They only had a shell of a scheme; as long as the opponents made even a small adjustment, the Trail Blazers just couldn’t keep up. With no communication, no talking on defense, they were always a step slow reacting.
Big Ben was very displeased. He yelled at Kobe and Little O’Neal: "What’s wrong with you two, did you both turn mute? How are we supposed to defend if you don’t talk out there!"
Kobe shot back: "Just take care of your own business."
"You really are a pain in the ass, seriously."
Big Ben was starting to have enough of Kobe; among the three of them, he was never all that convinced by Kobe to begin with.
"Say whatever you want, just don’t get lit up," Kobe still wouldn’t back down verbally.
The game was going on, so the two of them had no Kung Fu to argue. Anderson passed the ball to Reed on the wing, and Reed slipped a pass inside to Little O’Neal.
Tonight Yao Ming was the primary defender on Little O’Neal. Facing Yao, who was much taller and bigger than he was, Little O’Neal wasn’t afraid.
Even though he’d just been blocked, this time he used his footwork and his jumper, spun, and hit a hook shot for two.
All those little skills and details were things Gan Guoyang had taught him; now in a real game, he was using them very well.
Back on defense, Gan Guoyang caught the ball and, seeing the Trail Blazers’ changed defensive emphasis and tendencies, immediately punished them with his passing.
Yao Ming caught the ball on the low block, turned, and answered Little O’Neal with a hook shot of his own for two.
"This isn’t right, we’re giving up points too fast to start," Carl realized there was a problem.
If it turned into a shootout, that wasn’t the pace the Trail Blazers liked or were good at; they needed to grind the game with defense.
But with the defense completely out of sync between inside and out, how were they supposed to withstand Glory’s varied offense?
At this point, it was a good thing the Trail Blazers’ offense felt pretty good; otherwise they’d have been blown out in the first quarter.
Little O’Neal hit another jumper; Kobe came up with a steal, and on the fast break Jerald Wallace knocked the ball out of bounds.
Big Ben took the ball and swung it to Reed; Reed was stripped by Jordan, and on the break Gan Guoyang took the pass, went to the rim, and laid it in.
The two teams went back and forth in a messy sequence of offense and defense, and in the end it was Gan Guoyang who reaped the benefits.
In the first quarter, Gan Guoyang scored 12 points on 100 percent shooting. Glory led the Trail Blazers 31–25 by 6 points.
During the break, Carl kept hammering home to his players that they had to tighten up the defense and slow the tempo of the game down.
Big Ben said, "Those two don’t communicate at all. How are we supposed to defend?"
Carl looked at Kobe and Little O’Neal and said, "If you really don’t want to win, then go ahead and be mutes!"
Kobe and Little O’Neal both stayed silent. Neither wanted to be the first to bow his head; they were both still pissed inside.
In the second quarter, with Gan Guoyang resting on the bench, facing the Trail Blazers’ scrambled defensive formation, Jordan sliced in like a surgeon. With simple pull-up jumpers, he kept pounding away at the Trail Blazers.
You could see Jordan was in a good mood, in great shape. Once he found his rhythm, the defense might as well not exist: one explosive step, a sudden stop, and the shot was there.
For the Trail Blazers, defending Jordan and Ah Gan was always a system project: every part had to be airtight and perfectly coordinated.
Now it wasn’t just small glitches—they had their two most important components not meshing at all, and the interior and perimeter defense had come apart.
On offense Kobe and Little O’Neal were willing to pass to each other, but on defense, not talking and communicating just didn’t work.
By the time the two checked back in, Ah Gan was back as well, clearly with a strong scoring urge.
He ran a pick-and-roll with Andre Miller, popped out, caught the ball, Little O’Neal stepped up on him, and Gan Guoyang lowered his body and slashed inside.
Reed came over to help, but it didn’t matter—Gan easily powered through him for a layup, drawing another foul and a free throw.
He knocked down the free throw for a three-point play; that rotation never should’ve been Reed’s help assignment in the first place.
"Where’s that defense you guys are so proud of, fellas?" Gan Guoyang asked.
Kobe didn’t answer. He immediately pushed the ball back, drove hard to the rim, and drew a foul on Ross with a layup attempt.
With that kind of stubborn approach, Kobe was trying to pull back a situation that was slowly tilting out of balance.
Gan Guoyang caught the ball on the right side at about 45 degrees, near the three-point line. It looked like he was just facilitating, but he suddenly backed into Little O’Neal, bumped him to carve out a sliver of space, and pulled up for a long jumper!
It was an extremely difficult shot, almost at the three-point line. Forcing it from that spot and fading away made it all the more tough.
Gan Guoyang only tried shots like that when he was feeling really good.
The ball traced a high arc and dropped dead center through the Nets with a crisp, pleasing swish.
