The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 172 I'm only second?

After Christmas, 1984 was quickly coming to an end.

Players don't get holidays; they just need a short rest before continuing their regular season journey.

In their final two games of the year, the Trail Blazers left Portland for Texas to play two away games.

On December 27, the San Antonio Convention Center, an arena resembling a Fujian Tulou (earthen building), will host the San Antonio Spurs in their second recent meeting.

Last time, Gan Guoyang angrily slammed Gilmore, which earned him boos from San Antonio fans when he entered the stadium.

Gan Guoyang played for two months and was booed for the first time in an away game, and the Trail Blazers even lost that game.

It wasn't that Gilmore was solely focused on revenge and had a major outburst; on the contrary, Train greeted Gan Guoyang in a friendly manner before the match began.

The gentle giant apologized to Gan Guoyang, saying that his anger in the previous match was inexplicable, and that the fall actually brought him to his senses.

Gan Guoyang is the kind of person who responds better to gentleness than force. If his opponent speaks to him politely and shows him genuine respect, Gan Guoyang will be too embarrassed to fight back fiercely.

Besides, Gilmore is a 35-year-old veteran. You ambushed him and made him dizzy and lose face, yet he still apologized to you.

This made Gan Guoyang feel quite embarrassed. He shook hands and hugged Gilmore in a very friendly manner, indicating that he would behave himself in the future. From then on, the two had a good relationship.

Many years later, when Gilmore was neglected by the NBA and his Hall of Fame induction was delayed, Gan Guoyang took the initiative to speak up for him and helped him get the train into the Hall of Fame.

Of course, while things were friendly off the court, they were really going all out on the court. Tonight, the Spurs, playing at home, had a breakout performance from the entire team, with six players scoring in double figures.

Although Gan Guoyang scored 25 points and grabbed 21 rebounds, he was guarded one-on-one by Gilmore from start to finish, and Gan Guoyang did not exhaust the Spurs' defensive resources.

With the Spurs putting on a strong performance at home, the Trail Blazers lost 131-142 in a high-scoring offensive battle.

Because of the boos from start to finish at the San Antonio home game, coupled with the crushing defeat, Gan Guoyang remembered the grudge against the Spurs.

Two days later, the Trail Blazers flew to Houston for a rematch of the Christmas Day game, and the Rockets were eager to get revenge at home.

After the team fight, the Rockets returned to Houston for a period of rest, and Fitch held a meeting to reorganize the team.

Hakeem Olajuwon and Sampson shook hands and made peace, and the whole team reunited. At the same time, Fitch also dismissed veteran John Lucas from the team.

The reason was that Fitch discovered Lucas was secretly using illegal drugs. Without reporting it to the league, Fitch, as the head coach, used his authority to suspend Lucas indefinitely until he could break free from his drug addiction.

John Lucas was the number one overall pick in the 1976 NBA draft by the Rockets. After playing for the Rockets for two years, he went to the Warriors. This season, he returned to the Rockets to mentor the younger players. He is respected by the younger players and is considered a senior figure in the team.

Given that many players and stars in the league use banned substances and still play normally (such as George Gervin, Michael Ray Richardson, and Walter Davis), Fitch's suspension seems somewhat inhumane.

But that's just Fitch's style. He's strict with every player under his command, putting the team and victory first, and never letting drug use harm young players. He gives young players a stern warning.

The regrouped Rockets team engaged in a real battle with the Trail Blazers at Summit Arena.

This intense match went into two overtime periods, with the two sides trading blows repeatedly from the very first round, and the score difference never exceeding 5 points.

Gan Guoyang didn't bother with any psychological tactics; he just went for it head-on, exchanging blocks with Olajuwon under the basket.

No dodging, no hook shots, just face the ball head-on. If you get blocked, grab it back and keep playing, or block it back on defense and go all out on offense for offensive rebounds.

In the final moments of overtime, Ralph Sampson hit a crucial shot, giving the Rockets a 114-115 lead over the Trail Blazers. With only five seconds left for the Trail Blazers, Ramsey orchestrated a play, and Vandeweghe received the ball on the perimeter and launched a direct shot.

