After scoring, the two high-fived, their faces showing slight smiles, but without much excitement.
The excited ones were the fans on the scene and the massive audience in front of their televisions, the duo’s coordination was simply perfect.
In both offense and defense, their play was delightful and harmonious, leaving people regretting that they only teamed up at this age.
The Trail Blazers finally couldn’t hold up, starting to show signs of collapsing.
But Kobe refused to give up, driving the ball inside and scoring with a switch-handed layup.
Then, Gan Guoyang received the ball in the low post, quickly spun past Little O’Neal.
Little O’Neal chased, Gan Guoyang spun again, faking out Little O, and scored with a hook shot!
Footwork reminiscent of Olajuwon, such a basket meant that Ah Gan had found his rhythm.
Kobe’s shot didn’t go in, Gan Guoyang grabbed the rebound, dribbled to half court himself, and made a crossover past Anderson.
Passing to Jordan at a 45-degree angle on the wing, Jordan caught the ball, aimed, glanced at the three-point line below his feet, and shot!
The ball traced a not-so-perfect arc, but still fell through the net, a three-pointer!
MGM Arena went completely wild, the Trail Blazers under immense pressure, in the last three minutes of the fourth quarter, their offense and defense totally collapsed.
The point gap went from 10 points to 13, to 15, finally sprinting toward 20 points, the suspense of the game dwindling in the tide of Glory’s offense more and more, until it vanished.
Kobe’s efforts were like a lone leaf in the ocean, able to ride the waves when it was calm, but when Ah Gan and Jordan teamed up to create a massive storm, his efforts seemed small and were quickly submerged.
The key was the entire Trail Blazers’ system and morale were shattered, they couldn’t organize strong offense and defense to compete with Glory.
The weakness of the bench forced the starters to expend too much energy maintaining balance in the front, when the balance broke, they had no energy left.
In the final minute, with the game about to end, the score reached 104:87, a 17-point gap, Carl subbed out the starters.
The fans began constant cheers, everyone knew, securing this victory meant Glory was just one win away from the championship.
Seeing the Trail Blazers subbing out the starters, Porter also benched Ah Gan, Jordan, and the others.
Gan Guoyang scored 28 points throughout the game, Jordan scored 25, tonight Glory had a complete victory, every player who played contributed with scoring.
A victory belonging to the entire team, Gan Guoyang and Jordan sat on the bench drinking water, Jordan said: "There’s one game left, just one more game."
"That’s right, one more game, and we can win the championship together."
"No, what I mean is, the games we play together, there’s only one left."
Jordan took a sip of Gatorade, implying that after the championship game, he would retire.
Gan Guoyang was already aware of Jordan’s decision, for the 39-year-old Jordan, such a long season was truly too grueling.
Theoretically, he could endure for another two years, but Jordan didn’t want to witness himself declining too severely, where even if his stats seemed okay, the actual play was terrible, especially on defense.
This playoff series against Boston was extremely tough, igniting Jordan’s retirement thoughts.
The finals matchup against Kobe further made Jordan realize that the future belonged to players like Kobe.
Continuing in the League would only make him more embarrassed, better to retire, and serve as a general manager for Glory.
If Ah Gan wants to play, let him play well, anyway, he’s not human, when the time comes, Jordan will assemble teammates for Ah Gan, be Ah Gan’s "leader," not too joyous.
"Not necessarily, what if we go to game seven, then there would be three games left."
"No, no, Sonny, let’s wrap it up, it’s time to end."