Right after that, Gan Guoyang suddenly jumped a passing lane at the top of the arc, picked off Anderson’s pass, then dribbled straight to the rim and finished with a gliding dunk!
Some fans in the Rose Garden Arena fell silent, others cheered. A lot of younger fans who had never seen Gan Guoyang at his peak, when they saw this kind of transcendent scoring ability and standout style, had no choice but to reevaluate this "basketball idol of mom and dad’s generation."
Looked like there was some real reason their parents had worshiped this yellow-skinned, black-eyed basketball star so much back then.
With one scoring burst, Gan Guoyang forced the Trail Blazers to call time. Carl knew he had to stop Ah Gan—when this guy exploded as a scorer, his damage output was historically unmatched.
Some players may put up 50 or 60 in a game, but if you look at the context, it’s often because their team is getting suppressed, no one else can do anything, and he has to step up and score more to cover for his teammates.
Gan Guoyang was different. His big scoring nights usually came with a whirlwind offensive storm that shattered opponents in one wave, leaving them with no chance to fight back.
Because his efficiency was too high and his damage too great, he didn’t pile up points by jacking up shots. He scored big because the defense simply couldn’t stop him.
Just on those possessions, Gan Guoyang had already drawn fouls on three of the Trail Blazers’ main players. Big Ben and Little O’Neal both became hesitant to make any bold moves inside.
Kobe could’ve been more aggressive helping on defense and making life harder for Ah Gan, but he didn’t do enough. His energy was all focused on dealing with Jordan, which, to be fair, wasn’t exactly wrong.
Carl himself was getting a bit scrambled. The whole second quarter, the Trail Blazers’ defense kept changing, a complete mess with no structure.
Gan Guoyang was still being relatively "merciful"; after all, he was older now and no longer had that endless well of explosiveness from his youth.
So by halftime, Gan Guoyang had dropped 27, Jordan had 15, and the two combined for 42 points to lead Glory to a 67–55 halftime lead over the Trail Blazers by 12.
The Trail Blazers’ offense was actually fine. Little O’Neal’s touch was great in the first half; he scored 14 against Yao Ming’s defense, and Kobe had 13.
But if you looked at the flow of the game, you could tell the two teams hadn’t really fully tested each other yet. The Trail Blazers were clearly not in good shape, while Glory was basically holding back and hadn’t really gone all in.
At halftime, Carl lost his temper too. If you two bastards don’t feel like defending, then just go pad your stats on offense and see if you can outscore Ah Gan.
At this point, Carl very much wanted Gan Guoyang to give those two a proper lesson—these "young"... no, they weren’t young anymore; they were veterans in their seventh year with three rings on their fingers. It was time they grew up some more.
When the third quarter started, Gan Guoyang took a deep breath, loosened up his shoulders and arms, and said to Jordan, "Michael, remember to get me the ball more."
"I know. Just don’t only look for yourself."
"I know."
The third quarter opened with both teams going scoreless for two minutes, trading bricks.
Finally, Little O’Neal caught Anderson’s pass at the free throw line and knocked down a midrange jumper to break the ice.
Gan Guoyang then caught the ball on the low block, abandoned the Princeton setup, turned quickly on the catch, and dropped in a hook shot.
Kobe dribbled repeatedly, drove to the rim, and finished a left-handed dunk. Gan Guoyang caught a pass from Jordan, went middle from the low post, and hit another hook.
Reed missed a jumper, and in transition Gan Guoyang took a pass from Jordan, spun, and hooked it in again.
Kobe missed a three; at 45 degrees, Gan Guoyang caught it on the shallow low post, gave a fake, turned, drove, and put up a move hook—good again!
Some of the old Trail Blazers fans in the building started clapping. They could vaguely see that Super Gan again, the one who used to slaughter opponents on the low block, ripping off ten-plus or even twenty straight points in one go.
For the fans and players in the arena, both good and bad memories were being stirred up.
Take Bird, for example. Watching Ah Gan hit hook after hook, his PTSD was about to flare up.
"Just go up and hit him! Hell, just beat him up already!" Bird screamed in his heart.
In the end, Kobe got stuffed by Jordan on offense, and Gan Guoyang used another gliding dunk on the fast break to blow the roof off the entire Rose Garden.
The Trail Blazers fans in the arena didn’t care whose jersey Ah Gan was wearing—the Super Gan was back! Limited-time comeback!
Carl called a timeout. Kobe and Little O’Neal were stunned.
The two looked at each other and almost spoke at the same time: "I..."
Kobe said, "We should really defend."
"That’s what I was thinking too."
"We’ve got to stop Ah Gan."
"That’s what I was thinking too."
"Or... we could just give Ah Gan a few punches."
"I... whoever wants to do that can go ahead."