When the game finally began, the Trail Blazers were indeed suppressed by the Heat from the start.
Without their three core players, the Trail Blazers were no longer a championship-caliber team, just an ordinary squad.
In some plays, they could still resist, but overall, in the long run, without Gan Guoyang playing, they were doomed to lose.
In the first quarter, the Heat led 30 to 21, ahead of the Trail Blazers by 9 points, and the Trail Blazers had already put up their toughest resistance.
Terry Porter and Sabonis dragged their injured legs, tangling with Olajuwon and Drexler.
The Heat is a typical defensive team, relying mainly on individual abilities for offense, and clinging tenaciously on defense.
They have a miraculous effect against sharp teams, significantly strong, but against weaker opponents, they often don’t show a huge advantage.
Moreover, compared to the Trail Blazers, the Heat’s morale wasn’t very high either, after all, defeating such a Trail Blazers team didn’t seem honorable in the end.
In the second quarter, when the second lineups of both sides were compared, the Trail Blazers surprisingly started to slowly catch up.
Bernard King, coming off the bench, suddenly exploded, hitting jump shots and counters consecutively, leading a 6-0 run that forced the Heat to call a timeout.
During the timeout, Bernard King kept encouraging his teammates to hang in there and to strive for victory.
He is a player who has stood up from severe injuries twice, his willpower exceedingly strong.
"Don’t give up hope, never give up!"
Gradually, the morale and spiritual power of the Trail Blazers players started to come back.
Terry Porter said something very morale-boosting, "I believe Ah Gan will return, sooner or later, he will. Before he returns, we have to hold on. We’ve already lost Pete and Reggie, Ah Gan won’t give up on us, he won’t give up on the team."
The Trail Blazers players decided to fight to the death, determined to win, or at least not to let the Heat have an easy victory.
Meanwhile, in the Trail Blazers’ locker room, Tang Jianguo kept making phone calls to communicate.
He just got the news that Gan Guoyang had found his father and was now heading to the Memorial Coliseum.
During this time, Tang Jianguo had lost two key players, the dream of a four-peat was on the brink of collapse, and Old Tang was in a daze.
However, his first reaction after the sorrow was, first to investigate if there was any scheming, and second, to control the narrative in the media.
He knew such an event would certainly be exploited by some groups to create narratives unfavorable to the Trail Blazers, Ah Gan, and even himself.
Old Tang anxiously awaited, waiting for Ah Gan to arrive, waiting for an opportunity to turn the tide.
The phone rang, and security at the arena brought the news: "Ah Gan’s car has entered the Memorial Coliseum."
Tang Jianguo immediately instructed his people to have the reporters wait at the player entrance to capture footage of Ah Gan’s arrival.
He continued to wait in the locker room, pacing back and forth, his mouth and eyebrows tightly furrowed, brewing his emotions.
A few minutes later, he heard footsteps; the figure he had been expecting finally arrived at the locker room.
The man with a godly aura had a face now carved with mortal concern.
Tang Jianguo hurriedly stepped forward, immediately shutting the locker room door, blocking the reporters and cameras outside.
He tightly grasped Gan Guoyang’s hand and said, "Sonny, you’ve finally arrived, go onto the court!"
Gan Guoyang walked to the locker and said, "Of course, otherwise did I come here to be a spectator?"
Tang Jianguo replied, "Great, we must win tonight, we must win the championship!"
Gan Guoyang glanced at Tang Jianguo and said, "Donald, that’s something I can’t guarantee now, being able to play is my limit."
Tang Jianguo’s face changed, and he roared, "No! It’s not! That’s not your limit! You have to win; you must win! Win this championship! This championship is more important than any before! This is the moment you have to win! Do you think because someone died, we have a reason to fail, and people will sympathize with us, understand us? Wrong! Terribly wrong! Precisely because someone died, we must win in our most difficult time!"
"Look outside, look outside Sonny! Look at those terrifying rumors, how many people are waiting for us to lose, waiting for you to fail! Failure combined with death, will come to attack you, attack us! Never be a tragic footnote but a winner who ignores everything. With Reggie and Drazan leaving us, we’re all saddened, but it’s precisely because they left, we need to win even more!"
"You may think I’m solely profit-oriented, that I’m a businessman, a shameless person who loves to manipulate hearts and traffic, but look at Michael, what is he encountering? Who are the people standing by his side? Who are the ones hurting him? This world is like that, the tragedy of the winner is legendary, is soulful, the tragedy of the loser is just complete tragedy. Don’t let you, Drazan, and Reggie become complete tragedies."
"Take this damn championship, you definitely can, I believe in you."
In the locker room, there were only Tang Jianguo and Gan Guoyang; after the intense conversation, it became particularly quiet.
Gan Guoyang looked at Tang Jianguo and asked, "How long have you been preparing those words in your stomach?"
Tang Jianguo honestly replied, "Fifteen minutes."
"Seems a bit rushed, you used ’win’ too many times, should’ve prepared more."
"But... you’re right about one thing, I can take the championship, I can win."
Tang Jianguo’s tightly furrowed brows and mouth relaxed, and a smile appeared on his face.
Gan Guoyang changed into his jersey, took a deep breath, and opened the locker room door.