The Golden Age of Basketball

() Patrick Aloysius Ewing, born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1962, immigrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts with his parents in 1975 at the age of 12.

He started learning to play basketball in high school and showed amazing talent.Every time he played, he was able to abuse the opponents from other schools in the same district, and their bus was always attacked by fans of the opposing school.

After graduating from high school, he was scrambled by various universities, and finally Georgetown University from Washington, DC got the star. Georgetown's coach is John Thompson, who is known for his strictness.

In order to ponder this piece of rough jade, Thompson conducted hell-style brutal training on Ewing, allowing this extremely talented Jamaican giant to quickly grow into a star of the ncaa's attention.

In the 1982 NCAA National Tournament, Ewing's Georgetown University entered the NCAA Finals, facing the North Carolina Blue Devils under Pope Dean Smith of Poole Hill.

Ewing was still a rookie in the NCAA that year. At that time, Gan Guoyang had just lost the finals of the California Division II Championship, but Ewing was also uncomfortable on this bigger stage.

In that game, Ewing, who was too impatient, interfered with the ball five times in the opening game, which was equivalent to giving the opponent 10 points, which also set the tone for the whole game.

In the end, Georgetown was intercepted by the opponent because of a stupid pass error by Fraser Brown. In the end, it was defeated by North Carolina and lost the ncaa championship.

And two years later, in 1984, Ewing was already full-fledged at this time, and Georgetown University, which had undergone a blood change and reorganization, was strong and strong. In the invitational and regular games before the national game, Georgetown faced the Big East. -east) was chased and intercepted by the strong players in the league, only lost 3 games and won the championship of the Big East League.

Ewing was elected the Most Valuable Player of the Big East for his outstanding performance and his unshakable core position in the Georgetown team.

For them this year, the championship is the only goal. For them, the final-four or the finals are failures, let alone the Sweet Sixteen. For Georgetown, this is not sweet at all, it is really flat like water.

So in their eyes, Gonzaga University, which comes from the remote and cold northwest and also uses a bulldog as a mascot, is just a stepping stone on their way to the championship.

Of course, this does not mean that Georgetown University underestimates the enemy. No team can underestimate the enemy in the NCAA game, because the single-elimination system makes any failure unacceptable.

Before the game, the experienced coach Thompson made careful arrangements, and what he said the most was to tell Ewing and other players to lock down the opposite No. 11 center, the yellow-skinned and black-haired Chinese.

Ewing didn't care much about this. In his opinion, looking at the whole of the United States, except for the guy in Houston, there is no center in his eyes.

Although the No. 11 center had surprisingly good statistics in the previous games, he got it in the West Coast League and facing Princeton University. Ewing is sure that if he comes to the Big East, he will never average more than 15 points per game.

And in this game, Ewing is even more confident to limit the yellow boy's scoring to less than 10 points.

In the game before the NCAA national game, Georgetown University restricted the opponent's scoring average to less than 60 points. Limit to 32 points.They scored just 16 points themselves, following Gonzaga and El Paso, Texas, in an ugly defensive battle that prompted the introduction of the new rule in 36.

But unexpectedly, at the beginning of the game, Gan Guoyang gave Ewing and Georgetown a bad start. He first jumped up and won the ball in the scrimmage, and then avoided Ewing with a beautiful turn and layup in the one-on-one duel. Because of blocking with Georgetown power forward Bill Martin, he scored two points first.

And this No. 11 is obviously not a good person. He started to challenge Ewing at the beginning, which made Ewing a little annoyed.

However, Ewing is no longer the stunned young man who gave away five interference balls at the beginning of the game in 1982. At this time, he has become more calm and calm, knowing that the game has just begun and the ball has to be played step by step.

So when Georgetown started to attack, Ewing didn't mean to play an answer-ball, but came to the high position to cover for his teammates.

The tactics of both sides were relatively conservative in the opening game. Gonzaga used the safest man-to-man defense, and at the same time promoted Gan Guoyang to a relatively high position, so that he could pay attention to blocking the opponent's legend and breakthrough in front of the basket.

In this way, the burden on Gan Guoyang is very heavy, but there is no way to do it. The other four positions in Gonzaga University, except for point guard Stockton, the other three are all behind in terms of personal ability.

Especially in the position of small forward and shooting guard, David Wingate and Reggie Williams of Georgetown University not only have advantages in height, weight, and athletic ability, but also have better shooting skills and breakthrough levels. Winning, which puts a lot of pressure on Gonzaga's forwards Claremont and Matthews.

