The Trail Blazers left Boston unscathed with a 16-game winning streak.
Bird didn’t greet his former team with a victory at his old home court, avoiding the awkwardness of "we lost as soon as I rejoined the team."
At the end of the game, Bird hugged Auerbach goodbye and said, "I can feel that the current Trail Blazers are even better than we ever were at our best."
"Oh, has your mental scar healed? Saying something like that so eagerly, don’t say it too early."
"Good words should be spoken early. Just wait and see, Reed, this season is ours, I won’t repeat the same mistakes."
Auerbach knew that what Bird referred to as repeating the same mistakes was the 1986 season, when the regular season Celtics were unstoppable, unfortunately only to be taken down by Ah Gan in the finals.
For so many years, the finals defeat has always been a scar on Bird’s heart, as he always believed that the championship that year should have belonged to the Celtics.
That was the peak of the Celtics’ team basketball, but in the ultimate showdown, they were defeated by young individual heroism, and this loss was even more devastating than losing to the Lakers in 1985.
Since then, the Celtics have never risen again, and during Bird’s player era, he never came close to a championship again.
Last season, coaching the Trail Blazers, Bird’s psychological motivation was partly to deeply understand what kind of team the Trail Blazers really were, and what kind of player Ah Gan actually was.
This was an attempt for him to untangle the knot in his heart over the years by experiencing firsthand what it was like to be defeated by a mighty opponent.
Of course, Bird did this only after retiring and becoming a coach, never considering it while he was still a player.
The 1996-1997 Trail Blazers were incomplete, which forced out the greatest individual single-season performance in NBA history.
Even so, the Trail Blazers still fell in the playoffs, and individual heroism failed.
As Buckwalter put it, a super engine ultimately couldn’t carry the frame of a propeller plane, and the fuselage was bound to collapse under too much force.
Bird realized that over the years, the Trail Blazers achieved so much because they essentially built an A-level platform, then Ah Gan miraculously propelled the team to an S+ level and hard-fought pivotal games against opponents.
This year the situation is slightly different, the Trail Blazers’ platform might not just be A-level but S-level.
Even in terms of player age and strength, compared to the three-peat and four-peat era Trail Blazers, there’s no advantage.
Even purely on paper, this season’s Trail Blazers aren’t as good as the four-peat Trail Blazers, especially in the small forward position.
But Bird knows a team’s strength can’t be assessed solely on paper, and it’s not about piling up player stats.
The current Trail Blazers have a complete function at every position, excellent chemistry among players, seamlessly well-coordinated since training camp.
In an NBA where defensive intensity is getting increasingly fierce and average scores are dropping, the Trail Blazers manage to score 108 points per game, showcasing an extremely strong offensive firepower.
And 108 points isn’t even the Trail Blazers’ ceiling; in many games, they crush opponents within three quarters, dragging games early into garbage time.
Ah Gan’s average score has dropped to an all-time low, but his individual capability is actually at its career peak, and his scoring is low merely because opponents aren’t worth his full effort.
Moreover, when Ah Gan doesn’t need to invest much in scoring and organization, his impact on the defensive end expands rapidly.
As a genius on the basketball court, Bird, though taking more than a month off from first-line coaching work, has gained an even clearer understanding of the current Trail Blazers from an observer’s perspective:
When Ah Gan can focus fully on defense and carrying out various detailed tasks, others can freely devote themselves to offense, making the entire team extraordinarily smooth and forming a positive cycle.
Conversely, if the core players occupy a lot of resources on offense, their defense falling to teammates to constantly cover up, the role players can’t execute on offense, it results in a vicious cycle.
It’s a basic rule of basketball, that attack brings more pleasure, scoring greatly boosts confidence, while defense is relatively dull and challenging.
Ah Gan does the hardest part best because his offensive teammates are trustworthy, everyone is deserving of his trust, which was never a characteristics of the past Portland Trail Blazers.
At the same time, Gan Guoyang also likes defense, the thrill of scoring has greatly diminished for him; this season, he prefers seeing opponents unable to score.
Next, the Trail Blazers face the New Jersey Nets and Philadelphia 76ers in away games, continuing their Eastern road trip.
On the night of December 4th, at the Continental Airlines Arena, Gan Guoyang met Hakeem Olajuwon in a Nets jersey on the court.
Two old rivals, old friends reunite, Gan Guoyang still the Trail Blazers’ number 11, while Olajuwon has become a player with "three surnames."
Who knows how Olajuwon feels years later recalling Gan Guoyang’s words: "Don’t let loyalty ruin you."
After falling out completely with Pat Riley, Olajuwon chose to leave the South Coast, bringing with him to Miami two Eastern Conference championships and a championship ring, which result-wise isn’t bad.
Yet, he couldn’t stand Riley’s coaching style anymore, and was acutely aware that as he aged, he’d become expendable for Riley.