Hu Weidong received the pass, no one defended, dribbled once, and made a one-handed gliding dunk!
This was Hu Weidong’s seventh point of the night. Coming off the bench, his performance on the court has been excellent so far.
In the first half, with the defense not being too strict and the competition not too intense, he seized every opportunity.
Hu Weidong clearly knows his role. He’s not the one who creates opportunities on the court but someone who converts the opportunities created by his teammates into points as much as possible.
In this aspect, Hu Weidong is not as good as Tracy McGrady, not as good as Kobe, and he knows it.
What he doesn’t understand is why Kobe is so aggressive, targeting him.
Is it because they both wear number 8? Or because he’s Chinese?
Isn’t Ah Gan also Chinese?
Because of Hu Weidong’s dunk, the game continued without a pause from either side.
So Tracy McGrady continued to sit by the scorer’s table waiting to sub in at the next dead ball.
Meanwhile, Kobe continued to hold the ball, facing Hu Weidong’s defense, chattering incessantly.
"You can’t guard me, Chinese guy. Didn’t Ah Gan teach you how to defend?"
"I’m going left, I’m going left!"
Kobe talked about going left but actually went right, cutting straight to the basket, piercing through the Lakers’ defense.
Evading the defender’s block, Kobe made an in-air switch, scooping the ball in from below, scoring with a reverse layup!
Kobe was on fire tonight, while the Trail Blazers’ starters were showing signs of decreased efficiency and fatigue setting in.
One key to the Trail Blazers maintaining their winning streak is their young bench stepping up.
The second unit, led by Kobe, Little O’Neal, and Ben Wallace, has been contributing more and more.
This is one of the reasons why the Trail Blazers can maintain such a long winning streak: they essentially have two strong lineups playing alternately.
One lineup can tire easily, both physically and mentally, and there’s always a chance to falter.
But when you have two strong lineups, rotating and making use of their strengths, the room for error becomes much higher.
Facing Kobe’s provocations, Hu Weidong remained calm, not getting carried away. Instead, he continued leveraging his role in drawing defense from the perimeter and shooting threes.
Until Del Harris called a timeout, Hu Weidong didn’t score again, while Kobe felt a bit bored.
As he walked off the court, Kobe continued to nag, "Are you a doughboy? Don’t you know how to fight back?"
Hu Weidong glanced at Kobe. The two were seven or eight years apart. They were at different levels of mental maturity.
Hu Weidong simply said, "The most important lesson Ah Gan taught me is to learn to shut up."
Kobe was left speechless by Hu Weidong’s words.
In terms of skill, Kobe was a standout among young players.
But he also had many typical young person’s faults.
Arrogant and conceited, many years later, when Kobe recalled his rookie season and his second season, he could only shake his head with a bitter smile, admitting how foolish he was then.
He spoke too many pretentious words and did too many self-important things.
But would he regret it? Definitely not, because that is what made Kobe who he is, it’s the path he came through.
In the middle of the second quarter, Kobe continued to play at the three position, and Bird used an uncommonly small lineup.
Gan Guoyang at center, Mu Lin at power forward, Kobe at small forward, Riddle at shooting guard, and Brellock at point guard.
Bird did this because the Lakers had Robert Horry playing power forward, wanting to completely spread the floor for O’Neal to dominate inside.
Simultaneously, Bird wanted to speed up the pace with a small lineup to lessen O’Neal’s effectiveness in the low post.
It was a game of running, endurance, and rhythm, both sides gradually accelerating, gradually intensifying, seeing who would falter first.
To establish an advantage before the first half ended, Gan Guoyang began to increase his low-post attacks.
The Trail Blazers used their extremely smooth perimeter ball movement to feed Gan Guoyang, while maintaining perimeter movement to ensure that when Gan Guoyang faced double-teams, he could punish opponents with outside threes and sharp cuts.
The Lakers didn’t dare to easily double-team, resulting in Gan Guoyang scoring consecutively on O’Neal in the low post.
Four attempts, three made, scoring a total of 6 points.
Throughout the league, only Gan Guoyang can score on O’Neal with such reckless high efficiency.
Other centers who want to play against O’Neal often need to rely on some finesse, or shoot from mid-range, or use pick-and-rolls to attack O’Neal.
Gan Guoyang goes head-to-head, relishing in the intensity of the fiercest power confrontation, his adrenaline surging, his whole being exhilarated.
Fatigue? Non-existent. Been waiting a long time to face off against Little Shark. All the effort put into coming back is to play freely once more.
Gan Guoyang’s mindset can only be understood by the likes of Kobe and Jordan. They play not just for victory, money, and glory, but out of genuine love, even passion.
The tougher the situation, the more their fighting spirit is ignited. Adversity doesn’t get them down; it excites them because it’s time to showcase their stronger selves.
Across the league, only O’Neal can match up against Gan Guoyang in low-post battles, so Gan Guoyang certainly won’t pass up this opportunity.
O’Neal is frustrated, blindsided by being scored on three times, wanting to score back on the offensive end, but couldn’t break through Gan Guoyang’s defense in the low post.
He could only rely on working with his teammates, rolling off screens, or grabbing offensive rebounds, or just as at the game’s start, scoring with mid-range hooks.