The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 174 Watch and Study Well
Byron Scott eventually gave up on the match against Gan Guoyang, as a 5-point shot at the start completely stunned him.

He obediently took out $20 from his pocket and gave it to Gan Guoyang, honoring his bet. Magic Johnson and Michael Cooper watched from the sidelines, shaking their heads in disbelief.

But when Scott suggested, "Why don't you two have a match with him?" the two shook their heads repeatedly, deciding it was better not to embarrass themselves.

At noon, Gan Guoyang used the $20 to treat the three to a few drinks at the Forum Club. They chatted about everything under the sun, but didn't talk about the game that night.

After finishing their drinks, the four parted ways. When they met again at the Forum Stadium a few hours later, they were no longer chatting and laughing, but rather looking at each other as if the other owed them a million dollars.

On the evening of January 1st, at 7:30 PM, the third game of the regular season between the Trail Blazers and the Lakers tipped off at the Great Western Forum Arena. In the pre-game TV preview, Gan Guoyang had already become the Trail Blazers' star player, facing off against Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The TV station specifically mentioned a statistic: in the voting for the starting center in the Western Conference All-Star Game, Gan Guoyang was closely trailing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the performance of both teams in this game could very well determine who would be the starting center in the West.

During warm-up, Gan Guoyang could clearly feel that his teammates' morale was not high. The intense battle with the Rockets had taken a toll on their spirits, and their desire to win was not as strong.

Even Jack Ramsey, who is known for his fierce competitiveness and hatred of defeat, only gave a brief instruction before the game. His face showed little passion, but rather a calm demeanor.

Since Dr. Ogilvy diagnosed him with some mental issues, his mental state has become more and more normal and stable, and even his bald head makes him seem more and more amiable.

On the other side, Lakers head coach Pat Riley, still sporting a slicked-back hairstyle, attracted the most television attention with his hair meticulously combed.

When it comes to personal marketing, both Jordan and Gan Guoyang should look to Riley for guidance.

During his playing career, he was just an ordinary role player. He was the foul leader at Kentucky University. He won a championship with the Lakers under the guidance of a legend. After retiring, he couldn't find a job and ended up working as a handyman for the Lakers. He was looked down upon as a sideline commentator and wasn't qualified to be a coach.

Later, head coach Jack McGinnis (who had just been fired by the Kings) injured his head in a bicycle accident, and assistant coach Paul Westhead took over. When they were short of an assistant coach, they brought in Riley.

After winning the championship, Westhead was ousted due to a falling out with Magic Johnson. Riley then dismissed two head coaches in a row, becoming the Lakers' third head coach in the 80s.

He followed the old ways, picking up the Showtime run-and-gun offense that Jack McGinnis had tailored for Lakers' Johnson, and marched toward the championship.

The third in line to the throne unexpectedly ascended to the throne within two years, and from then on, Riley seized the opportunity and embarked on a path of reversal.

This goofy guy, who used to have a student-style haircut in Kentucky, started learning from his friend, Hollywood star Michael Douglas, wearing an Armani suit, slicking back his hair, and showing off his charm under the spotlight of the Forum arena.

No NBA coach is more eye-catching on the sidelines than Pat Riley. He is not a showtime babysitter, but a leader on the sidelines.

Of course, Riley is no mere figurehead; he's an ambitious man with a strong hand, adept at solving all sorts of problems.

Although the Lakers have exceptional talent, the more talented a team is, the more unimaginable the troubles it will encounter. Each player has a strong personality and their own ideas, and they have all been the protagonists of their own basketball stories in the past.

The head coach needs to get them to divide tasks and cooperate, play within the same system, make sacrifices and compromises, and persuade them to do the work they were unwilling to do in the past. This is not an easy task.

In the Los Angeles spotlight, players face endless media exposure, all sorts of troubles, rumors, negative news, and gossip.

For example, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar recently got into trouble again. Last time, he sued someone for colliding with a bicycle with his car, and recently his landlord sued him because he and his girlfriend illegally renovated the rented house, dug up the bathroom, parked their car on the lawn, and repainted the study.

Then Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's lawyer stepped in, portraying the landlord as a selfish, greedy conman to win the jury's sympathy, and they eventually reached an out-of-court settlement. But in the eyes of Los Angeles fans, Abdul-Jabbar's height had shrunk by three inches; he was neither elegant nor noble, but just an unreasonable kid.

Leaving aside Magic Johnson's messy past, people have begun to realize that this guy is having affairs with women almost every day, and not just once, but two or three times or even more.

Even James Worthy from North Carolina wasn't much better. Despite having a stable partner and a happy marriage, tabloids reported that he enjoyed going to strip clubs where strippers would sit on him and sway, and that he was addicted to playing with their silicone implants.

There are so many NBA players with messy private lives. What do you expect a group of energetic Black players to do when they're not playing? Read novels at home?

But in Los Angeles, all of this would be magnified and amplified to the point that it would affect the players' performance on the court, while Riley had the ability to shield all of this from the court.

He possesses a strong conviction and leadership style, and his religious leader-like rhetoric allows players to temporarily escape worldly troubles and dedicate themselves to basketball as if they were offering themselves to a deity.

To put it nicely, you could call it infectiousness; to put it bluntly, you could call it brainwashing. In short, he has that ability, and his brainwashing isn't just a day or two, or a few words; it's a long-term, continuous process that spans an entire season.

For example, he would hang up a stat comparison between Larry Bird and Johnson in the locker room to motivate Magic Johnson; he would cut out critical articles from the newspaper and stick them on the wall to remind the players that the enemy is everywhere; and he would write long speeches to read before important games to boost morale.