The only one who is not bad is Gonzaga's power forward Anderson. He still has a height advantage, but apart from the height advantage, he seems to have no other advantages.

Facing Gonzaga, who is at a disadvantage in every position, Georgetown University's offense played very patiently, and their cooperation was quite smooth, constantly relying on the high-quality screens provided by Ewing to pull Gonzaga's defense.

After passing a double screen and an air cut, Wingate, who broke through from the right to the inside, made a fake pass before Gan Guoyang pounced, and passed the ball to Martin, who inserted from the left.

Due to being repeatedly involved, Gonzaga's man-to-man man-marking had a loophole, and he began to be unable to keep up with the opponent's rotation speed, and there was also a lag in switching defenses, causing Martin to completely get rid of the defense and go straight to the basket.

Martin receives the ball, the defender has been freed by him, and he is about to jump up and complete the attack with a powerful two-handed dunk.

But when he jumped into the air, put the ball behind his head, and was about to make a beautiful dunk, a navy blue wall suddenly appeared in front of him.

It is Gan Guoyang.

When defending against Wingate, Gan Guoyang was paying attention to his side, staring at Wingate for a layup, and preparing to defend the basket at any time, anticipating that Wingate might score.

Sure enough, Wingate passed the ball to the left, Gan Guoyang reacted immediately, took a step from the right side of the basket to the right side, and took off one step after Martin.

But Martin was only 6 feet 7, and Gan Guoyang was 6 feet 10. Relying on the advantages of height and wingspan, they blocked Martin before he dunked.

"Boom!" Gan Guoyang pressed his hand firmly on Martin's ball.

The two forces collided in the air and concentrated on the basketball.

"Boom!" Martin didn't resist Gan Guoyang's huge force, the ball dropped from his hand, was slapped by Gan Guoyang, and hit the floor!

Matthews on the right saw that the ball was about to go out of bounds. He took a dive to catch the basketball before the ball hit the ground, and threw the ball behind his head. He fell heavily on the sidelines.

The ball returned to the court, but still did not belong. At this time, Anderson's height advantage played a role, and he easily got the ball in the battle with the opposing guard.

He immediately passed the ball to Stockton, and Stockton was already ready to go. After getting the ball, he bypassed the opponent's point guard Jackson's block and quickly advanced across the half.

At this time, Gan Guoyang collided with Martin, and both of them fell to the ground, while Gonzaga's small forward Claremont had already rushed through the half court and directly attacked Georgetown's basket.

Stockton has a wide vision and a steady pass. Seeing that Claremont had a good chance, he directly made a one-handed long pass. The ball crossed the court diagonally from the lower right corner of the half and came to Claremont's hands.

After taking the ball, Claremont dribbled a bit, and went straight to three steps and two steps, and made a big stride and went straight to the basket!

But Claremont, who thought he could score easily, felt a gust of wind from behind and a huge force from his back, and he was directly suppressed when he was still jumping.

"Boom!" Claremont's layup was slapped out of the baseline by a giant palm, and he also flew out of the baseline.

Lying on the ground, Claremont looked up, only to see a No. 33 giant standing under the basket wearing a gray t-shirt under his jersey—it was Patrick Ewing.

The referee did not blow the whistle. Although Ewing knocked Claremont down, the body contact was within an acceptable range, and his hands were clean. It was a risk not to hit Claremont's hand.

But the ball has returned to the hands of Gonzaga University.

The atmosphere at the scene had already been ignited. In just one minute of the opening, the center forwards on both sides contributed two wonderful blocks, and the fierce physical confrontation caused four players to fall to the ground, which instantly raised the confrontational nature of the game.

Gonzaga University served the baseline ball. At this time, Gan Guoyang had already got up from the ground and ran to the frontcourt, but Gonzaga seemed unable to serve the ball.

Georgetown's players were like jellybeans, sticking close to Gonzaga's players, especially Stockton, who was heavily marked by opponents.

"5, 4, 3,..." The referee counted down the seconds, and Anderson, who made the free throw, was sweating and didn't know who to pass the ball to.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Gan Guoyang rushed to the bottom line and stretched out his arms to wave to Anderson. Anderson immediately threw the ball to Gan Guoyang when he saw it.

But Gan Guoyang immediately surrounded two Georgetown players, trying to grab the serve.

Gan Guoyang took out the stance of grabbing rebounds, pushed away all the Georgetown players around him, saw the basketball in the air and jumped up immediately, and firmly controlled the ball in his hands.

Even throwing a throw-in is so difficult, this game is destined to be extremely difficult.

