The Golden Age of Basketball

"No one can replace the coach and make decisions..."

After Gan Guoyang said this, the atmosphere in the locker room seemed to be much more relaxed, and even Ramsay looked better.

During the regular season, Ramsey spent a lot of energy and time to balance the contradictions and relationships between the players; at first it was between Gan Guoyang and Sampson, because Gan Guoyang squeezed Sampson's starting center position, And he didn't seem so respectful to the veteran.

Later, Gan Guoyang took the initiative to resolve the conflict with Sampson, which also made the Blazers' inside line peaceful.

But the Blazers' outside line is not so worry-free. It is also the rise of rookies. There has always been discord between Drexler and Paxson. In this regard, Ramsey has always supported Paxson.

But Ramsey did not expect that in the end, Paxson turned him into an army. In the locker room of the away team, United Mitchell Sampson asked Ramsey to change back to the most stable starter during the regular season. line-up.

Of the five former starters, two requested a lineup change. For the other two, Vandeweghe is an "outsider". Moreover, the German has a relatively peaceful nature and does not mean to be the boss of the team as soon as he comes to the team; starting point guard Varen Ding also has a gentle personality, and he is best at building a good relationship with everyone, but this season, he himself has begun to be challenged by rookie Colter.

When Paxson stood up and asked Ramsey to change the starting lineup, neither of them made a special statement, but chose to remain silent.

Although Kenny Carr is the nominal leader of the team's locker room on weekdays, he is the leader of eating and drinking. When it comes to the game, his right to speak is not as useful as when inviting everyone to drink; Drexler has a haughty personality , but he is not arrogant, and even has some cowardice in his bones. Facing Paxson's direct challenge, he also remained silent. [

At this time, the attitude of Gan Guoyang, who was the last to enter, was particularly important.

What Dan Issel said is indeed correct. A veteran team will indeed have a lot of troubles. None of the Blazers is over 30 years old and has more than ten years of experience in playing. To balance all parties when such contradictions are prominent .

Therefore, Gan Guoyang himself did not expect that in the team, he has gradually begun to exist as an important opinion force-although he once naively wanted to seize the position of "team boss" in the past, but at that time He didn't understand the true meaning of the team leader, he just wanted to play more on the court.

If his attitude is biased towards Paxson and Sampson, it will be a direct threat to Ramsey, which means that the authority of the coach will be challenged by the players, which will be very bad for the Blazers.

Although Ramsey has old qualifications, rich coaching experience, and outstanding tactics, he has not shown too much talent in controlling the emotions of the players. Bill Walton would not have fallen out with the team and left in anger.

He never expected that the team, which had been performing well before and had a harmonious interior, would break out such contradictions after only losing one game away.

Fortunately, Gan Guoyang stood on Ramsey's side.

"Okay, we should trust Coach Ramsey. It's just one game. We still lead 2:1, don't we? There's still an away game to come. We'll finish him well and try to win the game. Then, just I can go back to Portland to end the series!" After Gan Guoyang made his statement, Kenny Karl immediately expressed his support for the coach.

This guy deserves to be a genius who is good at both sides, and his words also aroused everyone's approval. In a team with many rookies, there are naturally more fools. Not everyone can play a pivotal role like Gan Guoyang.

Paxson didn't seem too surprised to see Gan Guoyang choose to side with Ramsey. In fact, the relationship between Paxson and Gan Guoyang has always been relatively ordinary.

From the first day Gan Guoyang came to the Trail Blazers until now, the two of them have spoken no more than three sentences a day on average. This may be partly because Paxson’s alma mater, the University of Dayton, was eliminated by Gan Guoyang and Gonzaga in n. The reason is that Gan Guoyang has always had a good relationship with Drexler.

Therefore, Gan Guoyang chose to maintain the status quo instead of supporting him, which was expected by Paxon.

Afterwards, after Ramsey said a few words, everyone disbanded and went to take a shower, followed by routine interviews with reporters, and finally the whole team got on the bus, left the arena and returned to the hotel.

On the way back, the car was eerily quiet, and the happy atmosphere after winning the game two days ago was completely gone.

Among them, Ramsay's face was not very good-looking from the beginning to the end. He, nicknamed "Vulture", sat alone in the front row, looking particularly gloomy and lonely. [

This situation continued until the next day's training. Everyone looked a little awkward. Everyone seemed cautious on the training ground. It seemed that there was an extra gunpowder bag in the team, and it would explode if you were not careful.