Before the game against the Trail Blazers, he enlarged and printed out a poster of Gan Guoyang's amazing dunk at the start of the first game at the Forum Arena and pasted it on the back of the locker room door.

He warned the players, "If you let Forrest dunk on so easily again tonight, we'll start training at seven tomorrow morning!"

The Lakers players' eyes showed pain; they knew how terrifying it was that Riley said there would be a 7 a.m. practice—the length and intensity of which felt like torture in hell. So, from the very first quarter, the Lakers went all out, using their high speed and aggressive offense and defense to repeatedly attack the Trail Blazers' defense.

Magic Johnson was on fire, James Worthy seemed to be flying through the air with his glasses on, and even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was actively involved in fast breaks—something rarely seen at the start of the season.

The Trail Blazers quickly fell behind at the start. Apart from Gan Guoyang, the rest of the team was out of sorts. Their defensive footwork was a beat slow, their offensive passing was sluggish, and their legs felt like they were filled with lead and could hardly move.

The Lakers led the Trail Blazers 24-31 in the first quarter and quickly took the lead. They then went on an 8-0 run to start the second quarter, running the Trail Blazers around like a dog on a bicycle, making them unable to keep up with the pace.

After Riley adjusted the starting lineup, Jamal Wilkes was marginalized, and apart from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Lakers as a whole became younger and faster.

On the bench, Cooper and McGee are both strong and fast players who can participate in the team's fast offense, allowing the Lakers to maintain a high pace and not give their opponents a chance to breathe.

The Trail Blazers didn't get a break in the second quarter. They tried to keep up with the Lakers' pace, but their outside shooting was consistently off, with both Vandeweghe and Paxson missing their shots.

In this situation, the Lakers confidently and boldly surrounded and swarmed Gan Guoyang. Riley launched a rotation attack on Gan Guoyang, with McAdoo, Larry Spriggs, Rambis and others taking turns to surround him.

Gan Guoyang struggled somewhat. With his teammates missing shots one after another, he tried to use offensive rebounds to create more scoring opportunities, but being surrounded by multiple defenders prevented him from getting the ball.

The referee didn't favor Gan Guoyang either, calling a foul on him during an offensive play in the eighth minute of the second quarter. This was his third foul in the first half, and Ramsey had to substitute him off the court.

At this point, the Trail Blazers were down 38-54, trailing the Lakers by 16 points, and the situation looked dire. The Trail Blazers were clearly out of sorts.

Lakers commentator Zick Hearn, who previously enjoyed mocking the Trail Blazers, gave a fairly fair assessment: "The Trail Blazers' shooting touch was terrible tonight. Every team experiences this three to five times a season. It's like the rim has a cover, and this bad shooting touch is contagious like a virus, only affecting players wearing the same color jerseys. Unfortunately, tonight this virus specifically infected the team wearing red jerseys."

When Gan Guoyang was forced off the court due to a foul, Jack Ramsey also got up from kneeling on one knee on the sidelines and returned to the bench.

Dr. Jack doesn't seem to have much hope for this game. Even though he's fiercely competitive, he still has to be selective about his performance in the regular season.

However, Ramsey noticed that Gan Guoyang's expression was very calm. He was not frustrated by the team's poor performance tonight, nor did he lose his temper because he fouled out three times.

Many people, especially young players, are prone to getting angry when their teammates don't play well or when they are targeted, and they may even take their anger out on their teammates, blaming them for their poor performance.

Some of the better ones perform very well, but their teammates are poor. They can still win over the team by offering more criticism and encouragement, which will motivate everyone to work harder.

On the other hand, some players don't play well themselves, or their stats look good but they are inactive on defense and don't make active runs. They just blame their teammates, which will only lead to disunity and alienation.

Gan Guoyang rarely criticizes his teammates during games. He might occasionally point out that your defense is incorrect, but more often he leads by example.

He sat on the bench, drinking water, calmly watching the field, observing everything that was happening, and pondering his problems in the first half.

He relied too much on the experience from the previous two games, trying to continue to overwhelm the Lakers with his energy and offensive rebounds, but the Lakers were well prepared tonight.

Larry Spriggs is a very strong power forward. He is exceptionally talented, with very strong lower body, making him an excellent defensive power forward.

His role on the court was to stop Gan Guoyang from getting offensive rebounds. He didn't try to grab rebounds himself; he left the rebounding job to Worthy and Johnson, who were both tall and skilled rebounders.

This close-marking style of matchup greatly limited Gan Guoyang's offensive strategy, and coupled with the Trail Blazers' poor outside shooting, the Trail Blazers naturally couldn't withstand the Lakers' onslaught.

At halftime, back in the locker room, the Trail Blazers players looked frustrated and exhausted. At this time last year, they were experiencing a four-game losing streak after Christmas.

During halftime, Jack Ramsey explained the key tactical points and then said to Gan Guoyang, "Gan, you tell us what to do in the second half."

Gan Guoyang thought for a moment and said, "Actually, our biggest problem tonight is that our shooting is terrible. Everyone's accuracy has been poor lately. This happens often. Kenny said that it happens a few times every season, like picking up a prostitute and finding an ugly woman. How about this, I'll teach you guys how to shoot in the second half, and you can just watch carefully."

Hearing Gan Guoyang's analogy, everyone laughed, and the originally heavy atmosphere in the locker room became much more relaxed.

Kenny Carl pinched his nose and muttered, "Why do you have to tell everyone everything... You just say it, but you have to drag me into it."

Gan Guoyang had to bring Kenny along, otherwise his reputation would be tarnished.

Gan Guoyang specifically reminded Drexler: "Especially you, Clyde, watch carefully and learn from this!"

(End of this chapter)