The ball missed, but Ramsey had already instructed Gan Guoyang to aggressively grab the offensive rebound, and Gan Guoyang indeed snatched the rebound amidst a sea of ​​defenders.

In the jungle of Rockets' long arms, Gan Guoyang dribbled, turned and stepped back, dodging Olajuwon's defense, and launched a fadeaway jumper, hitting the buzzer-beating game-winner!

The ball went in and the lights came on. It was an indisputable game-winning goal. After scoring, Gan Guoyang jumped like a dancer from an African tribe, hugged his teammates, and rushed back to the locker room.

Hakeem Olajuwon and the more than 16,000 spectators were left standing there dumbfounded. Olajuwon thought to himself, "Damn it, who said my fadeaway jumper is spineless? You used it too, didn't you?"
这场大战，火箭双塔拉尔夫-桑普森31分11个篮板5次盖帽2次抢断，阿基姆-奥拉朱旺26分17个篮板6次盖帽3次抢断。

But nothing could stop Gan Guoyang's incredible performance in the paint: 47 points, 24 rebounds, 8 blocks, and 4 assists, culminating in a game-winning jump shot at the last moment.

Back in the locker room, Mitchell Thompson looked at Gan Guoyang, who was drenched in sweat, and shook his head, saying, "It's good to be young... but I wasn't as crazy as you when I was young. Aren't you tired?"

Gan Guoyang drank a lot of water and said, "I feel a little tired now, but as long as I'm on the court, I'm in good shape."

Ramsey came over, picked up Gan Guoyang's water bottle, smelled it, and said indifferently, "I thought you were drinking diesel fuel."

Gan Guoyang and Ramsey's current direct communication mainly consists of various lame jokes.

The Trail Blazers were in mediocre form throughout December, but Gan Guoyang found his rhythm and became increasingly hot.

He has played against more than half of the teams in the league. Even the Rockets, who had the most aggressive interior players, were nothing special. Although the physical contact in the 80s was intense, the players' physical qualities were generally average (from Gan Guoyang's perspective), especially their strength. They had thick arms, but their leg and core strength training was insufficient.

Simply put, the intensity was high, but the quality was lacking. It was like wielding large knives and hacking each other to death, resulting in a horrific scene, but the casualties were far less than those from machine gun fire.

Moses Malone once dominated the league with his iron-clad physique, but his power declined significantly after his physical attributes passed their peak at age 27.

Gan Guoyang doesn't need to worry about his physical decline yet. Even if he declines at 27, he still has 7 years to dominate the league and force other teams to upgrade their interior strength.

After winning this game, the Trail Blazers' record improved to 20 wins and 10 losses, second only to the Los Angeles Lakers' 22 wins and 10 losses, ranking second in the Western Conference.

After dropping to eighth in the Western Conference at the start of the season, the Lakers have made a comeback after a third of the season.

Pat Riley completely abandoned the five-scorer starting lineup from the beginning of the season, instead starting Larry Spriggs at power forward, with Michael Cooper and Byron Scott taking turns starting depending on the situation.

The aging Jamal Wilkes has been relegated to the bench, and the veteran who once contributed to the Lakers' championship is now entering the final countdown of his career.

With their offense and defense now back in balance, the Lakers gradually climbed back to the top of the Western Conference, and on the first day of 1985, they would once again face the challenge of the Portland Trail Blazers.

After playing two games in Texas, the Trail Blazers returned to Portland and thrashed the visiting Seattle SuperSonics 121-83, a crushing 38-point victory.

Lenny Wilkens' job as head coach of the SuperSonics is in jeopardy.

Then, on the last day of 1984, December 31, the entire team flew to Los Angeles to prepare for their third game against the Lakers.

At this time, Gan Guoyang was second only to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the All-Star Western Conference center starting lineup vote.

Gan Guoyang thought to himself, "I'm only second?"

(End of this chapter)