The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 334 - 70 An Opening

Cotton Fitzsimmons had to call a timeout just over three minutes into the game, feeling helpless.

He could clearly sense that the two teams were on entirely different levels of play.

The Trail Blazers were ablaze with a fiery red flame, ready to incinerate their opponents, whereas the Spurs still seemed like cowboys on the plains of Texas, lazily riding their horses, with a blade of grass in their mouths, unwilling to spur their mounts and disturb their grazing.

It was an unavoidable situation; the Spurs’ form in the latter half of the season had been terrible, with the whole team struggling to find their rhythm.

The regular season is like a long-distance race, running fast at the start but unable to sprint at the end won’t yield good results.

Starting off leisurely and then sprinting fiercely at the end can often lead to a decent finish.

The regular season this year was a process in which some of Fitzsimmons’s dreams, or perhaps illusions, had been shattered.

Last year when he first started coaching the Spurs, although Gervin and Gilmore were getting on in years apart from those two core players, the rest of the team was young and in their prime.

Fitzsimmons imagined he could integrate the team’s resources well, having "George Gervin score over Robert Parish with a finger-roll touch of the O’Brien Trophy."

It’s good to have dreams, but dreaming too hard is mere fantasy. Fitzsimmons and Gervin did not get along well, and Gilmore’s morale greatly declined after being thrown to the ground by Gan Guoyang.

In the summer of ’85, Gervin had a falling out with the Spurs, refusing to attend training and playing poorly in the preseason games.

The Spurs were no longer willing to keep this once-super scorer, their headline star, and traded him to Chicago for Greenwood.

Greenwood was a fine player, once propping up the roster of the Chicago Bulls with Reggie-Seth, and he paired well with Gilmore.

The Old Train was already 36, but this year he still had a quite steady performance; the Spurs did well in the first half of the season with a winning percentage of over sixty percent, reaching the upper echelons of the Western Conference.

In a game against the Knicks, in the final moments, Gilmore scored 7 points against Ewing with free throws and dunks, defeating Ewing and the Knicks, and demonstrating the prowess of this veteran center.

This year he was smoothly selected for the All-Star game, which was his first time since 1982, three years later, he joined Jabbar for a last burst of glory.

Joining Gilmore as an All-Star was Gan Guoyang’s fellow rookie, Alvin Robertson, whose average of 17 points and 3.7 steals made people believe he could be the next superstar guard.

Fitzsimmons began to dream again, thinking the Spurs had a shot at going further in the postseason, enough to silence the boos from San Antonio’s residents.

The Spurs fans believed that the discord between Fitzsimmons and Gervin led to Gervin’s trade, and when Gervin returned to San Antonio wearing a red jersey, the whole crowd stood up to applaud and cheer for him.

The city’s hero will always be the player; in the coach vs player conflict, the coach is often the one who gets hurt.

However, after the All-Star game, starting from mid-February, the Spurs’ record suddenly collapsed. After February 20th, they went through a seven-game losing streak, won a game, and then went straight into another six-game losing streak.

From late February through March and April, the Spurs’ record was a dismal 5 wins and 21 losses, a rate of defeat that directly dove for the first draft pick. Fortunately, they had accumulated enough of a buffer earlier, which was enough for them to wiggle through, ultimately still making the playoffs.

One significant reason for the Spurs’ collapse was that their point guard Johnny Moore contracted meningitis. Before falling ill, he had been contributing an average of 13 points and 9 assists per game, serving as the team’s offensive brain.

When he fell sick and was ruled out for the season, the Spurs’ strength suffered a great blow, causing the team to crumble further and eventually barely making it into the playoffs.

Now the entire team was in a state of near lifelessness, lacking any drive or morale to fight vehemently, which was evident right from the start.

Fitzsimmons’s timeout did little to help. The Trail Blazers’ defense was simple but targeted—on the perimeter, they just let Alvin Robertson shoot.

This guy was excellent at steals and had a solid drive, capable of changing direction without losing speed, and though a guard by position, he played more like a forward, similar to Drexler.

However, Drexler had been desperately practicing his shooting over the past two years, reaching a decent level, at least stabilizing his shooting form.

Robertson’s shooting form was a bit strange, as if he was pushing a shot put forward, which led to a low shooting percentage and he hardly ever pulled up for a jump shot.

Even with an open look on the perimeter, Robertson wouldn’t go for the shot but would dribble and drive to the basket, finishing the offense with a banked floater.

This style of play was particularly challenging for Gan Guoyang to handle. Parkson and Vandeweghe knew Robertson wouldn’t shoot, so they would either let him shoot or draw him into the lane.

