The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 379 - 110: The New King_2
The Celtics’ strategy to surround Gan Guoyang gave their perimeter players plenty of opportunities to shoot.
Gan Guoyang fought time and again inside for shooting opportunities, giving his teammates the confidence to shoot and hit their marks.
KC-Jones called a timeout, and an uneasy atmosphere gradually enveloped the Boston Garden.
The competition on the court had become not just a contest of tactics and strength, but also a battle of mentality and fate.
At this moment, those with a strong heart and fortune emerged victorious.
The sun that is Gan Guoyang had risen steadily, illuminating every Trail Blazer, inspiring the potential within each of them.
Though the Celtics had a better lineup, with more experience, skill, and outstanding tactics, the tide was slowly turning against them.
Bird certainly didn’t want to give up. Returning to the game, he immediately hit a three-pointer from the outside, briefly reinvigorating the Garden Arena.
But then, Drexler immediately hit a three-pointer from the perimeter, using Gan Guoyang’s screen to get open, and he didn’t hesitate to take the shot!
When even Drexler could sink a three-pointer, was there any need to describe the Trail Blazers’ offense?
After scoring, Drexler was ecstatic, as it was his first three-pointer of the finals.
Before, he didn’t dare shoot, but tonight he did. He had the foundation, he had the confidence.
The Celtics were slightly panicked as Marques Johnson made a mistake in passing the ball to Parrish.
Bird reprimanded Marques Johnson, and the two had a disagreement, which Dennis came over to stop.
Bird rarely lost his composure like that, but he simply couldn’t tolerate this mistake, and Marques Johnson didn’t want it either, but his body wasn’t responding well.
The Trail Blazers counterattacked, and Gan Guoyang received the ball in the low post. The Celtics didn’t dare to double-team anymore because as soon as they did, Guoyang would pass the ball and the Trail Blazers’ perimeter would hit their shots.
Even if they didn’t make the shot, Gan Guoyang was fiercely grabbing offensive rebounds that night—Parrish and McHale were both struggling to compete and couldn’t get the upper hand.
With no one double-teaming, Gan Guoyang immediately went one-on-one with Parrish and scored with a hook shot after turning around!
The gap widened a bit more, and the noise level in the arena dropped slightly.
After scoring, Gan Guoyang waved toward the stands, where Gan Youwei was wearing earplugs, frowning and focusing on the game.
After the game, Gan Guoyang said his scoring was to make the arena less noisy, as his father, who was watching the game live, hated noise.
Gan Youwei was somewhat worried, concerned that his son might get into a fight. Those Black people, White people, they are just too barbaric; how can they hit others so casually? What if they hurt his son badly?
In the third quarter, the Trail Blazers turned the game around, 86:80, taking the lead over the Celtics by 6 points.
Tonight, the Trail Blazers didn’t drag out the tempo, they didn’t play a defensive battle with the Celtics, instead just engaging in a regular high-intensity offense and defense.
The reason they were leading was multi-faceted contributions; Jack Ramsay didn’t stick to his starting lineup. Substitutes Vandeweghe, Jim Paxson, and Jones all came off the bench, each contributing when they were on the court.
At that moment, Jack Ramsay felt a unity of intent with his entire team’s players; everyone who went on the court executed his tactical intentions, and everyone accomplished their tasks well.
After the fourth quarter began, Vandeweghe hit a three-pointer off a pass from Gan Guoyang, widening the gap to 9 points.
McHale scored in the low post, while Gan Guoyang played the pivot at the high post, slipping a pass under the basket for Paxson who completed the play with a layup.
Bird’s attempt at a layup didn’t succeed, getting blocked by Gan Guoyang, and during the counter, Vandeweghe charged in hard and scored with a left-handed dunk!
Vandeweghe, having rested for over a week, had explosive energy, thriving during this phase when the wind was at the Trail Blazers’ backs.
As the game got more intense and both teams started missing shots, Ramsay took the opportunity during a dead ball to substitute Vandeweghe, who had fulfilled his role.
Kossie came in to help Gan Guoyang tangle with the Celtics.
In contrast, KC-Jones was sticking with a six-man rotation tonight, and aside from the starters and Danny Ainge, there was no seventh man to take to the court.
This was Jones’s consistent substitution strategy, but also the Celtics bench truly had no one to utilize.
