Chapter 984: Chapter 24: The Long Wait_3
Malone hesitated for a moment, dribbled, and drove to the left to attack the basket, directly challenging Gan Guoyang’s rim protection!
As expected, he was blocked, with a big swat, Porter grabbed the ball, and the Trail Blazers launched a fast break.
Reggie Lewis charged ahead, received the ball, and dunked with his left hand, the Trail Blazers took the lead.
"Why are you avoiding Karl, are you afraid of me?" Gan Guoyang asked Malone.
Malone just assaulted the basket and obviously dodged during the confrontation with Gan Guoyang.
He tried to sidestep after the collision and perform a floater, but Gan Guoyang’s long arm still managed to block it.
"I’m not afraid of you, stop talking nonsense." Malone replied weakly.
Malone, facing any other big man in the league, including a heavyweight giant like Sabonis, could fearlessly take them head-on.
Even though he was only 6’9", Malone could hold his ground or even have an advantage against all the seven-footers in the league.
Only against Ah Gan, he couldn’t budge, couldn’t move at all, he was like a mountain under the basket.
He had no idea why this man’s body was so solid, so heavy, and had ridiculously great strength, it simply defied science.
This person’s existence truly defied science, not scientific at all.
The Trail Blazers’ defensive strategy was very clear: Sabonis marked Malone, big against small, interfering as much as possible.
The three-second zone was opened for him; if you can charge through, then you’re impressive, if not, you’ll have to figure out how to keep shooting mid-range.
Sabonis stood like a wall in front of you, testing Malone’s mid-range shooting accuracy.
In the second attack, at the same position, Malone received the ball, but this time he didn’t hesitate, catching and turning immediately for a mid-range shot.
Sabonis couldn’t come fast enough to block, and the ball accurately hit the mark, as the Jazz team took two points.
Both sides scored in their signature ways at the start, followed by Gan Guoyang and Porter executing a pick-and-roll, Guoyang cut outside at a 45-degree angle on the left, received the ball, and hit a mid-range jumper.
The two teams played quite relaxed in the first quarter, with decent shooting accuracy, in a probing phase.
Some defensive flaws appeared for the Trail Blazers, as Stockton’s passes sliced through like a scalpel.
But once near the basket, Gan Guoyang firmly guarded the rim, making all penetrations inefficient.
And then there were no offensive rebounds for second attacks, extremely painful for a cut-heavy team like the Jazz.
Jerry Sloan was troubled by this because Gan’s defense was always the most daunting, forming the strong foundation of the Trail Blazers.
Coupled with Sabonis, the Twin Towers’ impenetrable basket defense was deadly in the ’90s.
To beat the Trail Blazers, Supersonics would rely on defense and a fast pace, using a super-strong SOS double-team defense system paired with rapid attacks to avoid positional play, denying the Trail Blazers’ advantage, hoping to defeat them.
The Jazz team, on the other hand, took a different approach, focusing on offense, with better, more coordinated, more skilled positional play to break through the Trail Blazers’ solid interior defense face-to-face.
The score remained tied from 2:2 up to 20:20, with both teams’ offensive efficiency performing well in a steady game, dominated by positional plays, while Trail Blazers had a few more fast breaks.
The turning point came in the latter half of the first quarter, when Stockton attempted a central breakthrough in a fast break, Reggie Lewis suddenly doubled up and snatched the ball.
Trail Blazers counterattack, Gan Guoyang cut into the middle, received a pass from Porter, and dunked powerfully with both hands!
Then, Malone received the ball at a low post, and Gan Guoyang suddenly doubled up again, stealing the ball.
The Trail Blazers launched another fast break, this time Reggie Lewis dashed all the way to the basket, but missed the layup.
However, Gan Guoyang followed up again, grabbed the offensive rebound, and scored the tip-in, adding 4 points in a row.
The Trail Blazers’ sudden trapping on the ball handler plus fast breaks in the latter half of the first quarter caught the Jazz off guard.
The originally balanced situation was disrupted, opening the gap, and Jerry Sloan called a timeout.
The Jazz team’s disadvantages in speed and intensity were laid bare, with the initiative entirely in the Trail Blazers’ hands.
All they could do was endure, wait, and passively wait for the Trail Blazers to make mistakes.
And this wait was much longer, much longer than Sloan, Stockton, and Malone imagined.
