Gan Guoyang's blow to Rasmussen in the second quarter was fatal, and after this quarter, Nuggets head coach Doug Mo never replaced Rasmussen on the court, and the young man was beaten with little confidence.

In contrast, Wayne Cooper, as a veteran, although he still failed to stop Gan Guoyang's continuous scoring on the court, he can still protect the inside line better, unlike Rasmussen, whose soul has been knocked out.

"Gan asked for the ball again in the low post, Dunn stepped forward to wrap it up, Gan passed the ball back to Colt, Colt broke through, tossed! Didn't go in, Cooper got the rebound. ”

"The offensive momentum of the Trail Blazers has finally been slowed down a bit, and the Nuggets can take a breath and see if they can chase the score back a bit, 15 points is a hurdle and must be bitten."

Before Colter's missed shot, the Trail Blazers had played an 11-2 mini-climax, stretching the score gap to 15 points, which was also the largest point difference between the two sides in the first half.

Gan Guoyang is a big hole that can never be repaired for the Nuggets, whether it is Cooper, Rasmussen or Shays, the one-on-one defense of Gan Guoyang in this game is basically for nothing, and Doug Mo's on-the-spot reaction is a little slow, and the implementation of the trap tactic is too late.

"Inglish singles with the ball on the right side, turns over on the baseline and shoots, the ball goes in! It was such an important shot for the Nuggets, they hadn't scored for three minutes, and it was a rain in the desert. ”

For the Trail Blazers, Inglish was also a big holebreaker, and Colt had already wrapped it up early, but Inglish cleverly walked the baseline and turned, and then hit a difficult shot from a tight angle.

But Inglish desperately scored a single, and when he turned around, Gan Guoyang went down quickly, received a pass from Drexler, quickly turned his back to the single, turned over and hooked a small hook, and hit a two-point shot!

"Solid card position, solid top man, solid hook hand, and back-to-back singles in the fast break reflect Gan's incomparably solid low-post skills." Dick Stockton used several "good" in a row to describe Gan Guoyang's offense, in the fast offense, few players will give up the opportunity to force a layup to use the back single, because if you can't score, not to mention, you are likely to be caught by the opponent or even cut off the ball.

The reason why Gan Guoyang played like this was because he was extremely confident in his back-to-back skills, his technical moves were done in one go, and Calvin Knight, who was misplaced to defend him, didn't even have a chance to jump and foul, and watched Gan Guoyang press him on his head and hook his hand.

After the goal, Gan Guoyang also pursed his lips and made a helpless expression, as if to say, "Knight, you are too short." ”

However, Knight is short and also has the advantage of being short, one inch long and one inch strong, one inch short and one inch dangerous, the reason why Knight can be a guard with height in the NBA interior mix is his advantage, that is, the magic weapon of all short interior lines - flexible footwork and ultra-long attack range.

"Knight went around to the middle to catch the ball, shot, it was a feint, he went straight to the layup, the ball went in, and he dodged Gan's block."

Knight is sometimes more like a small forward on the offensive end, he has the shooting skills and breakthrough ability of a small forward, but at the same time, his strength and confrontation ability are not matched by ordinary small forwards.

It can be said that Knight is deep in the short inner line "tall is not as fast as me, fast is not as strong as me", and in the second quarter, the Nuggets relied on Inglish and Knight, barely maintaining the difference within 15 points, and the two sides entered the halftime break.

"Good job boys, but we weren't at our best, I mean the Trail Blazers-style offense didn't show up, and even though we had 65 points, it was too focused and Gan scored 26 points alone. Gan, I don't mind if you score 60 points a game, but it's very tiring to win like that, and the other players don't just play defensively. We're going to attack, we're going to pull away, we have to take advantage of our 13-point advantage, tear the opponent's wound even bigger in the third quarter, and let them bleed to death. The tempo is on our side. Ramsey dropped his harsh words at halftime and asked the whole team to open fire and kill the Nuggets.

The reason why Ramsey dares to say this, in addition to his confidence in the Trail Blazers, mainly stems from his understanding of the characteristics of the Nuggets.

Also as the coach of an offensive team, Ramsey knows very well how hard it is for a team that has been lacking high-intensity overall defensive ability to chase points when they are behind by a big score, and it just so happens that the Nuggets are such a team, and their high-pressure defensive ability is not as good as the Trail Blazers.

So as long as the rhythm of the first half is not carried into the ditch by the Nuggets, Ramsey is sure to press the Nuggets until the end of the game, after all, the trump card in his hand is more mature than last year.

Sure enough, as soon as the third quarter came up, three minutes before the trend of the second half, the Trail Blazers used a stormy offense to break through the Nuggets' defense, and suddenly opened the score gap to 21 points, and then the Nuggets had to call a timeout.

After the timeout, the Nuggets could only maintain a 21-point gap, but there was no way to catch up, and sure enough, the team that has been lacking strong defense is too difficult to complete the big reversal.

