Chapter 979 - 22: A Kind of Ultimate

In May, Seattle, with its continuous drizzle.

For the players of the Trail Blazers, they are long accustomed to such weather.

The rain in Portland is no less than in Seattle.

The 1-1 draw with the Supersonics didn’t make the entire Trail Blazers team too nervous.

In the second game, they rediscovered the method to deal with the pack.

Slow down a bit, pass more meticulously, reduce unnecessary mistakes, enhance mid-to-long range accuracy.

As long as the Trail Blazers perform normally, the Supersonics have no chance of defeating the Trail Blazers, their core lineup is still too young.

The Supersonics’ center is particularly flawed, Benoit Benjamin has nothing but talent, but his laziness prevents him from protecting the team’s Three Second Zone during playoff-level confrontations.

Whether facing Sabonis or Gan Guoyang, he can only barely complete the basic tasks, hoping for exceptional performance to take down the Trail Blazers’ Twin Towers is out of the question.

In the backcourt, after being clamped by Payton in the first game, Porter responded in the second game with 28 points and 11 assists.

After all, Payton is a sophomore, although he has talent and zeal, he severely lacks experience, and in the second game, he was dizzy from dealing with the pick and roll of Porter and Guoyang.

Before the third game, Gan Guoyang, Porter, and Dell Curry were doing Circle-Knockout training in the gym.

Circle-Knockout is where three players form a circle, each with a ball, dribbling with one hand while trying to steal the ball from the others with the other hand.

While dribbling, each player faces the threat of steals from the other two, needing to protect their own ball while attempting to steal from the others.

Porter practiced this in college and was one of the best in the school, often successfully stealing and protecting his ball.

In 1984 at the Olympic Training Camp, he competed in this training with numerous All-America players without being outshined.

Porter recalled those days when Gan Guoyang, even as a center, participated in this kind of training and was very good at dribbling.

Though Guoyang wasn’t often the winner, he always persisted for a long time and had lots of fun with the guards.

Dell Curry was a bit inferior, but as a shooter, he didn’t require as much dribbling skill.

Unknowingly, seven or eight years have passed, and these young men from the Olympic Training Camp have all matured.

Porter’s dribbling is still excellent, and Curry’s dribbling is equally proficient.

However, the most surprising was Gan Guoyang; he could now beat both Curry and Porter.

This time he not only protected his own ball but also managed to steal both Curry’s and Porter’s balls.

With one person, three balls in his hands, he dribbled them alternately, juggling smoothly between his legs.

"How’s that, my dribbling skills aren’t bad, you two need to work harder!"

After saying this, Gan Guoyang tossed the balls back to Curry and Porter, then ran off to the other side of the court to practice shooting.

Porter asked Curry, "Since when can we no longer beat Ah Gan in Circle-Knockout?"

Curry said, "I remember at the beginning, we could still win against him, like in ’87? Then it got harder. Recently, we started losing."

Porter said, "He’s a center, why does he practice dribbling so well? To replace me as Point Guard?"

"Who says he can’t, Ah Gan is always improving. I think he sweeps better than the cleaning lady."

The two laughed heartily, there was always a joke within the Trail Blazers saying how diligent and eager Ah Gan was to learn and conquer.

One day, the boss Tang Jianguo came to watch training and praised Ah Gan’s skills and the cleanliness of the gym.

The next morning, everyone discovered Ah Gan with a mop in the gym, saying he had painfully and diligently trained to master the best floor cleaning skills.

And the mop was stolen from the restroom of the Black cleaning lady; she hadn’t started her shift at that point.

This, of course, was a joke. The joke spread partly due to Drexler.

After leaving Portland, Drexler told some anecdotes about the Trail Blazers and Gan Guoyang during interviews.

One story was about how they challenged each other to dunk over Mark-Eaton with a bucket of money, which was stolen from the cleaning lady; it was confiscated after the challenge.

Based on this story, Drexler crafted a series of anecdotes involving Ah Gan, merging the joke about sweeping with the story of stealing the cleaning lady’s bucket.

Gan Guoyang had no way to handle it; you can teach the Glider a lesson on the court, but you can’t control his mouth. This guy made quite a bit of news by drafting anecdotes about Gan Guoyang.

Despite the jokes, every teammate of the Trail Blazers acknowledges that Gan Guoyang is the hardest-working, smartest, and fastest learner they have ever seen in training.

He almost instantly learns any technique or method, and with a bit of refinement, he can use them in moderately intense games.

Sometimes he even learns and applies techniques on the spot, greatly impacting opponents’ morale.

The training atmosphere within the Trail Blazers is relaxed and pleasant, and the team is in good overall condition without injury troubles.

The third game against the Supersonics is set to begin at KeyArena.

Back on their home court, the Supersonics are still trying to struggle and put up a fight.

If they can take a bite out of the Trail Blazers like they did in the first game, the Supersonics will have the advantage in the series.

