Chapter 668: Chapter 53: Heartwarming_2
Magic Johnson didn’t give up, going one-on-one against Ah Gan, his butt shifting back and forth, the ball exchanged in his hands no matter the direction change, spinning like a top, or using his arms to push or block, he just couldn’t shake off the stickiness of Ah Gan.
In the end, when Johnson passed the ball to Byron Scott, there wasn’t enough time, 24 seconds were almost up.
After Scott caught the ball and charged forward, just as he was about to leap and shoot, the buzzer sounded, signaling a 24-second violation.
Gan Guoyang had to laugh at that, saying, "Magic, are you playing ’one-on-one basketball’ without a pass button? Or am I just too tall, blocking your view?"
The "one-on-one basketball" Gan Guoyang referred to was an ancient basketball game on the Atari 2600 platform, even older than the "Ah Gan vs Bird" game he endorsed, which came out in 1977. Guoyang had played it on Guohui’s console, a game so rudimentary it was beyond belief.
This early basketball game featured only one-on-one duels and couldn’t simulate a real basketball game’s multi-player scenarios.
Johnson didn’t take the bait, knowing that this was Ah Gan’s psychological warfare, he had to calm down and figure out a way to score over Ah Gan’s head.
That would be the best response.
But Gan Guoyang was not going to allow Johnson any opportunity to hold the ball and attack the basket again.
The problem for Magic was that he was not a shooting guard. If Jordan encountered such a situation, he could use off-ball movement to find opportunities.
In an off-ball state, it would be very difficult for big men to keep up, lying in wait on one side, taking advantage of teammates’ screens, backdoor cuts, and constant motion, you could always find an opportunity to receive the ball and attack the basket.
But Johnson was the absolute focal point of ball control, and under Don Nelson’s careful crafting, he was irreplaceable in the Lakers system.
If Johnson passed the ball for Byron Scott or Cooper to organize the play, the system’s effectiveness would be greatly reduced.
Even if Johnson was off the ball, Gan Guoyang had no intention of letting Magic go, clinging to him tightly. Johnson’s off-ball movement was quite ordinary.
Even if there were gaps in the defense, and Johnson managed to create great scoring opportunities for his teammates through his passes, Gan Guoyang kept marking Johnson, not allowing him to score with the ball.
The Lakers’ offense began to fall apart.
Johnson’s mentality also started to get chaotic.
For a moment, Johnson really missed Jabbar.
At that moment, Jabbar was sitting in the spectators’ seats behind the bench watching the game.
If Jabbar were present, Guoyang wouldn’t dare to leave the inside to guard the perimeter so aggressively.
Johnson would have continuously fed Jabbar, who would have punished Gan Guoyang’s defensive choice with his sky hook.
But now? The Lakers’ inside players were Duckworth and Edwards; they had attacking capabilities but could not deliver a fatal blow to the Trail Blazers.
The Trail Blazers had the Eastern European giants, Sabonis and Divac, entrenched in the three-second zone, even just standing there without moving, they were a huge defensive barrier.
Not to mention that Sabonis’s defensive ability was so strong, Guoyang started to feel confident letting him take charge of the three-second zone.
At one point, the gap between the two teams widened to 11 points. When Don Nelson called a timeout, Johnson hadn’t scored a single point in five whole minutes on the court, nor had he made a proper shot attempt.
When leaving the court, Johnson sought out the referee, arguing that some of Ah Gan’s defensive actions were fouls.
Tonight’s head referee was Ah Gan’s good buddy Strom, who gave Johnson a cold look and said, "Trust my judgment; I’ll definitely call it if there’s a foul."
Johnson was helpless and complained, "In your eyes, as long as Ah Gan doesn’t hit anyone, it’s not a foul!"
The referee’s whistle can indeed have a significant impact on both the offensive and defensive sides.
Once the referee’s whistle blows frequently, it definitely favors the offense.
Especially this kind of man-to-man tangle defense; two whistles by the referee, and the defenders won’t dare to make a move.
But in this era, referees were generally more lenient with their whistles; the league wanted intense confrontations to attract more fans.
After the timeout, Guoyang no longer personally defended Johnson one-on-one, given the team’s lead.
To protect Ah Gan and conserve energy, Beelman asked Guoyang not to mark Magic so intensely, just help with double-teaming occasionally.
Guoyang said, "Double-teaming Magic is just handing him assists. If I’m going to guard him, I’ll do it face-to-face to shut him down; otherwise, I don’t bother with him. Let him play one-on-one; he’s not going to kill anyone."
After the timeout, Johnson was let off the leash and immediately hit a mid-range jumper from the top of the arc for two points.
Then, in a fast break, he assisted Quentin-Daly in a baseline jump shot, chasing four points.
Guoyang’s strong attack in the post didn’t connect, and on the Lakers’ fast break, Worthy caught the ball in the low post, spun and passed it out to Cooper who missed a three-point attempt.
But Worthy grabbed the offensive rebound and made the putback, chasing six points in a row.
The Trail Blazers needed to score; Porter tried to charge into the basket leveraging a screen and his left-handed floater missed.
Guoyang grabbed the offensive rebound, went up again, and, faced with Edwards, put the ball into the basket.
Guoyang’s aggressive rebounding and scoring ability were a nightmare for any team.
At critical moments when he set his mind to score in a possession, it was too hard to stop him.
Johnson, unrestrained, desperately accelerated the pace, even James Worthy was taking three-point shots in fast breaks.
In the past, Worthy was a forward who seldom shot mid-range, his majority of attempts being near the three-second zone.
