With full doubts, Gan Guoyang returned to Portland as soon as possible, and the Trail Blazers were to play at home against the Los Angeles Lakers in the evening.

The Lakers haven't been in such a good place this season, and after half a season, they cut McAdoo in the offseason and get Maurice Lucas doesn't seem as rosy as it seems to be on paper.

Lucas has no problem playing on his own, he averages about 10 points and 7 rebounds per game, and as a bench interior player, he is good enough.

But the problem is that he is also too old, he entered the league in 1974 and has been fighting on the court for 15 years, on the offensive end he can rely on experience and talent to contribute to the Lakers, but on the defensive end, he plus Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is older than him, is really difficult to defend the team's three-second zone.

This also puts more defensive pressure on the Lakers' perimeter, and when they face a strong team on the inside like the Rockets and Trail Blazers, if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can't cause enough trouble on the offensive end, then the trouble will come back to the Lakers.

Abdul-Jabbar still has the strength to score 40 points in a single game, but at the age of 38, he has to save some gas in the tank.

To make matters worse, on January 22 in the big game against the Celtics in Boston Garden Square, the Magic was injured, and the Lakers were also engulfed by the flames of the Celtics' revenge on the road, losing 95-110.

They then lost back-to-back games to their fellow Los Angeles Clippers and Western Conference rivals the Denver Nuggets, suffering the longest three-game losing streak of the season and their first losing streak of the season.

Against the Trail Blazers, Magic Johnson still failed to return to the team, and the Lakers faced a four-game losing streak against a powerful emerging team that has risen this season.

However, the fatigue of the Trail Blazers' back-to-back runs gave the Lakers a chance, as this game was the Trail Blazers' third game in four days, and it was not played in one place, but on three different courts.

Therefore, at the beginning of the game, the whole Trail Blazers team was not in shape, and they were still on a par in the first quarter, but they were directly beaten by the Lakers 33:18 in the second quarter, and they fell behind by 15 points all of a sudden.

"Three games in four days, two away and two home, and more importantly, they've played 50 games so far, and they're still in first place in the West, and you know how many games the number one team in the East has played? 41 games! With nine games missing, I really don't know how the league arranges the schedule. ”

In the game, seeing the Trail Blazers being pressed and beaten by the Lakers without a Magic, the commentator Sean Lee on the sidelines began to constantly complain about the league's schedule, which he thought was too much for an elderly team like the Celtics and unfair to the Trail Blazers.

But there is no way to change the situation that the Trailblazers are at a disadvantage on the field, even Gan Guoyang is a little powerless, he is tired from running around for a long time, and an iron man like him can't stand it, who let him go to the University of Notre Dame to watch the game.

The Lakers, however, were in high spirits, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scoring 25 points on 11-of-22 shooting against an out-of-form Gan Guoyang, and Michael Cooper taking over the Magic's gun as a point guard and dishing out a game-high 12 assists.

Trail Blazers veteran Maurice Lucas was also unceremonious against his old boss, playing 20 minutes off the bench and scoring 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting.

In the end, the Lakers also defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 118-95 on the road, with a 23-point advantage, ending a three-game losing streak and avenging the last home game by defense.

After the game, the mood in the Trail Blazers team was not too low, and it was indeed reasonable to lose this game, and in the fourth quarter, Ramsey also replaced the main players to rest, and the whole team should have a good rest.

Thankfully, for the Trail Blazers' players, a long break is coming soon, and that's the All-Star Game that will be played in Dallas on Feb. 9.

In addition to Gan Guoyang and Drexler, the two are at the top of the All-Star voting and will serve as the starting center and starting point guard for the Western All-Star respectively.

Drexler originally wanted to continue to participate in the slam dunk contest, but was dissuaded by the "military advisor" Gan Guoyang, who said "You shouldn't be put on the title of dunk, you have to be an all-round player", the high-sounding reason, Drexler believed it.

In fact, the main reason is that Gan Guoyang really doesn't have more ideas in his head, and some ideas Drexler can't do, he is afraid that Drexler will be embarrassed and lose his hair if he goes back this time.

And Gan Guoyang doesn't know who won the 86 Slam Dunk Contest in history, anyway, it's definitely not Drexler, and it would be a little less to destroy history.

A few days before the All-Star break, that is, into February, Ramsey gave the players a day off to rest and adjust their condition, and then in the first game of February, the Trail Blazers opened the knife to the Lakers' city brother Clippers, and swept the opponent at home with a huge gap of 156:115, 41 points.

Gan Guoyang scored 33 points, 21 rebounds, 6 assists and 6 blocks in the game, and he only played three quarters of the game, and three of the other players scored 20, and all 11 players on the court scored points, which was a feast.