Parrish and McHale became increasingly fatigued under the assault of Gan Guoyang over six games; even the young beasts of the Houston Twin Towers couldn’t handle it, let alone them.
As for the Trail Blazers, they were full of energy, playing smoother and smoother. Their set offense began an endless ball movement, flowing like clouds and water.
It can be said that the entire Portland Trail Blazers Team entered the "pure white world", a world where no team’s defense could stop their offense.
Gan Guoyang became the team’s pivot, tirelessly distributing the ball from the high post, the low post, direct passes, bounce passes, sweeping cross-court transfers, and the high lobs after the pick-and-roll.
The normally strategy- and pass-challenged Guoyang, in that moment, was possessed by Bill Walton; he became the court’s commander, leading Portlanders in a systematic slaughter at the Boston Garden!
When Guoyang grabbed the defensive rebound and delivered a super long pass to the frontcourt, where Drexler caught it, completely unguarded, for a one-handed glider dunk, the scoreboard changed to 117:102, with the Trail Blazers extending their lead to 15 points!
The assist-making Gan Guoyang raised his arms high, starting to swing his arms wildly like a beater, Bill Walton’s classic move.
With the final 2 minutes left in the game, KC Jones called a timeout in desperation.
By the court, Bill Walton too raised his hands high, the two giants giving each other a forceful high-five.
In that moment, it was as if the two greatest centers in Trail Blazer history had completed a legacy handover.
Fans started to leave the Garden Arena; they couldn’t bear to watch the Celtics lose the championship at home for the second year in a row.
This was clearly their best year, yet they faced the best Portland Trail Blazers.
Bird hadn’t given up. After the timeout, he continued to shoot threes to keep the Celtics alive.
The Trail Blazers started to control the tempo, running down the shot clock to the last second.
Drexler, with confidence, hits the mid-range jumper from the outside!
Usually unreliable with his mid-shot, the Glider now became the god of mid-range!
The Celtics made the last futile struggle; their lineup and strength were unmistakably that of a championship team.
Unfortunately for them, they encountered the Trail Blazers, encountered Gan Guoyang.
When the score settled at 121:110, the game was over.
Not just the game, but the entire 1985-1986 season had ended.
The Garden Arena was left with few fans, as the disappointed Bostonians left with tears and regrets.
David Stern and the Larry O’Brien Trophy were at courtside, the spoils of war belonging to the Trail Blazers and Gan Guoyang.
The Trail Blazers’ players and coaches could no longer contain their emotions; they were all waiting for the final whistle of the game.
At the moment when everything was settled, they rushed onto the court, surrounding Gan Guoyang, lifting him up!
Tonight, Gan Guoyang scored 24 points, grabbed 22 rebounds, and set a career record with 15 assists.
Reporters and cameras all swarmed towards Guoyang; the new king was crowned, he was Oregon’s true Sun King.
Jack Ramsay, on the other hand, was very calm, arms crossed, tranquilly savoring everything. All these things, as if basking in the warm sea breeze of the Pacific Ocean, for this moment, for this second of feeling, he had waited a full nine years.
He had thought he would never experience this feeling again.
Bill Walton came over and hugged Jack Ramsay tightly, without speaking, just weeping—Ramsay finally couldn’t hold back.
Only those who had won a championship once and then won again could understand how arduous and torturous the journey in between was.
For this moment, for so many years, they had been through so much, experienced so many twists and turns, and paid so many prices.
Luckily, they were still favored by fate.
Ramsay wiped away his tears and said to Walton, "I’ve always believed in God, believed in everything God has arranged. At this moment, I really want to thank God. But I have to apologize to God, because I need to thank Ah Gan first, thank you, thank all the Trail Blazers’ players, it’s you, it’s you... "
As he spoke, Ramsay broke down again; Walton said, "We also have to thank the Bodhisattva, thank him for always blessing us! That ancient deity from India, Open Palms Guanyin!"
[As a devout Christian, Dr. Jack didn’t engage with Ah Gan for an entire summer after learning that Open Palms Guanyin was a fabrication and the blessings of the Bodhisattva were not at all the same as God bless America.
Of course, it didn’t matter, it was a happy and joyous summer.]
————Published in 2016, excerpt from Bill Walton’s autobiography "Back from the Dead".
(Volume 4 "Billie Jean" ends.)
