The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 168 Ghost Fighting Technique

"Tonight, Forrest Gump is filled with the desire to win, but he will be facing two giants who are much taller than him. I wonder if he can still perform well?"

Before the game began, Trail Blazers' Bill Shawnley expressed his concerns.

Gan Guoyang hasn't played enough matches at the Memorial Stadium, nor has he torn the city apart enough, prompting this veteran commentator to express such concern.

Just ten seconds into the game, Gan Guoyang made Bill Shawnley abandon this ridiculous idea.

In the first attack of the game, Gan Guoyang, who won the ball, quickly fell into the low post and received the ball. In a split second, he turned and got past Olajuwon, who was not ready.

As Gan Guoyang walked along the baseline and faced Sampson coming over to help defend, he suddenly sprang up, using his strength to overpower Sampson and dunked the ball over the towering tower into the basket!

Sampson experienced Gan Guoyang's powerful explosiveness and unparalleled strength for the first time.

Blocking shots relies not only on height and wingspan, but also on aerial combat.

If the opponent doesn't put up enough resistance, it's easy for them to overwhelm you and become unable to exert their full strength to stop you.

The end result is that you become a stepping stone, a background character, and get humiliated by your opponent.

Gan Guoyang's first shot stunned the Twin Towers, instantly igniting the atmosphere in the Memorial Stadium, enough to melt away the heavy snow outside.

The entire team felt Gan Guoyang's strong desire to win.

Gan Guoyang's teammates on the bench all stood up and applauded, but Drexler remained seated on the sidelines without making a sound.

It wasn't because the two had a bad relationship, but because Drexler was thinking that Olajuwon must have been furious about that shot.

"What is he doing? Forrest Gump just turned around and passed him so easily."

Before the game, Drexler had been trying to contact Hakeem Olajuwon, and the two had kept in touch since entering the NBA.

But they haven't met in a game yet. Today's Christmas Day game is the first time. I didn't expect that Hakeem Olajuwon wouldn't answer the phone or reply to the pager.

Drexler understood that Hakeem Olajuwon definitely wanted to win; Houston's consecutive losses in the NCAA Final Four remained a regret for both of them.

As for the team, Drexler certainly wants the Trail Blazers to win, but in individual matchups, he hopes Olajuwon won't lose too badly to Forrest Gump.

“I know you’re great, Akim, but you have no idea how terrible Forrest Gump is.”

Hakeem Olajuwon was already freakish enough, both in terms of physical talent and basketball skills, and he had an exceptional learning ability and improved extremely quickly.

How good are his physical abilities? When Hakeem Olajuwon first joined the Rockets, he made a bet with his teammates that he could kick the basketball off the backboard from midcourt.

His teammates didn't believe him, so he kicked the ball, but he didn't kick it directly in front of the backboard. Instead, he turned his back to the backboard, tossed the ball up, and executed a bicycle kick, which hit the backboard squarely.

Despite his superhuman physical abilities, Drexler believed that he would still have a hard time competing with Forrest Gump, because Forrest Gump possessed not only physical prowess but also a multitude of weapons.

Olajuwon's first defensive failure wasn't due to a lack of concentration, but rather because he was too focused and too eager to engage in physical contact with Gan Guoyang.

Unexpectedly, Gan Guoyang pulled off a clever maneuver, turning around cleanly and leaving Olajuwon clenching his fists in anger.

On offense, he immediately went for the basket, aiming for a low post finish, but he soon discovered that the Trail Blazers weren't assigning Gan Guoyang to guard him; instead, they had Mitchell Thompson defend him.

Hakeem Olajuwon shoved Thompson under the basket, brushing Thompson's hand away, and muttered, "Who's guarding me?"

Thompson snorted, "You don't need Forrest Gump to deal with you."

The game changes quickly, leaving little room for the two players to talk. The Trail Blazers' one-on-one defense was very tight at the start.

Gan Guoyang then fronted Sampson, and Lucas found McGrady on the perimeter, but McGrady's jump shot missed.

Sampson turned to grab the rebound, but he didn't expect that Gan Guoyang, who had just been in front of him, was now blocking his way.

They secured the rebound and then made a long pass to Vandeweghe, who had rushed to the frontcourt – a classic Trail Blazers fast break.

When Vandeweghe has the ball at the basket, he is Portland's most reliable scorer and always has a way of getting the ball in the hoop.

He drove along the baseline and made a reverse layup with his left hand, evading the Rockets' defense. The Trail Blazers took a 4-0 lead, and Gan Guoyang executed a brilliant play on both ends of the court. Olajuwon made a mistake on this play; despite being out of position and the ball not bouncing towards him, he still rushed to grab the offensive rebound.

As a result, he not only failed to get the ball but also lost the opportunity to get back on defense. Tonight, his mentality at the start of the game was not as good as it was in the NCAA Finals six months ago.

Gan Guoyang's disregard for him only added fuel to the fire, but what truly made Olajuwon feel unbalanced was that he discovered that Forrest Gump seemed stronger than he had been six months ago, and much stronger.