After stabilizing the possession of the ball, Gonzaga began to organize the offense, and their offensive mode at the beginning was very simple, letting Gan Guoyang play.

But asking Gan Guoyang to play does not mean letting other players stand and watch. Before the game, Behrman not only told Gan Guoyang to play hard, but also asked Anderson to pay attention to the 45-degree reception on both sides at all times, because he has a good mid-range shot.

For offensive rebounds, Gonzaga is not good at all, and this time he gave up directly, so the players have a lot of space, and use the peripheral cross-change cover to attract the defense and reduce the risk of Gan Guoyang being double-teamed inside. .

Gan Guoyang continued to occupy the low position. He came to the left side, but this time he did not expend too much energy and easily obtained the position.

This made Gan Guoyang feel that something was wrong. Sure enough, when Stockton passed the ball, before he could grasp the ball firmly, someone's hand came up from behind!

It's the opponent's defender David Wingate!He slipped over from the bottom line, trying to take Gan Guoyang's ball directly from behind.

Fortunately, Gan Guoyang reacted very quickly and raised his hand to escape Wingate's robbery.

Seeing that the sneak attack was unsuccessful, Wingate double-teamed Gan Guoyang with Ewing, trying to cause his mistake.

Gan Guoyang has always been afraid of double-teaming, and he has always had problems handling the ball, so he seemed to struggle after being double-teamed by these two people. Fortunately, Stockton immediately stepped forward to respond, and Gan Guoyang was able to pass the ball Passed back to Stockton.

Gan Guoyang failed to play singles. After receiving the ball, Stockton took advantage of Gan Guoyang's cover and cut directly from 45 degrees, attracting the attention of the opponent's inside line.

Rounding the baseline, left to right, Stockton didn't see an opportunity.

Compared with Gonzaga's man-to-man defense, Georgetown's man-to-man rotation is extremely fast, and it can always form a double-team in an appropriate place, but it will not form a large open space. Once Gonzaga's ball is transferred, Loopholes will be filled immediately.

Their defense is like a steel city. You can move freely in a non-threatening area, but want to enter a dangerous area?There are no doors.

Gonzaga University is not good at offense. Their offense mainly relies on Gan Guoyang's super scoring ability and Stockton's on-the-spot scheduling.

Now Gan Guoyang is being strictly guarded, while Stockton is alone, and their offensive has come to a standstill.

In the end, Stockton had no choice but to pull up a jumper directly under a cover from Anderson.

This kind of long-distance shooting is not well prepared and the opportunity is not good. It is really difficult for Stockton, who has not yet mastered shooting skills. "Boom", the ball hit the front of the basket, and the rebound was captured by Ewing. middle.

Gonzaga's second attack failed, but they retreated so fast that Georgetown couldn't play a fast attack at all.

Back to defense, unlike before, this time Ewing began to sink to the low position. Gan Guoyang can no longer stay in the high position to block the opponent's peripheral conduction, and must put all his energy on Ewing.

In a year of hard training, Gan Guoyang also honed his defensive skills, especially single defense skills.

He inherited the defensive characteristics of his enlightenment mentor Nate Thurmond, who is aggressive, domineering, and persistent to the end. At the same time, his advantage in strength makes him not afraid of any center forward.

Ewing also felt that the guy behind him was surprisingly powerful. He tried hard to get deeper, but he couldn't squeeze in no matter how hard he tried.

After getting the ball, Ewing adjusted slightly and looked around; while Gan Guoyang was also staring at Ewing closely, while paying attention to the movements of other players around him.

After Ewing dribbled the ball twice, he suddenly turned inside and wiped it towards the basket. Gan Guoyang was extremely focused, and immediately posted it, leaving no room for him to start.

But Ewing didn't force himself up, nor did he make any other offensive moves. Instead, he made a low-handed pass and passed the ball to Reggie Williams who came in from the middle!

Georgetown's screen and interior were really sharp, and Gonzaga's defensive rotation couldn't keep up at all, and he exposed a big hole in the middle.

Gan Guoyang naturally had no choice but to drop Ewing to defend Williams.

But this time, Williams did not make the same mistake as Martin. When he flew in the air and saw Gan Guoyang pounced on him, he used a beautiful behind-the-back pass to pass the basketball to Ewing, who was vacant.

Gan Guoyang had no choice.

"Bang!" Ewing dunked with a strong two-handed, equalizing the score for Georgetown!

"Two!" Ewing stretched out two fingers towards Gan Guoyang and said, indicating that he had scored two points.

"That's right, you can still score eight points." Gan Guoyang said, picking up the basketball on the ground.