Gan Guoyang’s playing style and technical characteristics have even greater power in FIBA than in the NBA.
And if Ah Gan were on the court, he would definitely suppress Pippen’s moves.
After Johnson went off the court, Pippen played exceptionally well, his organization enlivening the Dream Team’s half-court offense.
Continuous breakthroughs and assists, beautiful diagonal passes, and collaborations with Malone and Drexler left Francovic with no chance to block shots.
Watching Pippen’s organizational talent, Gan Guoyang nudged Sun Jun sitting next to him and said, "See that guy with the big horse face? He’s really good at organizing; you should learn from him."
"Which big horse face?"
"Number 8, Pippen."
From start to finish, Gan Guoyang watched and commented on the game.
His comments were different from those of regular commentators; Ah Gan had faced them directly on the court, and each was defeated by him.
During the America Cup, Gan Guoyang had commented a bit, but the game intensity was lower then, and the opponents were relatively weaker, so the Dream Team hadn’t unleashed their full potential.
Today, in the battle against Croatia, the Dream Team truly displayed some real skills, making this game highly impactful as a reference.
As the game progressed, the intensity of the confrontation between the two sides gradually decreased because the Dream Team slowly opened up, and Croatia somewhat fell apart.
Jordan’s maneuver under the basket, Pippen’s switch-hand layup in the fast break—both moves were stylish, elegant, and toyed with the defenders.
However, before the first half ended, Petrović assisted Toni Kukoc for a beautiful reverse layup, achieving a buzzer-beating score that was quite dazzling.
Despite being significantly behind, the talent and flair of Croatia’s young players still shone brightly. Kukoc was nearly silent in the first half due to Pippen’s targeting, but this final buzzer-beater was one of his standout moments in the whole game.
It also showed that Croatia was not ready to give up easily.
At halftime, Croatia Team trailed Team USA by 17 points, which was already a pretty merciful gap.
After the second half began, Petrović forced a defensive foul from Jordan, though Jordan quickly countered by inducing an offensive foul from Petrović.
The two were basically locked in a dispute.
Then, Team USA began to make mistakes again, with unsuccessful offenses.
In a fast break, Kukoc caught the ball and successfully dunked it, narrowing the gap.
Croatia also started exhibiting some beautiful half-court offense plays.
Besides Petrović, other players were also able to hold the ball and score.
The gap was once reduced to only 13 points, a difference that made the Dream Team nervous and excited the Croatian players.
At this point, two players stepped up—Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan.
Barkley attacked successfully twice in the paint after receiving the ball, once dunking and once knocking his opponent down to the floor.
Every time Barkley got the ball, fans around the court cursed at him wildly, with one fan yelling, "I’ll screw your damn milk!"
Or cursing, "I’ll take a shit in your mom’s damn milk!"
In short, the quality of foreign fans was indescribably low.
Barkley shouted back at the crowd, earning a technical foul.
That’s when Beelman came over to ask what was happening, and Barkley informed the coach of the situation.
Subsequently, Beelman intentionally stood closer to the baseline, nearer to those heckling fans, and began a counter cursing mode.
Beelman’s ability to curse had always been underestimated; in truth, his dominance in the world of curse words outmatched Gan Guoyang’s dominance on the NBA court.
Even more remarkable was that this guy knew a bit of Spanish and was fluent in Spanish profanity as well. Since he wasn’t needed for coaching, he focused on confronting fans with curses to the point where other fans couldn’t take it anymore and criticized those heckling fans to stop cursing. "You’re cursing the players, so we’re all getting cursed." Ultimately, the fans could only shut up.
Meanwhile, Jordan first hit a three-pointer and then began to take over the Dream Team’s offense in the latter half of the second half.
With breakthroughs and jump shots, he wasn’t perfect, but Croatia’s defense was obviously incapable of stopping his offensive drive.
Croatia Team’s defense gradually couldn’t withstand such repeated blows, and Croatia’s offense became mute again, unable to score in gameplay.
Gradually, the gap returned to 20 points and continued to slide towards an even larger gap.
The small flame of hope for Croatia flickered briefly and was soon extinguished, and the game lost suspense altogether.
The remainder of the game proceeded much faster, with Team USA ultimately crushing Croatia by 33 points, 103:70.
However, Croatia played impressively well, with many sequences causing the Dream Team a bit of embarrassment.
Their half-court defense was particularly outstanding, giving Jordan, Barkley, Robinson, and Malone some trouble.
But the Dream Team’s overall strength was simply too overwhelming, and the players’ individual abilities were far superior. Throughout the entire game, Beelman did not call a single timeout and just kept trading curses with the fans at the baseline.
Croatia was impressive, though Jordan said in a post-game interview, "I’m more concerned about today’s China Team game; I want to see how Ah Gan performs."
Gan Guoyang closely monitored the Dream Team, and the Dream Team was equally focused on Ah Gan, eager for the China Team to enter the knockout stage and meet them in a match earlier.
In the afternoon during China Team’s match against Puerto Rico, it turned into a surprisingly slow-paced, hard-fought battle.
The previous match against Lithuania featured a fast-paced strategy, but this game was all about lowering the pace and the number of attacking rounds, fighting Puerto Rico in a half-court battle.
Gan Guoyang became the center role, constantly forcing his way at the low post, drawing fouls, and assaulting Puerto Rico’s Three Second Zone.
This match was incredibly intense, with China Team trailing continuously, remaining behind by up to 7 points until the last two minutes of the game.
Just as people thought China Team was going to lose, Gan Guoyang suddenly fired two cold-blooded three-pointers from the outside, closing the gap to 1 point.
Then, in defense, Gan Guoyang made a critical steal and assisted Sun Jun for a successful layup, taking the lead!
China Team exhausted Puerto Rico all game long, leaving them with little attacking feel. Their last attack missed an outside shot.
China Team ultimately won narrowly over Puerto Rico 78:77, securing the second win in the group stage.
Gan Guoyang nearly played the whole game and achieved a spectacular triple-double with 40 points, 16 rebounds, and 10 blocks.
After the match, Jiang Xingquan grabbed Gan Guoyang’s arm and said, "Take the next game off; you really need to rest, or the officials upstairs will make me take a break."