Before the game started, George Karl fantasized like this. In tonight’s pre-game speech, he completely abandoned arrogance; he didn’t want Gan to come knocking.

Meanwhile, standing in the center circle before the jump ball, Gan Guoyang emptied his mind of distractions, telling himself not to overthink, to play as he usually does, knowing the Supersonics were no match for the Trail Blazers.

Everything unfolded as expected, with Gan Guoyang diligently completing his defensive and rebounding tasks under the basket, securely protecting the three-second zone, denying the Trail Blazers the opportunity to attack the basket from wing and guard positions.

Porter and Reggie Lewis firmly controlled the pace of the game, managing turnovers well, not allowing the Supersonics to play fast or capitalize on emotional plays.

Porter’s strategy was to return the favor; from the first quarter, he began pressing Gary Payton with tight defense.

Porter, after all, was a veteran with strong defensive abilities, making it extremely difficult for Payton, who had to relinquish offensive command to Pierce.

Once veteran Pierce took over the ball to lead the offense, the Trail Blazers promptly double-teamed him on the outside—a tactic they had used against Jordan in the 1991 NBA Finals.

Gan Guoyang wouldn’t step out for help defense; instead, he guarded one three-second zone alone while Sabonis extended outside, pressuring the opponent’s perimeter players.

Whenever opponents tried to pierce the defense with passes and finish inside cuts, Gan Guoyang would use his blocks and reliable defensive rebounds to greatly suppress the opponent’s offensive efficiency.

By the end, the Supersonics found that they couldn’t play fast, couldn’t penetrate, and even found it tough to shoot threes, leaving them with one option: pull-up mid-range shots.

Mid-range shots can win games in critical moments, but throughout the game, if most of your offense ends with forced mid-range shots, the scoring efficiency would be miserably low.

Unless you have mid-range masters like Jordan, Gan Guoyang, or Karl Malone, whose accuracy and volume can uphold sufficiently high scoring efficiency.

An offense like the Supersonics’, which relies on fast breaks, second-chance rebounds, and inside drives to score, becomes like a headless chicken once the interior is locked down.

The pack defense, too, gradually crumbled before the Trail Blazers’ intricate half-court offense—their SOS system was mature, but their players weren’t.

Not to mention, they faced the Trail Blazers deeply ingrained with the Princeton System.

The score widened from the first quarter as the Trail Blazers completely dominated both ends of the court.

In the second quarter, the second unit of the Trail Blazers, led by Petrović, went on a scoring spree.

With an 11-0 run, the Trail Blazers told the Supersonics that even when playing fast, they couldn’t match up.

On the sidelines, George Karl could only rage helplessly, yelling at his players without offering a better solution.

His hand had been played out in the first game; he had a burst of glory then but no follow-up.

The only highlight of this game was Glen Rice, who hit consecutive threes in the third quarter, briefly giving the Supersonics hope of catching up.

But as the Trail Blazers tightened their defense on him, Rice failed to make further threes, and the Trail Blazers maintained their lead throughout the game.

With a 109-94, 15-point advantage, they easily secured victory in Seattle, putting the series firmly in the Trail Blazers’ grasp.

The fourth and fifth games were similarly without suspense, as the Trail Blazers adapted to the Supersonics’ style and knew how to handle this young pack of wolves.

Well-trained wolves quickly become docile and lose their resistance.

Gan Guoyang played steadily in the last three games, obviously not exerting too much effort, averaging 25.4 points in the series.

His standout statistic was rebounding, with an average of 19.4 rebounds over five games, setting his playoff rebounding record.

The simple reason for his rebounding frenzy was to keep himself focused and not overthink.

Meanwhile, the firepower of the other Trail Blazers players was sufficient; they didn’t need him to score much to secure victory.

In another venue, Michael Jordan faced a strong Miami Heat, exploding for 56 points in the third game, leading the team to victory and gaining the upper hand.

Though the Heat defended well, they couldn’t shake the powerful Chicago Bulls this season.

For the moment, Gan Guoyang was unconcerned with the Eastern Conference; he was more focused on another Western Conference series: Suns vs. Jazz.

In the first four games, the Jazz and Suns were tied 2-2, with the critical Game 5 taking place in Salt Lake City.

In this battle, Stockton scored a season-high 28 points and dished out 13 assists, helping the Jazz secure a crucial Game 5 victory at home.

After the win, Stockton was unusually excited, warmly embracing his teammates and clenching his fists toward the stands, responding to the fans’ applause.

His excitement stemmed not only from the victory but also because he was just one win away from a playoff showdown with Gan, only one game.

He had awaited this moment for a long time, and to him, it was more desirable than reaching the Finals, incredibly desirable.

[Many fear Gan and dread facing the Trail Blazers in the playoffs.

I don’t. I have always longed for a playoff encounter with Gan, as that was our agreement.

For me, defeating Gan is like conquering myself, an ultimate challenge.]

— 1997 Western Conference Finals, John Stockton’s NBC interview excerpt.