Gan Guoyang also felt quite strange. It wasn't that the team had no conflicts in the past. For some reason, this time seemed to have a particularly large impact, especially for Ramsey, who seemed to be depressed a lot.

However, Ramsey still made enough preparations for tomorrow's game against the Nuggets. He decided to increase Norris' playing time and let Norris, who has a stronger attack power, attack the Nuggets inside. Played a very good effect.

On the defensive end, he also hopes that Gan Guoyang will put more energy into it. It is best to disrupt the Nuggets' outside passing the ball like in the first game and reduce their offensive efficiency.

It should be said that after three games, there are not many tricks that both sides can use. The big tricks used by Ramsey in the first game are no longer effective. What is more important is to see the performance of the players and the coach. on-the-spot command.

But for a team playing away from home, morale may be more important than tactics and status. It is conceivable that if you play in a stadium where everyone does not support you and boo you, if you are not united, the team How to defeat the owner of this court?

The Nuggets are originally home to the Devils, and Vandeweghe, the team's top scorer, will inevitably be affected when he comes here-after all, he has had many good memories in this stadium.

Now, with Paxson making such a fuss, the entire Blazers team has lost their spirits, and everyone seems to have their own concerns.

The one who was most affected was Drexler, the shooting guard who always had a shy smile on his face, and his face was solemn before the start of the fourth game.

"Cheer up, we are here to win this game, and we can go back to Portland after this game!" Gan Guoyang patted Drexler on the shoulder in fear before the game and said to him.

Drexler forced a smile, then nodded, ready to dive into the game.

However, Gan Guoyang may not have noticed it himself, even he himself was thinking, "We can go back to Portland after this game."

In fact, not only Gan Guoyang, but all the players in the Trail Blazers are thinking, "We can go back to Portland after this game." That city on the Pacific coast seems to give the players a spiritual call, "We Get out of this damn place of Denver and go home in no time!"

This kind of thinking is very dangerous.

A truly strong team should have an indestructible home court, but they cannot rely on their home court. When playing away games, they will think "I want to go home, but I prefer to let the battle end at someone else's home."

The Trail Blazers, on the other hand, regard Portland as a safe haven. They desperately want to go home. They have home court advantage and they want to end the Denver Nuggets at home.

Once you have such an idea, the combat effectiveness of the players in the away game can be imagined.

From the beginning of the first quarter, the Blazers fell behind. The Nuggets first stopped the Blazers with an 8:0 offensive climax, and then the two sides began to fall into a tug-of-war.

The Blazers still had no way to limit the Nuggets' offense. No matter how desperately Gan Guoyang tried to defend in the interior, he only had one pair of hands and one pair of legs.

At the same time, once Gan Guoyang starts to make a lot of defenses outside, the Blazers will have a small problem in the control of backcourt rebounds, and the Nuggets will take advantage of the loopholes.

In the first half, the Trail Blazers gave people the feeling that everything was slow. They were like a lame person chasing after a normal person, and if they were not careful, they would fall a big somersault.

At the end of halftime, just like the previous game, the Blazers fell behind the Nuggets by 49 points again at 63:14. Their offense and defense were in a mess again, and they could only rely on the individual performance of the players to maintain their vitality.

In the locker room at halftime, Ramsey yelled, yelling at the players for their carelessness in the game.

"If you guys come back to Portland like this, there's no guarantee we'll win at home! You guys are a piece of shit! Playing like..."

Ramsey seldom swears in the team, and this time, he finally couldn't help but swear, but in the end, he didn't know what to say, so he fell hard Tactical pen in hand.

In the locker room, the team fell into an eerie silence again, and no one spoke.

Gan Guoyang really wants to say something, but he is a rookie playing in the playoffs in his first year, what can he say?This is not a university, everyone is a student, Gan Guoyang only needs to show his eloquence to make everyone's blood boil.

This doesn't always work in the nb's professional teams, everyone is an adult now.

And Gan Guoyang has also discovered long ago that the current Portland Trail Blazers are a stable and strong team, but lack blood, which can be seen from the fact that the Trail Blazers rarely make big comebacks in the regular season.

Once this team falls behind in the first half, the probability of losing will rise sharply. It seems that no one can always stand up from adversity.

Gan Guoyang has such blood, but he is a center. The center is restricted by the problem of ball possession and is always in a secondary position when leading the comeback.

The 10 minutes of the intermission passed quickly, and the Blazers' problem was not resolved.

Things are getting worse.