Chapter 835: Chapter 35 Deserving the Salary_3
Only as his opponent on the court can one feel, how painful it is to never get offensive rebounds and second-chance points.
Overall, in the second quarter, the Bulls caught up with the score by utilizing a window of opportunity and Grant’s advantage.
Afterwards, both teams started a tug-of-war, with Jordan going all out in the second quarter. Despite Grant being shut down by Ah Gan and without second-chance opportunities, Jordan maintained the score with an extremely high one-on-one success rate, helping the Bulls to a one-point lead over the Trail Blazers at halftime.
Jordan scored 15 points in the second quarter, like Ah Gan, both garnering 22 points by halftime, ending the first half of the struggle.
Clearly, the real battle would be waged in the second half.
In the first half, one Bulls player underperformed, and that was Pippen.
Aside from scoring the team’s first point with a mid-range shot at the start, Pippen’s performance was less than satisfactory afterwards.
His outside shooting was average, and his drives to the basket repeatedly failed — especially his layup off of Jordan’s pass was blocked by Ah Gan, which dealt a significant blow to him.
Jerome Kossie focused on a self-sacrificing defense on Pippen for the entire first half, similar to Reggie Lewis, which was also part of Bobby Berman’s strategy.
Tonight, Beelman decided to place the offensive burden on the centers and guards, while forwards like Lewis, Kossie, and Mike-Sanders engaged in relentless entangling defense to limit Jordan and Pippen.
For now, it seems that Jordan is hard to restrain, with Lewis giving it his all, but when facing Ah Gan, Jordan is bound to perform above his level, and one-on-one, Lewis is helpless against him.
But their defense against Pippen is well-executed, causing the Bulls’ offense to be handicapped. With Pippen unable to break through, the Bulls have to rely even more on Jordan.
In terms of offensive resources, the Trail Blazers hold a slight edge over the Bulls, and Beelman is precisely targeting this to wear down Pippen’s condition.
As expected, in the third quarter, Pippen still looked sluggish. Facing double teams from Kossie and Ah Gan, Pippen’s ball handling was unsatisfactory.
Turnovers, ineffective defensive passing, and forced shots resulted in a chaotic Bulls offense in the third quarter, allowing the Trail Blazers to widen the gap suddenly.
Phil Jackson immediately called a timeout to adjust. He knew that Beelman had pinpointed the key issue with the Bulls—they rely heavily on Pippen’s facilitation and organization in their offense.
It is better to clamp down on their second core than to deploy too much force on Jordan and let others open up.
Jackson realized the stark difference between Jordan and Ah Gan: there’s no solo fighting for Ah Gan, as he already proved that he can single-handedly overpower the opposition.
Fortunately, Ah Gan is an inside player; he needs the support of outside players and the delivery of ammunition, so he still has certain weaknesses that can be exploited to suppress his teammates’ support.
Jackson couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be if Ah Gan were a purely outside player, capable of carrying the ball from the backcourt to launch attacks on his own.
At this point, Jackson had no choice but to adjust his lineup; the Bulls’ bench depth was not as strong as the Trail Blazers’. Apart from Pippen at the small forward position, the only substitute was Dennis Hopson, a 6-foot-5 guy averaging only 4 points per game, incapable of replacing Pippen.
Therefore, Pippen must rise to the challenge, figure out the solution himself, recover his form, and put on a good performance.
But Pippen, with a long face, turned a deaf ear to Jackson’s encouragement. Returning to the court, he deferred the offensive reins to Jordan and Cartwright.
Jordan once again took up the team’s offensive banner, charging into the basket time after time, either attacking the rim or distributing the ball to the outside, enabling Parkson, Armstrong, and Hodges to hit their shots.
Fortunately for the Bulls, their shooters were feeling great tonight, with Parkson and Armstrong hitting consecutive long-distance shots including threes, helping the Bulls turn the tide.
The Trail Blazers’ Princeton System stuttered under the Bulls’ high pressure defense, and after two consecutive turnovers leading to Bulls’ fast breaks, Bobby Berman also called a timeout to adjust tactics and push for Ah Gan to drive forcefully.
"Give the ball to the team’s most powerful player," this was the unanimous choice of the two excellent commanders, Phil Jackson and Bobby Berman, when faced with a problem.
Gan Guoyang was still highly efficient in the low post, if the Bulls dared to provide him space for one-on-one plays, Gan Guoyang’s success rate was around 80%.
Facing double teams, he could still achieve a 50% success rate, and it took a triple team to contain him, and that too with great speed.
As expected, the game gradually became a fiery clash between Jordan and Ah Gan, with both getting increasingly heated as sweat flowed endlessly.
Gan Guoyang scored 14 points in the third quarter, Jordan recorded 12 points and 4 assists, with both certain to score over 40 points.
Neither rested for even a minute in the third quarter, and when the fourth quarter began, Phil Jackson asked Jordan to take a seat on the bench, which Jordan refused.
He pointed to the opposite side, where Ah Gan had already taken the court, seemingly prepared to play the entire second half. Jordan said, "If you want to lose, bench me. I want to win."
Jackson had no choice; he had controlled Jordan’s playing time throughout the season, but it seemed impossible for this game.
