seat trains, municipal buses, tractors, riding bicycles, mixing with ordinary people.
He visited schools, hospitals, factories, and rural areas, absorbing every inch of the land.
The so-called activities were mostly unprofitable, even costing him money as he gave away shoes, but he didn’t care; he enjoyed staying in China.
If his wife and his not yet one-year-old child did not need him, he would have liked to stay until the new season began.
There was a moment when he finally understood why Michael Jackson had told him that this place was wonderful because it felt like home.
He stayed from May until mid to late June, as the NBA finals concluded.
On the first day of July, Gan Guoyang received a transatlantic call from Tang Jianguo who said, "Sonny! I need you to come back! I have something important to discuss with you!"
"What, you want to sell the team?"
"Oh no, no! I would never, ever sell the Trail Blazers! No one understands them better than I do. But now we need a general manager who understands basketball. Jerry West has been fired by the Lakers, and I want to snatch him up! I need your help!"
Upon hearing this news, Gan Guoyang hurriedly replied, "No problem, I will be back tomorrow!"
Gan Guoyang abruptly hung up the phone, knowing it was time to rise from failure and move forward.
