The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 217 Enlightenment
Gan Guoyang's words in the post-match interview sounded more like a helpless, lame joke after losing the game.

Trailing 1-2, the two losses were both heavy defeats, while the win was a hard-fought victory in overtime at home.

The Nuggets' roster and playing style were indeed a good counter to the Trail Blazers, and the Trail Blazers' morale plummeted for a time.

After the third game, Ramsey wandered the streets of Denver alone until 2 a.m. before returning to his hotel.

Rick Adelman had been waiting for Ramsey in the hotel lobby. Once he saw that Ramsey was unharmed, he said, "Jack, you're really worrying. You've been running around a lot lately, rarely losing games."

Jack Ramsey has indeed changed this habit a lot this season, but the main reason is that the Trail Blazers have lost fewer games this year.

There are very few games as frustrating as losing to the Nuggets.

Ramsey said, "Don't worry, Denver is much safer than Los Angeles and Chicago, it's just a bit cold at night."

In May, the nights in Denver were still cool, and the two sat in the hotel lobby discussing what to do in the fourth game.

Ramsey frowned, feeling pained as he found himself at a disadvantage in the contest.

In the past, he did look down on coaches like Doug Mo, believing that they went directly from professional players to coaches without any college training and were just messing around when guiding teams.

Doug Mo was a morally tainted man who was involved in the 1961 Jack Molinas gambling scandal, which tarnished his and North Carolina's reputation.

After he entered the NBA as a coach, he was constantly involved in various clownish news. He liked to walk his dog, play golf instead of training, train for only one hour every day, publicly call his wife "Big Jane", claim that his mental age is forever only 12 years old, and was ranked second in USA Today's list of worst-dressed coaches on the sidelines (the first place was Frank Layden, the fat coach of the Jazz), etc.

But in this series, Ramsey felt that he was outmatched by Doug Mo in every aspect, and his pre-match preparations were completely ineffective during the game.

Compared to Doug Moe, Ramsey's life experience was completely different, and his military career had a great influence on him.

During his training with the Navy's NCUD underwater demolition team, he was the platoon leader of UDT-30, and an important part of the training was shorthand.

When diving underwater, he would lead his team to record the coordinates of various obstacles on the seabed, such as cement blocks, barbed wire, and stone cages, on a small stone slab on their chests. They would thoroughly identify these obstacles to guide the landing troops and clear them away.

Because underwater communication is difficult, a thorough preparation plan must be made before each training session, including arranging the area each team member is responsible for, the time and place of assembly, and remedial measures in case of unexpected situations.

Therefore, Ramsey developed the habit of thorough preparation before matches. He would repeatedly watch match videos, review statistics, and mentally simulate possible scenarios during the match to formulate response plans.

And what about Doug Mo?

He is known as a coach for not doing any pre-match preparations and relying solely on on-the-spot command.

Furthermore, after video recording technology became widespread, he was the only coach in the entire league who basically never watched game recordings.

His reasoning was: "I think watching game recordings makes me feel discouraged."

Doug Mo's motto is to always look forward; don't dwell on the games that are over, there's always another game to come.

As for what will happen in the next match, we'll find out when it happens.

It is precisely with this "walking on watermelon rind, going wherever it takes you" attitude that Doug Mo has secured his position as head coach and is playing quite well.

After joining the Nuggets, Ramsey made the playoffs every year. When he saw that his record was similar to Doug Mo's, he thought that if Agan hadn't come to Portland this year, he might not have been as good as Doug Mo.

Doug Mordeka could say, "If I had Forrest Gump, my coaching record would be better than yours!"

This was a significant blow to Ramsey's mentality, so he needed to wander the streets of Denver at night to vent his anger. Of course, he was much calmer than before. In the past, when his temper was at its worst, he would remain silent after a loss, not speaking to anyone, which created an extremely oppressive atmosphere within the team.

Or he might speak angrily to the media, criticizing the players for their poor performance, which silences everyone.

Now he just goes out for a walk quietly and comes back to discuss countermeasures with the assistant coach.

Rick Adelman offered advice, saying, "Jack, let's change the starting lineup for Game 4 and use that lineup."

The lineup Adelman mentioned was one where Drexler would start and Paxson would play point guard; it was a highly aggressive lineup.

Ramsey shook his head and said, "Adjusting the starting lineup before a match is a sign of panic. We haven't reached the most critical moment yet. The players' confidence is very important, so don't make hasty changes to the starting lineup. This lineup can be used in the match if needed."

Ramsey dismissed Adelman's suggestion based on his experience, and Adelman added, "Then... we should bring in more Kossie and strengthen our defense. The Nuggets score too much and too easily."

Ramsey still shook his head. "Koch is too inexperienced. How can we expect him to turn things around?"

After being rejected one after another, Adelman thought to himself, "This won't work, that won't work, can't you come up with a solution?"

That's true. If you could figure it out, you wouldn't have been out wandering around aimlessly in the middle of the night with a score of 1:2.

Ramsey rubbed his head and thought for a moment, then said, "In the next game, we'll expand the rotation to let Cosimo play, but to give the starters more rest time, we need to go toe-to-toe with the Nuggets and we absolutely have to win that game."

"A counter-offensive? Can we do it?"

"Why not? Our regular season scoring was only slightly lower than the Nuggets'. My preparation was flawed. I kept trying to slow down the pace and take control, but that ultimately led to us being on the back foot repeatedly. Doug Mo is Dean Smith's protégé, and they understand the control of possessions and tempo best. I shouldn't have tried to compete with them; I should have played to their strengths. Actually, we are stronger."

When Adelman heard Ramsey praise Doug Mo, he thought to himself, "This is unprecedented! And you finally remembered that he's Dean Smith's protégé."

Dean Smith, whose basketball philosophy centers on "rhythm," has mentored many seemingly disparate coaches, such as Larry Brown, a close friend of Doug Mo.

But their differences are often superficial; in essence, they both follow Dean Smith's basketball philosophy, which is about overall control of the game.

By controlling macro aspects such as possessions and shot timing, the team can gain an advantage without the player even realizing it, and then win the game through attention to detail.

Ramsey now followed Doug Mo's line of thought and figured out how to deal with it. He couldn't help but recall a quote from Sun Tzu's Art of War: "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated."

This copy of "The Art of War" was originally highly recommended to Stu Inman by Bob Knight, but the good-for-nothing Inman said he couldn't understand it and left it to gather dust in his office.

Jack Ramsey wasn't particularly interested in the book either. He thought it was all very mystical and not as detailed or useful as what he had learned in the U.S. military.

But after Gan Guoyang arrived, he felt the charm of Chinese culture. Later, he borrowed the book from Inman's office and would flip through it from time to time. Some of the words in it were indeed quite inspiring, but they seemed too abstract.

At this moment, Ramsey suddenly realized something. He used to look down on Doug Mo, but he thought he knew him and the Nuggets very well, having watched a lot of Nuggets game footage.

Only then did he realize that he hadn't truly understood Doug Mo. In fact, the answer was obvious; Doug Mo's resume and tactical philosophy were laid out clearly.

Ramsey was blinded by arrogance, wanting only to solve the problem according to his own ideas, while ignoring true thinking and flexibility.

Having figured all this out, Ramsey suddenly stopped feeling upset. He got up and went back to his room to sleep, planning to get up early the next day for training and to plan the new match content.

However, to Ramsey's surprise, Gan Guoyang, who was never late for the morning training camp, did not show up the next day.

(End of this chapter)