"The Trail Blazers' offense is as steady as the snow on Mount Kilimanjaro, and whenever someone runs out of bullets, there is always someone who can replace them, and it is very difficult for the Nuggets to recover it." Dick Stockton has commented countless games, and he has seen a lot of reversals, and Stockton still has a lot of ideas about whether a team can complete the reversal.

Time passed little by little, the Trail Blazers had used a ten-man rotation, and by the end of the fourth quarter, even water coolers like Ken Johnson were on the court, and the Nuggets coach also replaced the main players one after another, and after struggling for a quarter and a half, they finally chose to give up and save hope for the next game.

When Gan Guoyang was replaced by Ramsey, the audience resounded with warm applause, and the fans of the Memorial Stadium stood up one after another to cheer for Gan Guoyang's wonderful performance, Gan Guoyang shot 14 of 16 in the whole game, with a shooting rate of 87 percent, and scored 31 points and 15 rebounds, which is undoubtedly the biggest contributor to the team's victory.

Drexler contributed a quasi-triple-double of 17 points, 9 rebounds and 11 assists, and with Colter's lack of playmaking experience, Drexler took on more of a playmaker on offense.

The two guns of Vanderwich and Paxson played their role very well - scoring, and whenever the Nuggets wanted to make a move, the two of them often hit the opponent with a heart-piercing shot.

When the game was over, the score was fixed at 127-110, and the Trail Blazers won the first game of the semifinals and got off to a flying start.

………………

The first two games of the Western Conference semifinals had results, and the East also began to compete, the Boston Celtics, the first in the East, in the first game against the Atlanta Hawks, sacrificed a steely defense, especially in the crucial third quarter, the Celtics beat the Hawks a 34-17, doubling the Hawks.

The Hawks didn't score more than 25 points in the first three quarters, only brushing up for 28 points in the fourth quarter of garbage time, and Dominique Wilkins was unreachable by the Celtics, shooting 4-of-15 from the field, shooting a low percentage and scoring only 13 points.

The confident Hawks, who beat the Pistons before the start of the series, also really experienced the horror of the league's strongest team, and there is no doubt that no one is optimistic that the Hawks can cause an upset.

Another high-profile matchup between the 76ers and the Bucks is between the two teams, and the feud between the two teams is enough to make a TV series.

Except for the 1984 playoffs, when the 76ers were unexpectedly eliminated by the Nets and failed to enter the second round, from 1981 to 1985, the two teams met in the playoffs for four years, and the Bucks were beaten by the 76ers again and again.

This time, Moses Malone was reimbursed for the season and was unable to participate in the playoffs, which can be said to be the best chance for the Bucks to get revenge.

However, the 76ers did restrain the Bucks in terms of playing style, and the psychological advantage of winning all four playoff games was too great, and as a result, in the first game at the Spectrum Arena, the nightmare of the Bucks, Charles Barkley scored 31 points on 12-of-19 shooting, grabbed 20 rebounds, and also handed out 6 assists, 6 steals, and 2 blocks, a complete superstar performance.

Even if the whole team on the Bucks' side played well, they couldn't withstand Barkley's natural inferiority, they collapsed in the final quarter, were overtaken by the 76ers, and finally lost the game 112-118.

With this fight, Charles Barkley also beat Gan Guoyang, Magic and Bird to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week, and he gave people a glimpse of the huge energy contained in this under-size inside body.

The beauty of the NBA playoffs, though, is that you can never accurately predict the course of an entire series before a game, and even if one or two games are played, observers can probably be completely wrong.

Just after Houston lost the first game against the Lakers, the vast majority of media and fans believed that the Lakers would smoothly advance to the division finals, and the Rockets were too young to fight the Lakers who were at their peak in the playoffs.

On April 29, the Rockets gave all the experts a slap in the face with a hard-fought victory.

The Rockets' overall height and athleticism advantage finally really worked, and the Rockets' coach Feige, who was once the head coach of the Celtics, has a wealth of experience, and he has grasped the weakness of the Lakers' overall roster that tends to age, especially the aging inside, attacking the interior on the offensive end, and making Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson crazy on the defensive end.

The twin towers went completely crazy in this game, Sampson 24 points, 16 boards, 9 assists and 5 blocks, Olajuwon 22 points, 13 boards, 4 steals and 6 blocks, beating the old Abdul-Jabbar to the point that he couldn't take care of himself, and the offensive end was covered by the front and back many times, and he didn't feel at all, and only 9 of 26 shots.

Relying only on Magic Johnson's 19 assists, the Lakers were completely unable to outmaneuver the Rockets, who punched the old master to death, stealing a victory at the Great Western Forum Arena 112-102, and the next game will be seen in Houston.

This is also a wake-up call for the Trailblazers and Gan Guoyang, after all, the lesson of winning two games and losing three games in a row last season is still vivid, and the playoffs are not sloppy at all.