[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-golden-age-of-basketball":3,"chapter-the-golden-age-of-basketball-the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-1193":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","The Golden Age of Basketball",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1444741,1896,"Chapter 1193 - 26: MVP\u002F1993_3","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-1193",1193,"\u003Cp>Having a relationship with an underage girl and having a child, always throwing dirty elbows on the court, he’s quite the villain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Also, this year the Jazz were eliminated early by the Spurs, and Malone’s performance in the series was quite poor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From averaging 27 points per game in the regular season, he dropped to 24 in the playoffs, with his shooting percentage falling to 45%.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Jazz got knocked out in the first round again, marking the fifth first-round exit for the Jazz since the 1985-1986 season.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Malone and Stockton will just have to endure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In response to Gan Guoyang’s righteous words, Barkley expressed his gratitude before the game started.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Thank you, Sonny, you really understand me,\" Barkley said sincerely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Nonsense, of course I understand you, that’s why I eliminated you.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"This time it won’t be that easy, I promise.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Barkley seemed confident in his team’s state and strength.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang also put aside his underestimation and started taking this old friend seriously.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the Suns were pushed to Denver by the Denver Nuggets in the first round, Gan Guoyang thought the Suns wouldn’t be a threat this year.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after grinding through the semifinals, some things changed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Suns crossed the Spurs, with Barkley clinching the victory, bringing a king’s confidence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meanwhile, although the Trail Blazers relied on a brutal massacre to finally crush the Supersonics, creating a historical point difference.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But looking at the actual process, they struggled more than in the past and had to resort to more psychological warfare to suppress the inexperienced Supersonics.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Furthermore, during the game, health issues constantly threatened the team’s state.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Porter appeared in the starting lineup for the first game of the West Finals, but his calf muscle injury hadn’t healed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He, like Petrović, was fighting with an injury, which undoubtedly had a significant impact on his state.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Previously, in the playoffs, the Trail Blazers had an absolute edge in shutting down Kevin Johnson on the defensive end.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Johnson’s performance against the Trail Blazers in those two encounters was disastrous, as they devised extremely effective defensive strategies against him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Causing Kevin Johnson to be almost silent in both series, how could the Suns possibly be the Trail Blazers’ opponent?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now the situation is different, with the Trail Blazers’ perimeter defense declining, and Porter being Johnson’s direct defender, his leg injury surely impacts the defense significantly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once Kevin Johnson breaks through, creating a linkage with Barkley inside and out, it will become difficult to contain the Suns.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meanwhile, Barkley’s evolution requires Gan Guoyang to put more effort into defense against this good friend.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the regular season, the Suns and Trail Blazers played four matches, ending in a 2-2 tie, with Barkley showing significant improvement against Ah Gan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He’s increasingly adept at using both inside and outside play and passing to mobilize Ah Gan, creating opportunities for teammates, which is the most troublesome part.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before the game, Gan Guoyang chatted with Bobby Bellman, directly saying, \"Bobby, prepare for a seven-game series this time.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Bellman nodded, this year’s path has been more difficult than every previous year.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The past three years each time reaching the West Finals, it felt like the first two rounds didn’t really play out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even when reaching the West Finals, the series would end quickly, with the real challenge only beginning in the Finals.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This year, starting from the semifinals, every possible means has to be used.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The game started at 7:30 PM Pacific Time promptly, and the process was as challenging as Gan Guoyang had imagined.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Suns launched a fierce offense right from the first quarter, being the most aggressive team in the league this year.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unlike Fitz Simmons’s traditional tactical style, Paul Westphal’s tactical arrangements are filled with unconventional creativity, much like when he called a sudden timeout back in the day.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under Westphal’s coaching, the biggest change in the Suns’ offense was diversifying the distribution of ball control.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Barkley and Kevin Johnson remain the team’s tactical core, but that doesn’t mean they control all the plays.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Westphal first reduced Kevin Johnson’s offensive organization role, freeing him from the shackles of a traditional point guard to focus more on scoring.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hence, Johnson’s assists dropped from 10.7 last season to 8, the lowest since he joined the Suns, peaking at a 12.2 assist average.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, in Paul Westphal’s view, having the reins of a team’s offense controlled by a little 6-foot-something point guard is very dangerous.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Trail Blazers easily crushed the Suns before because once Johnson was suppressed, it had a massive impact on the Suns’ tactical system.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Westphal distributed the organization and ball-handling roles to Charles Barkley, Dan Marley, Danny Ainge, and Frank Johnson.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the Suns, seven players averaged over 2 assists per game, with no one hitting double figures in assists due to Paul Westphal’s multi-core transformation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He didn’t want to see the Suns get locked down at one point and lose most of their capacity, leading to an easy defeat by the opponent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This multi-core organization also makes the Suns’ offense highly flexible and unpredictable, making it hard for opponents to foresee their next move.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even the Suns players themselves sometimes don’t know what they’ll do next, depending on their own performance and the game’s situation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For this reason, in the increasingly tight defense of the 90s, the Suns averaged 113 points per game this season, a very high number.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This offensive style puts a lot of pressure on the aging Trail Blazers’ defense, and Gan Guoyang felt it in the first quarter while standing in the lane—everywhere seemed to have leaks.\u003C\u002Fp>",931,"2026-06-06T01:41:51.304Z",1,"novelbin.me","698539cffdaae9be3e5d0c2e1fda51b9c40540415f408ef9c7c8171f995bb726","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-1332","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-1192",2033,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-golden-age-of-basketball-cover.jpg"]