This season, Gan Guoyang’s blocks and rebounds declined slightly, with rebounds being shared with Drexler and rim protection responsibilities shifting to Walton.

But Gan Guoyang’s ability to protect the rim hadn’t faded; in fact, it had improved. His anticipation was better, and he had stronger control over his fouling.

In the first quarter, Robertson kept falling into the Trail Blazers’ trap defense and into Gan Guoyang’s net in the three-second area, getting blocked three times.

Gan Guoyang contributed four blocks in the first quarter, leaving the Spurs completely overwhelmed.

On offense, Gilmore and Greenwood couldn’t contain Gan Guoyang at all.

Gan Guoyang’s offensive choices remained as flexible and varied as ever, and his passing had improved since last season.

Once double-teamed, he passed out quickly, and Vandeweghe and Parkson would shoot as soon as they received the ball.

By the end of the first quarter, the Trail Blazers led the Spurs by 15 points, with the score at 31:16.

Losing by 15 points in a single quarter left Fitzsimmons at a loss for strategies.

Greenwood was particularly unsettled by Gan Guoyang, who, instead of targeting Gilmore, focused on Greenwood.

A mismatch exploited three times, two successful field goals, and two free throws made Greenwood wonder if he should just concede the game to save energy for the next one.

But the first quarter had only just begun. In the second quarter, the Trail Blazers entered an even better state, with Drexler dominating the game.

He heavily controlled the ball to initiate fast breaks, using Magic-like clever passes and layups to shatter the already fragile Spurs defense in transition.

Faced with the Trail Blazers’ fierce offense, the Spurs’ offense and defense completely collapsed in just a quarter and a half, unprepared and powerless to respond.

The Trail Blazers kept scoring and launching fast breaks, and to everyone’s surprise, their offense seemed almost as unstoppable as it had been in the last game of the regular season.

However, the Spurs couldn’t match their performance from that last game because the Trail Blazers’ defense wouldn’t allow it, with Gan Guoyang, Walton, and Thompson securely guarding the paint.

Only Wes Matthews stood out for the Spurs, managing to score and assist, salvaging some pride for his team.

This unremarkable guard during the regular season became the only bright spot for the Spurs tonight.

He could score because the Trail Blazers were deliberately leaving the outside shot open — he had been traded to the Spurs by the Bulls in the deal involving Gervin.

He finished the game with 20 points and 7 assists, and many years later, his son, who shares his name, would enter the NBA and become a respectable guard.

During the second and third quarters, the Trail Blazers became frenzied, and the cheers of Memorial Coliseum never ceased as the team’s offense surged like a tidal wave.

The more the Spurs played, the more their confidence waned, while the Trail Blazers put on a fast-break display. Drexler, Vandeweghe, Parkson, and Jerome Kossie took turns bombarding the Spurs’ basket.

They scored 31 points in the first quarter, 35 in the second, 44 in the third, and the backups scored another 30 in the final quarter.

Overall, the Trail Blazers scored a staggering 140 points, with 110 coming from just the first three quarters in a complete rout.

From start to finish, the Spurs couldn’t solve their offensive problems; up against the Trail Blazers’ Turtle Shell Formation, they were completely out of options.

They lacked a sharpshooter to punish the Trail Blazers’ compact defense, nor did they have the means to pry open the tightly guarded paint.

The score difference of 90:140 may not fully represent the gap between the two teams’ abilities; a 50-point margin is horrifying.

Mainly, the Spurs’ offense and defense simply collapsed under their unprepared state.

Gan Guoyang showed no mercy during the game, delivering seven blocks, grabbing 17 rebounds to fuel the fast breaks, and he himself scored 31 points.

He didn’t shy away from dunks, layups, and put-backs in the fast break, the so-called "easy points," because there was no need to fight hard today.

This guy was quite vengeful, remembering last year’s fight with Gilmore, and how the crowd in San Antonio would boo him every time he played there.

He remembered being booed by the Spurs fans throughout a game right after the fight in Texas, where his team lost 131:142 to the Spurs.

To this day, Gan Guoyang hadn’t forgotten that — "Aren’t you the team that can score 140 points? Why don’t you try scoring that much again today?"

If they had scored 142 points again, they would’ve won; but this time, they could only manage 90 points.

Ordinarily not one to chase points, Gan Guoyang stubbornly took a hook shot towards the end, rounding off his 31 points before sitting out to rest.

His grudge against the Spurs grew deeper with time, unresolved for many, many years to come.

Tonight was just the beginning.