The Golden Age of Basketball

() (Writing and writing, I found that many more stalks were buried, and the related four or five volumes will be added in a few days.)

Gan Guoyang had just escaped from the shadow of losing against the Lakers, only to find out that he was going to play against the Lakers again.

In the NCAA, a revenge battle may need to be brewed for a whole year, and there may never be a chance for revenge, because so many teams have very few opportunities to meet in the NCAA National Championships.

But in the NBA, teams in the same division have to play 5 to 6 games with each other every season. For example, there are 6 regular season games between the Trail Blazers and the Lakers this season.

When it comes to the playoffs, it is even more likely to usher in 7 consecutive battles. The saying "sooner or later you have to pay back when you come out to play" is fulfilled every year and every day in the NBA.

For example, after returning from Los Angeles, the opponent the Blazers will face at home is the Phoenix Suns, which had played three overtimes with them before.

After returning to Portland in the early morning of November 11th, Gan Guoyang returned home and ran on the treadmill at home for three full hours to punish himself for his "mistake" of missing all three shots in the game against the Lakers .

In the afternoon, he was the first to arrive at the training hall, where he performed basic hook exercises and jump shots.

Drexler, who followed closely behind, arrived at the arena more than an hour later.

On the morning of November 11, the team conducted another team offensive and defensive training to prepare for the game against the Suns in the evening.

The three-overtime game on November 11 can be described as a huge attrition battle. In that game, the Blazers' inside line was penetrated by Larry Nance, allowing him to score 1 points alone.

Gan Guoyang didn't get many chances to play in regular time, but he made repeated hits in overtime, and hit a key goal in the third overtime, allowing the Blazers to narrowly beat the Suns by 140:139 and steal a game from Phoenix. victory.

After two battles in Los Angeles, Gan Guoyang has gained Ramsey's trust and is no longer a fake starter, but has become the main force of the team.

Before the game, Gan Guoyang even took the initiative to ask for the main defense, Larry Nance, to prevent him from shuttling back and forth in the Blazers penalty area.

Larry Nance is most well-known, probably because he used a one-armed loop back in the 1984 All-Star Contest, the first slam dunk contest, defeated Dr. J who failed to slam dunk, and became the first slam dunk king.

Nance and Gan Guoyang are very similar in size, both are 6-foot-10, both have broad shoulders and long arms, but the two are completely different types of players.

Gan Guoyang is a center. He has unimaginable strength and solid low-post skills. At the center position, he always appears to be one size smaller than others, but anyone who dares to ignore him will pay a heavy price.

Larry Nance is a power forward, but he has the quickness and agility that ordinary power forwards do not have. People remember his dunks more. In fact, he is also an excellent shot blocker and mid-range shooter.

In the game against the Blazers on November 11, he hit the Blazers with block-quick-down-dunk time and time again, allowing Drexler to see what the best fast break is.

He made 29 of 18 shots and scored 44 points. No one else in the Suns scored 20 points. He almost single-handedly led the Suns to defeat the Trail Blazers.

But in overtime, Gan Guoyang mainly defended Nance, and he could no longer fly around the Blazers basket unscrupulously. Even if Gan Guoyang fouled, he had to drag Nance down face to face.

And he also gave the Suns a heavy blow with his deadly hook, making the Suns lose by one point at home.

Five days later, the Suns visited Portland. The two teams happened to have four wins and one loss, tied for first place in the Western Conference, and the game on November 11th was destined to usher in a second defeat.

Nansi originally wanted to avenge his loss in the overtime game in the away game, but he didn't treat him with admiration for three days. He didn't expect that after two games, Gan Guoyang was no longer the one who almost fouled five times in overtime. The stunned man who was sent off was green.

From the first offense and defense of the game, Gan Guoyang, the center, began to dislocate Larry Nance. Larry Nance has long arms, and Gan Guoyang's arms are longer; Larry Nance can jump, but Gan Guoyang can't squeeze. let you jump.

Gan Guoyang no longer has to fight for every ball, and Nance will let him go when he must score the ball, and he will not reach out and foul casually.

But it is even more difficult for Nance to find such an easy opportunity to score.

Gan Guoyang ran to the high position more often in the offense, always retreated at the first time, and delayed the Suns' fast break advance at the first time.

