Chapter 974 - 20: Rain Man

By May, the riots in Los Angeles had gradually calmed down under the efficient suppression by the government, police, and National Guard, as well as actions like cutting off water and electricity.

Besides Los Angeles, small-scale riots also occurred in cities like Chicago, Phoenix, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco.

To stop the escalating riots, America even deployed the Marine Corps, and a large number of people were arrested. Statistics show that a total of 53 people died in the riots.

Although the riots were subdued, the contradictions and divisions among different ethnic groups in America, an immigrant country, were already showing signs in the early 1990s.

Portland was relatively calm among the major cities, with citizens focused on the Portland Trail Blazers and their quest for a second three-peat.

Fans held great expectations for the Trail Blazers. If they could achieve a second three-peat, the Trail Blazers would become the most dominant team in the NBA since the Boston Celtics of the 1960s.

From the start of the playoffs, or even the regular season of the 1991-1992 season, the second three-peat was the only thing Portland fans cared about.

This undoubtedly put enormous pressure on the entire Trail Blazers team.

They remained united and strong, but when faced with victory, there was more a sense of relief than excitement.

Mental fatigue was inevitable, and everyone felt numb to victories that weren’t for the championship.

A big win in the regular season, a comeback in the playoffs, and advancing smoothly couldn’t boost the team’s morale.

On May 6th, at the Portland Rose Garden Arena, in the Western Conference semifinals, it was the Trail Blazers against the Seattle SuperSonics.

Before the game, the atmosphere in the Trail Blazers’ locker room was a bit dull. Bobby Berman, usually passionate and full of swearing, seemed a bit down.

The reason was simple: he recently had a breakup. The female lawyer he had been dating couldn’t stand the long-distance relationship and chose to break up with Berman.

Berman agreed to the breakup readily, throwing himself back into his basketball coaching career, though his mood was somewhat affected.

Gan Guoyang, being quite well-informed, knew Berman had lost his love. Instead of comforting him, he sarcastically said, "Bobby, you betrayed basketball, and this is your deserved punishment."

"Shut up, Sonny, it’s normal to break up and make up; don’t make a fuss about it."

"Did you lose any property? Did you give any breakup fee?"

"That’s none of your business! Just play well; I bet the SuperSonics will target you tonight, be careful. George Karl is very dangerous."

Gan Guoyang shook his head and said, "The dangerous one isn’t George Karl, it’s Kloppenburg."

In recent years, the SuperSonics have been quite tumultuous, with changes in head coach, management, and core players.

But one person’s position remained rock solid, that was the SuperSonics’ assistant coach, Kloppenburg.

Having been the team’s assistant coach since the 1985-1986 season, Kloppenburg had held this position for seven years.

This was enough to show the trust of the SuperSonics’ management and players in his abilities.

In recent years, Kloppenburg had been continuously optimizing his SOS defensive system, and regardless of who was coaching, his defensive training was very important for the team.

In the 1988 playoffs, the Trail Blazers’ second-round opponent was also the Trail Blazers, and back then, Kloppenburg used his yet-to-be-perfected SOS defense against Gan Guoyang and Ah Gan.

Because it was not mature enough, Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers’ strong inside easily cracked it, and the SuperSonics were quickly defeated, with the SOS defense system not truly showing its power.

In the following years, Kloppenburg continuously improved this defensive system, embedding it deeply into the SuperSonics’ playing style, significantly influencing the management’s standards for player selection.

According to the SOS defensive system, players were required to have immense energy, great mobility, fierce defensive characteristics, and outstanding physical fitness.

Based on this standard, the SuperSonics recruited a batch of players with great physical traits and aggressive playing styles, such as Kemp, McMillan, Payton, Derek McKey, and Michael Cage.

No wonder KC Jones couldn’t coach this group well; Jones’s coaching style was too quiet and classical, an old-school college basketball style, unable to bring out the ferocious nature of the pack of wolves.

The eccentric George Karl, on the other hand, perfectly matched this SuperSonics team, as evidenced by his coaching record of 27 wins and 15 losses, leading the team to the fifth place in the Western Conference.

George injected vitality into the SuperSonics, while Kloppenburg’s years of defensive training laid the foundation for the SuperSonics to perform immediately and soar upwards.

Compared to 1988, Kloppenburg now had much better defensive resources, and he agreed with George Karl’s idea; they wanted to do something big.

At 7:30 PM, the match at Rose Garden Arena began, the semifinals between the Trail Blazers and the SuperSonics.

George Karl abandoned the humility he showed in pre-game interviews, and roared in the locker room, demanding that they must take down the Portland people tonight.

"I don’t want the Trail Blazers’ home playoff winning streak number to become 22 after tonight’s game! End them, win this game, and then take the series!"

Karl desperately motivated the players, although he knew in his heart that from the series’ perspective, thinking the SuperSonics could defeat the Trail Blazers was somewhat fantastical.

The current SuperSonics were still too young, lacking strong capabilities, but if they could play toe-to-toe with the Trail Blazers in the series, maybe even take a bite out of them, what about next season? And the season after that?