As the calendar turned to April, the entire NBA schedule seemed to accelerate.
Everyone was anxious: teams, players, fans, all eagerly anticipated the start of the playoffs.
The long grind and battles of the regular season had gradually clarified the situation in both the Eastern and Western Conferences.
Some teams were gearing up for the big test of the playoffs, while others were destined to continue their decline, waiting for next year’s cycle.
At the end of March and the beginning of April, under the powerful engine that is Ah Gan, the Trail Blazers finally showed the demeanor of a strong team.
Gan Guoyang was named the league’s best player for March, and the Trail Blazers secured an eight-game winning streak, solidifying their second place in the Western Conference.
The league once again felt the powerful pressure from Ah Gan, as the Jazz team pushed forward, not wishing to be overtaken by the Trail Blazers for first place in the Western Conference.
The teams behind the Trail Blazers conserved their energy, with the Supersonics and Rockets, ranked third and fourth, being deferential.
No one wanted to be third, unwilling to face the Trail Blazers early in the semifinals, as winning and losing were not as concerning as suffering humiliation from Ah Gan in a series.
In the Eastern Conference, throughout Chicago, they prepared for the possibility of facing Ah Gan in the finals as the Bulls began to essentially give up winning fully in the last two weeks of the regular season.
The Miami Heat welcomed the return of Charles Barkley from injury, and no matter how many internal conflicts there were, the playoffs would ultimately be about winning and claiming the championship to cleanse everything.
However, within the Trail Blazers, the overall atmosphere wasn’t much different from the other parts of the season.
Nervous? Not very nervous, everyone trained, competed, ate, drank, played, and laughed as usual.
Relaxed? Certainly not relaxed; even Riddle stopped being late for training and got used to starting his training day at 7:30 AM.
Overall, it was very steady, with everyone getting more and more in sync both on and off the court, even the young and unwelcomed Kobe was getting along more harmoniously with everyone.
But Gan Guoyang could sense something was missing, something just wasn’t there, and it felt different from 1986, 1987, and even from 1991 and 1992.
Is it perhaps a lack of team strength? Or insufficient player experience?
Gan Guoyang had already pushed himself to the fullest, yet he consistently felt that this Trail Blazers team wasn’t even a Foxbat but rather a MiG-15.
"Even if it were just a MiG-21, it would’ve been something," Gan Guoyang sometimes thought.
The closer the playoffs approached, the more fatal the issues the Trail Blazers exposed became.
Problems with perimeter defense and persistent turnovers throughout the season remained the stubborn illnesses of the Trail Blazers.
This season, the Trail Blazers averaged 17.6 turnovers per game, second only to the New York Knicks, ranking second in the league.
The reason the Knicks had so many turnovers was because their high-contact style resulted in high turnovers on both sides, and they also possessed top-notch capability in forcing turnovers in the league.
But the Trail Blazers were different; they turned the ball over so much but ranked towards the bottom in forcing turnovers and steals, which indicated a lack of pressure in their perimeter defense.
Gan Guoyang took on a substantial load in the Three Second Zone, reaching a career-high of 4.3 blocks per game, which was an astonishing number.
At the start of the season, Gan Guoyang only aimed to win another assist title, but by the second half of the season, he realized that he was likely to capture the titles of leading scorer, rebounder, shot-blocker, and assists.
There was no other way; after the All-Star Game, as teams raised their playing intensity, Bird clarified the team’s defensive strategy: allowing opponents to challenge Ah Gan inside.
Van Exel, Riddle, and AC Green would give external attackers a step, allowing them to pass without shooting, letting them into the Three Second Zone to be devoured.
Like in the 1995-1996 season, Dikembe Mutombo was with the Nuggets, where their perimeter defense was abysmal, constantly allowing perimeter players to drive inside.
Mutombo, with a swipe, handled young players, averaging 4.5 blocks per game. Despite this, the Nuggets’ defense remained mediocre in the league standings.
This season, without Mutombo, the Nuggets’ defense fell from mediocre to poor, with an average score allowance increasing by 4 points as the paint was left exposed.
Mutombo, however, after joining the Hawks, saw his blocks per game drop to 3, but with better perimeter defenders and Wilkins’ system, the Hawks’ defense ranked at the top of the league, conceding an average of 89 points a game, less than 90 points.
With the Trail Blazers, Gan Guoyang bore immense pressure guarding the Three Second Zone, thus advancing his blocks to a historic high, with games where his blocks reached double digits almost doubling post-All-Star break.
His elusive defensive positioning, ghostly defense never fixed on the ball or the person, along with his block style of never using volleyball spikes but only tapping blocks, instilled fear in external attackers with breakthrough skills league-wide.
Gan Guoyang’s playing time also steadily climbed from around 38 minutes early season to the standard of 40 minutes by season’s end. It wasn’t uncommon for him to play 42 or 43 minutes, and 45 or 46-minute games were like a piece of cake; playing a full 48 minutes wasn’t out of the question.
After resting for two seasons, Gan Guoyang’s stamina reserve was quite sufficient, and of course, what was even more sufficient was his competitiveness and anxious mindset.
On April 1st, the Trail Blazers faced off against the Detroit Pistons on the road, the Pistons’ head player standing opposite the blazing-hot Grant Hill in the league.
Having concluded the Bad Boys era, with Lan Bi’er and Thomas retiring or leaving, the Pistons entered a new era.