Nance is like a wild horse that has been put on the rein, and he can no longer run freely. In this game, he only scored 12 points and his shooting percentage was 40.00%.

On the Blazers side, facing the Suns' lax defense, Vandeweghe fired again and again, making 18 of 13 shots and scoring 70.00 points efficiently with a 29% shooting rate.

Relatively speaking, Drexler was a lot depressed, and Paxson was still the main starter. He only got 15 minutes of playing time, and most of them were in garbage time.

The game lost its suspense in the third quarter. In the end, the Blazers easily defeated the Suns at home with 118:95 and 23 points. The record of five wins and one loss continued to rank first in the Western Conference.

Gan Guoyang scored 15 points and 15 rebounds in the Double [-] data. He did a good job of supporting work conscientiously. In his interview after the game, he said, "I don't think I need to take a shower after today's game."

Nance, who is not good at words, said after the game, "sunny-gump, superstar." (Gan Guoyang, superstar.)

Before he had time to savor the joy of the big victory, the No. 7 Blazers flew to the Denver plateau on a plane to play against Vandeweghe's old club, the Denver Nuggets, at McNichols Stadium.

This summer, the Trail Blazers and Denver completed a big deal. Vandeweghe, who was traded to the Trail Blazers, shined in the first few games of this season and repeatedly hit high scores.

The Denver Nuggets did not change their crazy style of play because of the loss of the top scorer. They still adhered to the principle of offense first, and used non-stop, chaotic offense to destroy all teams that blocked them.

On the day of the game between the Trail Blazers and the Suns, on November 11, the Denver Nuggets defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 6:148 in an away game, which surprised people.

Back home, Denver fans ushered in their old friend Vandeweghe, and Vandeweghe also received applause from Denver fans at the opening.

This is the second time for Gan Guoyang to experience the pain of fighting on a plateau. When he played 32-to-16 against the miners at the University of Texas at El Paso in Salt Lake City, the two teams fought fiercely in the hypoxic plateau. The final score was 35:30.

This score is basically the first quarter score of the Nuggets and Trail Blazers.

In this game, the two sides fought until the last moment. Gan Guoyang was in excellent condition and was almost not double-teamed by the Nuggets. He scored 8 points on 7 of 15 shots and took off 13 rebounds.

But the Blazers' defense was terrible, especially when a guy named English blasted 45 points on tedious forward-leaning high-shots and allowed him to score consecutively in the fourth quarter.

Gan Guoyang couldn’t get the ball at the critical moment, and Sampson took the main shots. He made 22 of 15 shots and scored a game-high 32 points, but missed a key shot in the fourth quarter, allowing the Blazers away game 126:128 Lost to the Denver Nuggets.

After the game, Gan Guoyang was very dissatisfied that he didn't get more shots. He also hoped that Drexler could play more to defend English instead of letting Vandeweghe, a colander, face his old teammates.

It's just that after the game against the Lakers, the relationship between Gan Guoyang and Ramsey became much closer. Gan Guoyang had more respect for the old coach, so he didn't burst out his bad emotions.

After one win and one loss, the Blazers will meet the Los Angeles Lakers from afar at their home court.

Only a week after the last battle, Gan Guoyang's anger towards the Lakers has not dissipated, and the two teams met again.

Gan Guoyang, a guy who never reads the schedule, did not expect to play against the Lakers again so soon, but he did not expect that after scoring 39 points in the last game, he could only score 19 points against the Lakers a week later.

19 points, 22 of 8 shots, and 17 rebounds are good enough data for a rookie.

However, he scored 20 points less than the previous game, shot only 36%, and only got 5 free throw opportunities. This performance, coupled with the Blazers' 124:130 loss to the Lakers, was no less than a disaster for Gan Guoyang .

He felt extremely frustrated. In his heart, he had long regarded the Lakers, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Magic Johnson as his biggest opponents. However, he found that although the game score was always close, the situation was always controlled by the Lakers.

The magician used 15 assists and 7 points on 6 of 15 shots to control the rhythm of the game lightly.

And Riley's double-teaming of Gan Guoyang from beginning to end made it extremely difficult for Gan Guoyang to make every shot, and he only sent 2 assists in the game.

After the game, Gan Guoyang locked himself in the locker room, refused to participate in the post-match press conference, and refused all interviews with reporters.

