Green didn’t even have time to react, and Allen Iverson had already burst into the three-second zone from the front. Just as Iverson was about to make his next move, a shadow loomed over.
It was Gan Guoyang, who moved in from the side and then knocked the ball out of Iverson’s hands.
AC Green turned and gained control of the ball, handing it over to Gan Guoyang, while Iverson tried to steal it back.
In the end, Gan Guoyang controlled the ball, executing a behind-the-back dribble and a crossover dribble in front of Iverson, then used his strong physique to shake off Iverson’s entanglement.
"Xie Te..." Iverson couldn’t help but curse, feeling like he was seeing a ghost.
Why was the ball knocked away by Ah Gan just as he broke through? Where did he come from?
As a small-sized point guard, Iverson’s ball-handling skills were excellent, and his ability to protect the ball was strong.
With his low center of gravity and fast speed, it was incredibly difficult for opposing guards to steal the ball from him, let alone a center.
But Ah Gan managed to do it, which made Iverson increasingly wary, feeling uneasy.
Later, Gan Guoyang scored two points with a simple screen followed by a corner mid-range jumper, changing the score to 8:2.
Iverson didn’t believe it was his fate. Instead of calling a timeout, he continued dribbling and sprinted towards the frontcourt, and Gan Guoyang had already retreated to defend under the hoop.
Iverson made a gorgeous crossover, bypassing Van Exel from the right side and driving with the ball again, while Ah Gan came up once more.
The defensive distance was just right, and Iverson found that whether to go for the layup or make a pass, he seemed to have no chance. Should he again go around the baseline?
Iverson decided to accelerate and make a reverse layup after crossing the baseline!
However, Gan Guoyang seemed to anticipate his move and stepped forward to interfere.
Though he didn’t block the shot, he disrupted Iverson’s layup, leading to a miss, and Gan Guoyang seized the rebound.
He made a long pass to the frontcourt, and Riddle used his speed to attack, missing the layup, but AC Green followed up for a tip-in, making it 10:2.
The 76ers’ head coach called a timeout, and Iverson was puzzled by his recent two offensive failures. As Gan Guoyang passed by, he asked, "Allen, you haven’t answered my question yet. Did you smell the fragrance of the bread?"
"You don’t know what you’re talking about, so stop with these ghostly words, Ah Gan." Iverson shook his head, refusing to answer.
Gan Guoyang smiled, said nothing further, and returned to the visiting team’s bench.
Iverson was somewhat distracted, not due to offensive inefficiency, but because of the bread.
Others might not understand what this sentence means.
Only Iverson knew, because he had once spent four months of incarceration at the Newport News City farm, where his main labor reform task was baking bread in a bakery.
In 1993, Allen Iverson’s future was almost ruined by a fighting incident at a bowling alley.
He was accused of injuring an innocent woman’s face in a brawl and throwing a chair at the crowd.
After being arrested, Iverson was tried, convicted, and sentenced under an odd old legal concept known as "anti-abuse," with a 15-year sentence, 10 years suspended, and 5 years of rehabilitation at the farm.
The original intent of this law was to prevent White farm owners from mistreating their Black slaves, but in 1993, it was used to sentence a fighting Black man to labor on the farm.
The ruling aroused significant controversy, with many advocating for Iverson, and Iverson himself wrote letters to the governor and the judge from prison, hoping for a retrial of the case.
Before the retrial, Iverson earnestly spent four months in the labor reform life on the farm, baking bread daily and obeying Prison Warden Billy Payne’s instructions.
Although Iverson was rebellious in life, in prison, he behaved obediently and meekly before Billy Payne, not daring to defy. Even when Payne openly berated him as a Black ghost, Iverson merely nodded in acknowledgement.
Because Iverson knew that when you are in prison, resisting will only bring greater misfortune; he had to endure, continuously writing letters to clear himself of the conviction, so that he wouldn’t be ruined, enabling him to continue pursuing his basketball or football star career.
This is the episode of history that Iverson least wanted to mention; he never talked to outsiders about his experiences in prison, about his obedient submission.
Because it’s a stain in the dignity of his personality, a painful wound to his pride, something he wants to forget and bury.
He couldn’t understand how Ah Gan knew he baked bread at the farm. What else did he know? Was this guy from the FBI?
Did he intentionally investigate my background before the match just to suppress me?
Returning to the bench, Iverson didn’t absorb any of the coach’s instructions; his mind was filled with wild thoughts.
He suddenly felt his nose itching, as if he really smelled the aroma of bread, Prison Director Gan.