The poor Clippers are going to be crushed by the aristocratic Lakers in Los Angeles, and they have to help the Lakers pay off their debts in Portland, which is simply miserable.

After that, the Trail Blazers went to Denver and played a big game against their old rival Nuggets.

Alex Inglish was unstoppable and punched a big hole in the Trail Blazers' forward line, scoring 42 points and sounding the alarm again for the Trail Blazers' wing defense.

But the Nuggets' interior line also couldn't resist Gan Guoyang's outburst, and he scored 45 points in the face of the short Nuggets with a super high shooting rate of 18 of 22 shots, scoring 40 points in a single game for the fifth time this season.

The two teams battled until the last minute, and Vanderwicki, who was still sparse on the defensive end of the game, hit a key shot in the final moments, giving the Trail Blazers a 120-119 lead with five seconds left in the game.

Immediately afterwards, Gan Guoyang staged a defensive stunner again, he accurately judged the Nuggets' passing line, wrapped Inglish in advance, covered Inglish's last shot, and hugged the Trail Blazers for a valuable victory.

Of course, luck wasn't always on the Trail Blazers' side, and two days later, on Feb. 6, they faced the Dallas Mavericks, their old rivals in last season's playoffs.

The Trail Blazers, who originally led the opponent by 2 points at 109-107, made a fatal mistake when serving the ball in the backcourt, and was successfully cut off by Blackman, who also caused Kenny Carr's foul on a layup, and scored two points and added free throws.

After Blackmanga's free throw hit, the Mavericks overtook him, and the key attack, Gan Guoyang's hook hand missed, and the rebound was also grabbed by the Mavericks, and the Trail Blazers could only adopt foul tactics, but the Mavericks' players withstood the pressure and hit all the free throws.

At that time, the players' three-point shooting level was still very low, and the three-point shot was missing at the critical moment, and the weapon was really slow like a snail, and in the end the Trail Blazers failed to make up for the mistakes they made, losing the last game before the All-Star break by 111-115, a four-point gap at home.

But even with this loss, the Trail Blazers still sit first in the West with a 42-11 record, second in the league behind the Boston Celtics, and they have played nine more games than the Celtics.

After the game, the Trail Blazers did not disband on the spot, and at Gan Guoyang's strong request, the whole team gathered for a full day of high-intensity training the next day, in Gan Guoyang's words, such training can allow us to recover from relaxation more quickly after the holiday.

In fact, this can be regarded as Gan Guoyang leading the whole team to punish them for low-level mistakes in the game, because the competition in the league will be more fierce after the All-Star break.

At present, the Trail Blazers' roster is basically stable, and the consecutive victories have made Inman temporarily dismiss the intention of making a big trade, and feel comfortable to keep this overly offensive lineup until the end of the season.

The training lasted for a long time, and the main team and the substitute team launched a fierce confrontation, because the game had just finished yesterday, so the main team's physical strength was not as good as the substitute team, but it has been pressed by the substitute team.

There is no time or round limit for the two sides to play each other, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., the scoreboard of both sides has already turned over three digits, and both sides are still going on.

In fact, when the game ends, it basically depends on when Gan Guoyang doesn't want to fight, and the old man Ramsey has already gone back to the office for coffee anyway, so he doesn't care about the match.

And when Gan Guoyang doesn't want to play, it must be when the main team is more ahead, once the two sides are anxious or the substitute team is ahead, Gan Guoyang will never stop, and the others can only continue to play with him.

For this reason, Bellman, who flipped the scoreboard on the sidelines, finally couldn't stand it, because there were too many points on both sides, and no one could remember it later, so Bellman began to do tricks on the scoreboard, the substitute team scored two points, he counted one point, and the main team scored two points, he counted three points, and so he played until half past six, when the main team finally led the substitute team by 12 points at 515:503, Gan Guoyang announced the end of the game and threw the ball to indicate that he didn't want to play.

At this time, everyone was tired and decent, but no one complained, since the team did not play such a long marathon match this season, the players' competitive state has generally improved, and the ability to fight on the field has also been enhanced.

It's just that it's been a bit long today, and Paxson has even sat on the ground.

"Hey, Gan, what do you think I'm going to the three-point contest?" When Gan Guoyang passed by Paxson, Paxson patted Gan Guoyang's leg and asked.

"Three-point contest?"

"That's right, this year's All-Star has set up a new three-point contest project, which corresponds to the slam dunk contest, what do you think I should do, I scored a lot of three-pointers today, and it feels good."

"Not good, do you want to fight for second place?"