When playing against Asian teams, relying on personal ability and physical advantages, one can easily overpower the opponents.
Often utilizing full-court press and defensive counter-attacks, a quick offensive wave can crush the enemy in a short time.
However, when facing European teams that are faster, stronger, and possess higher tactical skills, they are completely at a disadvantage.
After all, it’s no longer the 50s or 60s, European basketball has greatly developed.
The "small, fast, and intelligent" approach wants to counteract their "big, slow, and clumsy," but in the 90s, Europe is no longer "big, slow, and clumsy," it’s "big, fast, and intelligent."
Players like those from Lithuania have the capability to survive in the NBA, being tall, strong, and simultaneously very fast.
Chinese traditional small players have no advantage against them, only disadvantages.
Not to mention full-court press, even with two players double-teaming on the outside, the opponent is fearless.
Full-court press + quick counterattack are useless against European teams; they are not afraid.
After the 1988 Olympics, the China Basketball Association realized this problem.
So Qian Chenghai voluntarily stepped down, introducing strong young coaches like Jiang Xingquan to reorganize the entire Chinese National Team.
The selection of new young players shows that the China Team is also moving towards larger players. Young players like Sun Jun, Hu Weidong, Gong Xiaobin are around two meters tall, with comprehensive skills and flexible forms as forwards and guards.
To keep up with global trends, the China Team must abandon being "small, fast, and intelligent" and pursue "big, fast, and intelligent."
However, in 1992, these players were still too young, lacking experience, technology, and physicality, with a significant gap from world standards.
Nevertheless, the biggest BUG in this China Team is Gan Guoyang, who is at his peak and has just made a breakthrough, reaching a new realm.
Sabonis knows how powerful Gan Guoyang is in his new realm; he can single-handedly manage offense and defense, being the Maradona of basketball, in a different dimension from others.
But when the game was tied, Gan Guoyang did not step forward to take over the match; instead, he continued to perform his center duties in the three-second zone.
Sun Fengwu on the perimeter resisted Lithuania’s pressing defense and passed to Zhang Yongjun, while Gan Guoyang came over to set a screen for Zhang Yongjun.
Lithuania’s defensive attention was then drawn to Gan Guoyang. After Zhang Yongjun made a strong drive on the perimeter, he stopped abruptly, jumped, and shot, scoring!
This batch of Chinese players has very solid fundamentals. Despite possibly unscientific aspects of the "three from one large," persistent effort certainly leads to significant improvement in basketball skills.
Not to mention, under high-intensity and high confrontation, this batch of Chinese players is very steady at the free-throw line, with most of the outside players achieving above 80% shooting rate.
Like Sun Jun, who can reach a 90% success rate, this is not just about talent but also a result of extremely hard training later on.
It can be said that it was precisely this solidly grounded batch of young people from 1992 who laid a solid foundation for China’s basketball career for the next 10-15 years.
Because of this, Gan Guoyang has never underestimated his teammates, thinking about single-handedly leading them through challenges.
With a month of training and getting along, he understands each teammate’s technical characteristics, playing style, and personality traits.
Zhang Yongjun and Sun Fengwu, the two veterans of the backcourt, are nicknamed "Tilted Machine Gun" because when Zhang Yongjun shoots, he tends to tilt slightly, but his accuracy is very high.
At the 1986 World Championship, he represented the China Team, hitting 35 three-pointers.
During that tournament, the only players who could compare with Zhang Yongjun were Korea’s Xu Zai and Petrović.
A shooter like Zhang Yongjun can be very comfortable playing in sync with Gan Guoyang, having good shooting space and opportunities.
However, he has his problems, which are average size (1.88m), a slim build, poor defense, not fitting into Jiang Xingquan’s future team-building philosophy.
Therefore, before Gan Guoyang joined the team, Jiang Xingquan was not planning to rely heavily on Zhang Yongjun, and they had basketball philosophy differences.
But after training and cooperation, Gan Guoyang believed Zhang Yongjun’s style was very suitable for him, and due to his rich experience, he brought him into the starting lineup.
On Lithuania’s side, the intensity of offense and defense is getting stronger, but they quickly discover that the three-second zone is really hard to penetrate.
Wing Matulionis received the ball, broke past Zhang Yongjun in one step, and drove along the baseline towards the basket.
If Gan Guoyang goes to help, he will pass to Sabonis cutting towards the basket.
Coming over to help naturally means directly attacking the rim, almost a sure goal.
However, Gan Guoyang’s defensive rotation was extremely fast and completely covered Matulionis.
Matulionis jumped up to pass the ball to Sabonis inside but was intercepted in the air by Gan Guoyang.
Gan Guoyang continued to give the ball to Sun Fengwu to organize.
Sun Fengwu is different from Zhang Yongjun; his advantage is being stout and strong in confrontations.
In the Point Guard position, only Wu Qinglong has a higher heft than Sun Fengwu.
Sun Fengwu is a veteran who participated in the 1984 Olympics, with solid experience and confrontational skills.
Without anyone to meet him, he held off Lithuania’s outside pressing defense and smoothly crossed the half-court to organize the offense.
Sun Jun came out to provide support, and Gan Guoyang once again got into position on the low side; with several passes and guidance, the ball returned to Gan Guoyang’s hands.
As soon as Gan Guoyang received the ball, he relied purely on power, rotated through the middle, pushed Sabonis aside, forced his way into the basket, completed a left-handed layup, and drew a foul from Sabonis.
After making the free throw, the China Team regained a 5-point lead.