Chapter 895: Chapter 55: Fatal Strike
Tension can prematurely drain a person’s stamina.
This tension comes from mental strain, leading to exhaustion, and physical tightening, resulting in muscle fatigue.
Halftime serves as a crucial moment to replenish stamina and relieve mental and physical strain. Fifteen minutes is enough time for significant changes to occur.
However, in the old visitor’s locker room of the Memorial Coliseum, Phil Jackson could sense the palpable tension in the air.
The tension had not dissipated despite the game reaching halftime; instead, it seemed to intensify.
Horace Grant didn’t sleep well at the hotel last night. Jackson spotted him getting up early to run on the treadmill, something he hadn’t done before.
Levinston reportedly vomited three times in the morning, even though he claimed he was feeling fine the night before.
Bill Cartwright told Jackson at breakfast, "This is just an ordinary game."
Jackson immediately realized that Cartwright was nervous. If it really were an ordinary game, he wouldn’t have said such a thing.
Oddly enough, the player Jackson was most worried about, Scottie Pippen, was the one truly relaxed. His performance in the first half was excellent.
On both offense and defense, he provided substantial support for the team, while Cartwright and Grant suffered from "Gan-phobia." Whenever they faced Gan Guoyang, their effectiveness completely vanished.
Veteran Buck-Williams remained steady. His wealth of experience and resolute will enabled him to do everything he could. In the regular season and the Eastern playoffs, Williams even briefly became the leader of the team’s interior defense.
At times, he could take on the role of the spiritual cornerstone on the court, replacing Jordan. His defensive contributions truly made the Bulls a defensive fortress.
During the Eastern Conference Finals, his stats were inferior to Grant’s, but Williams successfully locked down the highly lethal Melvin Turpin, suppressing the Pistons’ fearsome frontcourt on defense.
Buck-Williams’ biggest issue was his size. Standing only 6’8", he was undersized for a power forward and struggled when matched up against either Gan Guoyang or Sabonis.
Throughout the first half, Gan Guoyang targeted Buck-Williams with one-on-one post plays, putting the outstanding power forward into a semi-collapsed state. Williams simply couldn’t defend him; the disparity in strength and height was too significant.
But Jackson had anticipated this problem. Whether it was Buck or Cartwright, defending Gan one-on-one was bound to fail—this was an expected calculated loss.
What truly worried Jackson was Williams’ inability to contribute enough on offense, an issue already hinted at during the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Pistons, as a unit, simply couldn’t match the Bulls, so Williams’ offensive shortcomings could be overlooked. Moreover, Williams’ offensive rebounds had troubled the Pistons considerably.
But against the Trail Blazers, Williams’ offensive rebounding prowess also failed. With Gan Guoyang stationed in the three-second zone, nearly all defensive rebounds were secured. In the first half, Williams managed to grab just one offensive rebound.
For a team like the Bulls, which relied on lower-post attacks less and tended to use cutting plays, offensive rebounding and second-chance opportunities were vital scoring methods.
These not only allowed for easy scoring but also undermined the opponent’s defense, further disrupting their defensive plans and morale—a win-win scenario.
But with Gan Guoyang denying most of these opportunities under the basket, this underscored the major value of his return to the center position.
Sabonis is an excellent interior defender, but Gan Guoyang’s defense in the paint is at a domination level.
Phil Jackson thought of Bill Russell. During his playing days with the Knicks, Jackson witnessed the final seasons of Russell’s career.
In the 1967–68 and 1968–69 seasons, the Knicks had already assembled the core that would win championships in 1970 and 1973. Yet, they still couldn’t overcome the aging Boston Celtics in the playoffs.
In the 1969 playoffs, the Knicks were eliminated 2–4 by the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals despite having home-court advantage. That was Russell’s final season, and he was already 34 years old.
Yet his defensive impact remained dominant. Jackson, who didn’t get playing time in that postseason, sat on the bench and observed his teammates during the games.
He could clearly see that whenever Russell was in the three-second zone, his teammates’ attempts to attack the rim would visibly falter—Frazier, Bradley, and DeBusschere would instinctively dodge him or resort to uncharacteristic techniques like switching hands midair for layups, which, unsurprisingly, didn’t go in.
Russell would deliberately leave an opening for the smaller players, baiting them into driving inside, only to emphatically swat their layups away.
When Russell retired after winning his last championship, the Knicks immediately surged the following year, making it to the Finals and claiming the title.
Now, Gan Guoyang’s defense under the basket was at Russell’s level—or even stronger—since the league’s perimeter offensive capabilities had significantly evolved.
The 1960s didn’t have a Jordan—a player who could seemingly fly, storm into the paint, and dunk with authority. Gan Guoyang, however, could neutralize such perimeter threats.
Jackson understood that Williams had already reached his limit, and it was unrealistic to ask for more from him. The focus would have to shift to breaking through from the perimeter.
Meanwhile, in the Trail Blazers’ locker room, Bobby Berman wasn’t satisfied with the intensity of their perimeter game. Apart from Petrović, the other perimeter players had shown too few offensive highlights in the first half.
Porter and Lewis were heavily contained, shooting at a very low accuracy, which compressed the spacing and crowded the paint. By the latter part of the second quarter, it was visibly becoming harder and harder for Gan Guoyang to hold the ball and attack.