Obviously, his performance like this will soon be criticized by the media. The local media in Portland are quite gentle and friendly, but the newspapers in Los Angeles are not polite.

These newspapers, which are accustomed to turning black and white, have begun to portray Gan Guoyang as a cancerous image of "only getting in and out". This is also their old trick.

However, due to the schedule of professional competitions, Gan Guoyang has no time to soothe the unwillingness and sadness in his heart. He will never be like high school again. He needs a week to recover after losing a game, and a month to heal after losing a championship.

He was forced to make himself Prometheus on the Caucasus Mountains, and no matter how the eagle came to peck at his internal organs, he had to recover as soon as possible.

And he knew that the most important thing to do was to refuse to fail, shoot the evil eagle, and turn himself into Hercules!

In the next game against the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks, Gan Guoyang scored 25 points in two consecutive games with a high shooting percentage.

But the Blazers still couldn't solve the defensive problem at the small forward position. In the game against the Warriors, the Warriors small forward Pruss Short scored 48 points and beat Vandeweghe into a scumbag.

The Blazers won the game at home with the performance of Gan Guoyang and Paxson.

Another problem that surfaced against the Dallas Mavericks was the conflict between Drexler and Ramsey.

Drexler couldn't bear Ramsey's use of more than ten minutes per game, and had a verbal conflict with Ramsey. Gan Guoyang was caught in the middle and was not a human being.

In this game, the starting shooting guard Jim Paxson played well again, scoring 27 points, helping the Blazers win this victory, and his starting position was once again consolidated.

Drexler was pushed on the bench and did not get a minute of playing time. The conflict between Drexler and Ramsey further intensified.

After nearly half a month of the new season, Gan Guoyang began to discover in the Trail Blazers that professional basketball teams are really different from college basketball teams.

The college basketball team is a student sports team. The coach is like the teacher of the players. It is only natural for students to listen to the teacher. If there is a disobedient student, the teacher can punish him.

A professional team is like a big company. Players and coaches work for the boss, but the coach, the tactical commander, has a much lower salary than the players.

Coaches often need to establish their own authority and require all players to follow his command; while players have higher wages, if they don't get enough opportunities, they will have opinions.

The resulting conflicts between coaches and players are countless, not to mention the conflicts and frictions between players.

Gan Guoyang originally thought that he would play well in the game like he did in college, and everything would be ok if he helped the team win the game, but now it seems that he thinks so is too simple.

However, the team still achieved an excellent record of 8 wins and 2 losses, and all conflicts and conflicts can be covered up under the victory.

And the next game is Gan Guoyang's most anticipated but least expected game. On November 1984, 11, the Blazers will face the Utah Jazz at home.

Gan Guoyang will face his old college teammate, John Stockton, for the first time.

Historically, Stockton was selected by the Jazz with the 1984th overall pick in 16, and the arrival of Gan Guoyang pushed Stockton to the big stage of the NCAA National Championship, which also raised his draft predictions a lot. .

But Stockton still failed to escape the fate of going to the Jazz, also because of Gan Guoyang.

Michigan State University center Kevin Willis, who was originally expected to get a relatively high pick, fell to 16th because of his wingspan problem before being picked up by the Jazz.

At that time, Gan Guoyang, the long-armed monster, was so powerful in the NCAA field that his wingspan became an important factor in the draft considerations that year. However, Willis's wingspan was tragic enough to be about the same as his height, and the market naturally fell all the way.

The Hawks wanted Kevin Willis at the time, but they knew the Jazz wanted Stockton, so they took the point guard ahead of time, then traded with the Jazz and got some extra chips.

It's a pity that the reaction of Jazz fans is still the same as in history. Even if Stockton had a wonderful performance in Salt Lake City, it still couldn't stop the fans from questioning him, a white point guard who can't run fast or jump high.

In fact, in the first ten games of the season, Stockton's performance has indeed fulfilled the doubts of the fans. He didn't get too many opportunities to play, and he could only contribute sporadic data in each game.

His performance is too ordinary, ordinary like a professional player.

So when Gan Guoyang saw Stockton in ordinary clothes at the hotel where the jazz stayed, he felt that he was no different from a salesman who sold houses in a real estate company.

"Hello, John."

"Good evening, Gan."

"It's better to go to my house, it's not convenient to eat in public."

"No problem, I like to stay at home, saving money is the most important thing."