[{"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-948":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},1444365,1896,"Chapter 948 - 10 Hope_2","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-948",948,"\u003Cp>From the movie plot perspective, losing once is normal, but losing again in 1992 is somewhat unjustifiable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang’s pressure is similarly immense. People have become accustomed to his championships and victories, and the whole country is anticipating his second three-peat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But achieving a three-peat is no easy task. The painful season in 1988 is still vividly remembered by Gan Guoyang; the team seemed to have rotted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By 1992, the situation with the Trail Blazers had changed significantly compared to 1988.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Firstly, the 1992 Portland Trail Blazers were already a massive monster, a gigantic conglomerate blending capital, sports, and commerce.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tang Jianguo leveraged this high-quality platform to start from scratch in Portland, organizing and establishing his own business empire, tightly linking New York, Portland, and both coasts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The team had more than three hundred employees from top to bottom, and other than a few top executives, Gan Guoyang didn’t know most of their faces at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They were no longer the family from the 70s and 80s, the warmth of family and team had become rare, only some traces remained in the locker room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These traces were preserved by Gan Guoyang and his former teammates, like sparks uniting the team, but when they left the Memorial Coliseum, the warmth of the sparks cooled down a bit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The brand-new arena and locker room were certainly exciting, but the memories and feelings of the old arena were nostalgic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the first NBA regular season game held at the Rose Garden, the Portland Trail Blazers hosted the visiting Miami Heat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Taking advantage of the All-Star break, Drexler had rested for a week in Portland, and tonight he was full of energy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This season, under Drexler’s leadership, the Heat had surged into the upper half of the Eastern Conference.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Their starting lineup consisting of Drexler, Starks, McDaniel, Mason, and Secali was already quite formidable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the bench, they had Grant Long, Steve Smith, and Pat Riley found a way to trade Brian Shaw from the Boston Celtics at the cost of Sherman Douglas.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Celtics tried every way to sign Shaw but ultimately couldn’t keep him for long in Boston due to irreconcilable conflicts, deciding to rebuild around Hornacek and Divac without Bird; Shaw was among those cleared out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Riley, like a hyena, seized the opportunity by sending Douglas, who had been performing well but conflicted in function with Starks, to the Celtics and obtained Shaw, who was comprehensive and suitable for the sixth man role.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Heat’s lineup and rotation became more reasonable, and after completing the trade, they were welcomed by a wave of victories.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, Drexler’s performance was crucial; this season he had already grown into the league’s second-best shooting guard, only behind Michael Jordan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And in certain aspects, Miami’s media believed Drexler to be stronger than Jordan, such as fast breaks, offensive rebounds, and... the ring on his finger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Returning to Portland this time, in the brand-new Rose Garden Arena, Drexler led the team in delivering an impressive performance, and their defense was particularly remarkable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Pat Riley, after two to three seasons of experiment and dormancy, began this season to comprehensively strengthen the Heat’s defense, determined to turn the Heat into a super defensive powerhouse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In 1988, upon acquiring Drexler, Riley’s goal was to make Drexler the second Magic Johnson and have the Heat play East Coast showtime.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Riley soon discovered the problems:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Firstly, Drexler was excellent and a guard with strong passing abilities, but he wasn’t Magic; he was Glider.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Secondly, the Heat might never assemble a lineup like the 1980s Lakers, unrelated to the city or the management, but due to the rules of the era.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thirdly, still the issue of era rules, the era of fast-paced, dominating offenses had ended in the 1990s; ironclad defense was the shortcut to success.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Riley wasn’t a coach heavily obsessed with tactics like his predecessor with the Lakers, Westhead, or Doug Moe, spending a lifetime on offense, offense, and more offense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or his mentor, the brown-robed coach Adolph Rupp, eternally insisting on one-on-one man defense, taking man-to-man to the extreme with a steadfast refusal to zone defend.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As well as those contrarians, always opposing the trend, obsessed with ideal basketball in their minds, conducting various tactical lineup experiments, like Don Nelson.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Riley was only obsessed with victory; in the current league, any tactical system that is advantageous and matches his constructed lineup is a good tactic and system.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So after years as a so-called fast-break coach, this season Riley made a magnificent transition into a thoroughly defensive coach, finding new hope from the rise of the Chicago Bulls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the summer training camp, Riley required the players to attack and confront each other.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>McDaniel and Mason nearly fought during training; both were strong and fiery personalities.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After several seasons of training, Drexler became more mature and tough—his hair was thinning into an obvious partial baldness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Despite being an undrafted player, Riley discerned talent in Starks, thoroughly excavating his aggressiveness, while Starks himself showed great promise.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sometimes, his ferocity on the offensive end often compensated for some of Drexler’s scoring deficiencies.\u003C\u002Fp>",851,"2026-06-06T01:41:39.741Z",1,"novelbin.me","aee72699f34eafa2ae631ca82ba80683ded76f84199fff4353e0455f92e330c5","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-949","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-947",2033,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-golden-age-of-basketball-cover.jpg"]