On defense, Hakeem Olajuwon once again held off Forrest Gump in the low post. After receiving the ball, Gan Guoyang took a scissor kick, turned around, and drove hard to the basket, easily scoring two points with a one-handed dunk.

Hakeem Olajuwon realized he couldn't handle Gan Guoyang.

Sampson on the other side tried to come over to help defend and block, but Gan Guoyang's resolute dunk left him no chance to get a shot off; any attempt would be a foul.

This move was familiar to Hakeem Olajuwon and was a common tactic used by Moses Malone in the low post. He used his strong chassis to position himself and penetrate deep into the paint to attack the rim directly, compensating for his lack of height and wingspan.

Hakeem Olajuwon learned this move in college and used it frequently in the NBA. When he entered the league, he told reporters that the players he most often imitated were Moses Malone and Daryl Dawkins.

As it turns out, Forrest Gump used this move even better than he did... wait, when watching the video, it seems he rarely used this move in previous games; he usually preferred hook shots and turnaround jumpers during regular time.

As for shattering the backboard, Gan Guoyang has already done it. Hakeem Olajuwon secretly tried it in the training gym, and apart from making his hand hurt like it had been whipped, the tempered glass didn't react at all.

Gan Guoyang continued to relentlessly front Ralph Sampson's defense, probing the Rockets' ability to lob the ball high from the outside.

One of the reasons Bill Fitch paired so many tall forwards and guards on the perimeter was to better pass the ball to the twin towers.

The experienced Lucas lobbed the ball inside, Sampson turned and received it, only to find Gan Guoyang blocking his way again...

Weren't you supposed to be fronting me? Why are you standing behind me defending now?
Gan Guoyang doesn't have a clone ability. When he goes around to defend, he uses a three-quarters frontal approach to give himself space to retreat and back down to defend.

He knew that going all-in on front of him was too risky. Once Sampson, with his height, turned around and received a high lob pass under the basket, no one could stop him; it would just be giving away points.

Sampson was already in front of the three-second zone, with a chance to hook the ball directly, but Gan Guoyang kept pushing Sampson outwards and giving him physical contact.

Gan Guoyang can't jump. What's the point of jumping? Is he just going to hold out his hand as a sight for others? If it goes in, it goes in; if it doesn't, I'll turn around and grab the rebound immediately.

Under intense pressure, Sampson's hook shot missed, and Olajuwon went for the offensive rebound. This is a common scene in games between the Rockets and other teams—Sampson misses, Olajuwon drives to the basket, grabs the ball, and dunks or puts it back in.

In his rookie season, Hakeem Olajuwon averaged 5.4 offensive rebounds per game, a career high. The Rockets had the second-highest number of offensive rebounds in the league, second only to the Detroit Pistons.

But Gan Guoyang jumped first and grabbed the rebound with his right hand, leaving Olajuwon missing again.

The league's top rebounder won't let opponents easily grab offensive rebounds.

Gan Guoyang, who had firmly controlled the rebound, passed the ball to Valentine and then followed Valentine across half-court.

After working together for half a season, Valentine already knew what Gan Guoyang wanted to do: position himself at the top of the key.

Valentine passed the ball to Gan Guoyang, who received it at the top of the arc and launched a long two-pointer. The ball accurately passed through the center of the basket and went in.

This is the result of Gan Guoyang's hour and a half of shooting warm-up at the start of the game; his shooting touch is always better at home than away.

Before Olajuwon and Sampson could even react, the ball went in, giving the Rockets an 8-0 start and forcing them to call a timeout.

Bill Fitch stood on the sidelines with his arms crossed, shaking his head slightly. What the hell is the playing style of this number 11 Chinese center?
Dr. Jack, why are you no longer playing by the rules?
Ramsey, who had been kneeling on one knee on the sidelines, stood up, thinking to himself that it was that weird style of play and that weird rhythm again, but it was quite effective.

Ramsey was unaware that Gan Guoyang was trying to appease him by shooting long two-pointers instead of three-pointers.

Otherwise, he would have lost even more hair on his head.

Every night, Forrest Gump battled against players taller than himself in the paint. This was almost a constant throughout his career as a center; he always faced taller opponents. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Gilmore, Laimbeer, Olajuwon, Sampson, Ewing, David Robinson. Yet, he always managed to make his opponents suffer, utilizing his speed, his skill, his strength, and, most importantly, his intelligence and willpower.

I believe this is why he was taller than the giants of his time.

Of course, as a giant who dominated the paint, Forrest Gump didn't seem to suffer from all the psychological problems common to taller players, what we often call "seven-foot man syndrome." Perhaps it's because he was exactly under seven feet tall and never claimed to be seven feet, just like Bill Russell, who at 6'9" dominated the era of seven-foot centers.

—Excerpt from "The Bill Schonely Story," a biography of Bill Schonely written by Kerry Eggers and published in 1999.

(End of this chapter)