Having a relationship with an underage girl and having a child, always throwing dirty elbows on the court, he’s quite the villain.
Also, this year the Jazz were eliminated early by the Spurs, and Malone’s performance in the series was quite poor.
From averaging 27 points per game in the regular season, he dropped to 24 in the playoffs, with his shooting percentage falling to 45%.
The Jazz got knocked out in the first round again, marking the fifth first-round exit for the Jazz since the 1985-1986 season.
Malone and Stockton will just have to endure.
In response to Gan Guoyang’s righteous words, Barkley expressed his gratitude before the game started.
"Thank you, Sonny, you really understand me," Barkley said sincerely.
"Nonsense, of course I understand you, that’s why I eliminated you."
"This time it won’t be that easy, I promise."
Barkley seemed confident in his team’s state and strength.
Gan Guoyang also put aside his underestimation and started taking this old friend seriously.
When the Suns were pushed to Denver by the Denver Nuggets in the first round, Gan Guoyang thought the Suns wouldn’t be a threat this year.
But after grinding through the semifinals, some things changed.
The Suns crossed the Spurs, with Barkley clinching the victory, bringing a king’s confidence.
Meanwhile, although the Trail Blazers relied on a brutal massacre to finally crush the Supersonics, creating a historical point difference.
But looking at the actual process, they struggled more than in the past and had to resort to more psychological warfare to suppress the inexperienced Supersonics.
Furthermore, during the game, health issues constantly threatened the team’s state.
Porter appeared in the starting lineup for the first game of the West Finals, but his calf muscle injury hadn’t healed.
He, like Petrović, was fighting with an injury, which undoubtedly had a significant impact on his state.
Previously, in the playoffs, the Trail Blazers had an absolute edge in shutting down Kevin Johnson on the defensive end.
Johnson’s performance against the Trail Blazers in those two encounters was disastrous, as they devised extremely effective defensive strategies against him.
Causing Kevin Johnson to be almost silent in both series, how could the Suns possibly be the Trail Blazers’ opponent?
Now the situation is different, with the Trail Blazers’ perimeter defense declining, and Porter being Johnson’s direct defender, his leg injury surely impacts the defense significantly.
Once Kevin Johnson breaks through, creating a linkage with Barkley inside and out, it will become difficult to contain the Suns.
Meanwhile, Barkley’s evolution requires Gan Guoyang to put more effort into defense against this good friend.
In the regular season, the Suns and Trail Blazers played four matches, ending in a 2-2 tie, with Barkley showing significant improvement against Ah Gan.
He’s increasingly adept at using both inside and outside play and passing to mobilize Ah Gan, creating opportunities for teammates, which is the most troublesome part.
Before the game, Gan Guoyang chatted with Bobby Bellman, directly saying, "Bobby, prepare for a seven-game series this time."
Bellman nodded, this year’s path has been more difficult than every previous year.
The past three years each time reaching the West Finals, it felt like the first two rounds didn’t really play out.
Even when reaching the West Finals, the series would end quickly, with the real challenge only beginning in the Finals.
This year, starting from the semifinals, every possible means has to be used.
The game started at 7:30 PM Pacific Time promptly, and the process was as challenging as Gan Guoyang had imagined.
The Suns launched a fierce offense right from the first quarter, being the most aggressive team in the league this year.
Unlike Fitz Simmons’s traditional tactical style, Paul Westphal’s tactical arrangements are filled with unconventional creativity, much like when he called a sudden timeout back in the day.
Under Westphal’s coaching, the biggest change in the Suns’ offense was diversifying the distribution of ball control.
Barkley and Kevin Johnson remain the team’s tactical core, but that doesn’t mean they control all the plays.
Westphal first reduced Kevin Johnson’s offensive organization role, freeing him from the shackles of a traditional point guard to focus more on scoring.
Hence, Johnson’s assists dropped from 10.7 last season to 8, the lowest since he joined the Suns, peaking at a 12.2 assist average.
However, in Paul Westphal’s view, having the reins of a team’s offense controlled by a little 6-foot-something point guard is very dangerous.
The Trail Blazers easily crushed the Suns before because once Johnson was suppressed, it had a massive impact on the Suns’ tactical system.
Westphal distributed the organization and ball-handling roles to Charles Barkley, Dan Marley, Danny Ainge, and Frank Johnson.
On the Suns, seven players averaged over 2 assists per game, with no one hitting double figures in assists due to Paul Westphal’s multi-core transformation.
He didn’t want to see the Suns get locked down at one point and lose most of their capacity, leading to an easy defeat by the opponent.
This multi-core organization also makes the Suns’ offense highly flexible and unpredictable, making it hard for opponents to foresee their next move.
Even the Suns players themselves sometimes don’t know what they’ll do next, depending on their own performance and the game’s situation.
For this reason, in the increasingly tight defense of the 90s, the Suns averaged 113 points per game this season, a very high number.
This offensive style puts a lot of pressure on the aging Trail Blazers’ defense, and Gan Guoyang felt it in the first quarter while standing in the lane—everywhere seemed to have leaks.