Riley's first move came quickly, and that was to bring on Mitchell Sampson, a veteran of the Trail Blazers, in the second quarter.

With the addition of Mitchell Sampson, the Lakers' roster has a record four champions, and they have one champion at each position except for the shooting guard position, which is outrageously talented.

During his time with the Trail Blazers, Mitchell Sampson's form has been declining since 1987, and he has always overlapped with Gan Guoyang in terms of features, which led the Trail Blazers to eventually trade him to the Spurs.

But the Trail Blazers didn't expect that Sampson would eventually go to the Lakers, and in the 1988 Western Conference Finals, he successfully caused trouble for Gan Guoyang and helped the Lakers eliminate the Trail Blazers to reach the Finals.

For the Trail Blazers, this is also a retribution, for which the Trail Blazers learned their lesson this year and traded for Buck Williams to strengthen their No. 4 spot and increase Sampson's fear of holding Gan Guoyang.

After Sampson came on the court, he and Gan Guoyang lightly touched the punch, and in Gan Guoyang's rookie season, the two had some conflicts, resulting in a relatively average relationship between the two after that, and they were in a state of not being salty or light.

However, Sampson is a big man with a happy personality, and as a champion, he is not as competitive as those superstars, so he is also very easy to get along with, Gan Guoyang and him have become opponents, and the relationship is better.

Riley is known as the "God Operator", but Riley is a God Calculation is mostly not manifested in tactics, but in the grasp of the player's psychology, he believes that Gan Guoyang played quite smoothly in the first quarter, at this time, Sampson, an old teammate, disturbed Gan Guoyang's psychological state, and there will be some interference restrictions on Gan Guoyang.

"Riley, that guy wants you to come up and contain me?" Gan Guoyang walked up to Sampson and said suddenly.

Sampson looked at Gan Guoyang and didn't speak, but Riley did say so to him, he didn't let Sampson flank Gan Guoyang, but he believed that Sampson's existence was a shadow for Gan Guoyang, just as he did to McHale.

But is Gan Guoyang really that susceptible?

The score was 27-28 at the start of the second quarter, with the Trail Blazers trailing the Lakers by one point, and the scores were evenly matched.

At the beginning of the second quarter, the Trail Blazers' first offense was particularly rapid, Drexler was halfway through the break in the first quarter, and when he returned to the court, he relied on Gan Guoyang's cover to kill the inside, a beautiful fingertip basket hit, and Sampson blocked it very well, but Drexler's basket was too ingenious, with a flick of his fingers, the ball spun quickly in the air, drawing a high parabola, and finally fell into the net bag.

"Wow, Singer-roll! After Irving and Gervin both retired, we can still see a hint of fingertip basketry only in Drexler. The well-informed Zike Hearn was also amazed by the beautiful goal.

Drexler had always idolized Dr. J. Irving as a child, and Irving's fingertip picks were just as beautiful as his dunks.

Magic Johnson was still resting off the court at this time, and he played the full first quarter, with Byron Scott and backup point guard David Rivers in possession, which made the pressure on the Trail Blazers defenders to stop being highly focused on Johnson's passes.

With Abdul-Jabbar on the verge of retirement, Sampson has been an 11-year veteran in the league, and the Lakers' aging problems have accumulated inside, so in the offense, Sampson has become a mid-range shooter and an open cutter under the basket.

His threat in the low post has been lost in Portland, so the Lakers, who have opened up the space, have a lot of room to break through, and Byron Scott also relied on a cover from Sampson to break through and kill the inside.

In the last season, Scott has risen to become the Lakers' scoring champion with his average of 21 points per game, making up for the Lakers' firepower gap when Abdul-Jabbar is aging, and at the same time, along with Michael Cooper, he has become an offensive, defensive and two-guard on the Magic's side.

When the Magic is not on the court, Scott, who is extremely well-rounded, is the outside engine of the Lakers, his speed and explosion are excellent, his shooting is excellent, and the breakthrough rhythm is very good.

"Byron Scott broke through the middle and the ball went off...... It was knocked out by Gan, the ball rolled to the ground, and Buck Williams fell to the ground to grab the ball and passed it to Gan, who in turn passed it to Porter. ”

The weakness of Scott's breakthrough is that his dribbling is relatively high, and his ability to change direction is not strong, he is more straight, Gan Guoyang's stealing ability has improved by leaps and bounds since last season, and he also has a full study of Scott's breakthrough, and knocked out the ball in Scott's hand.

Buck Williams showed his hard work, and was able to fight hard to grab the ball without a minute of rest in the first quarter, and threw the ball back to Gan Guoyang very quickly.

Gan Guoyang passed the ball to Porter on the left side, and he strode straight to the frontcourt, and the Lakers backcourt only David Rivers was alone, where did he stop Gan Guoyang.

"Potter passes, air relay! Gan's air relay! Putting the ball in the basket with both hands, nice defense, beautiful fast break, the Lakers are in trouble. ”

At this time, the Trail Blazers only surpassed the Lakers by 3 points, but Zike Hearn was keenly aware that the Lakers were "in-troubled", Abdul-Jabbar must have enough time to rest, and even if Abdul-Jabbar played, he couldn't stop Gan Guoyang from turning over.

Gan Guoyang smiled at Riley on the sidelines after the goal, as if telling Riley that it is useless for you to go to Sampson.

Subsequently, Gan Guoyang proved with his actions that Mitchell Sampson had no way to prevent Gan Guoyang from scoring whether he was a single defense or a co-defense, and the Lakers' old and weak interior line not only had to block Gan Guoyang, but also had to withstand the collision of Drexler, which made Mitchell Sampson miserable.

However, the Lakers deserve to be Lakers, and Byron Scott was defended by Gan Guoyang with a goal, but he was still able to score points on the outside with his personal ability to help the Lakers stabilize the situation on the court.

Worthy's low post still has a high efficiency, and the Trail Blazers' defensive posture does not contain it, so that Worthy can score relatively easily.

As long as the two hold on for a little longer, the Lakers will replace the Magic, and Abdul-Jabbar can get back into the game with a little more rest, and then the Lakers will be able to blow the horn of counterattack.

"Gan's pass...... Turnover, Scott breaks the ball, fast break, James Worthy ...... Gan followed up and covered the ball, and Porter got the rebound. Zike Hearn had already figured out how to praise Worthy's fast-break dunk, but he didn't expect Gan Guoyang to catch up and cover the ball.

In the NBA, it is even more difficult to cover James Worthy's fast-break dunk, Cobra's speed, bounce, bounce speed and arm span are all first-class, and Gan Guoyang's ball is also desperate.

"The Trail Blazers called a timeout, and both sides needed to readjust."

The Trail Blazers, who led by 5 points, took the lead in calling a timeout, and the Trail Blazers had turned the tide on the court, but this was the first half, Adelman was not too satisfied with the Trail Blazers' offense, and the Lakers' defense was still very aggressive, which made the Trail Blazers, who had always distributed the ball reasonably, fall into a solo battle to a certain extent, but Gan Guoyang and Drexler were in good shape, which maintained the advantage of the situation.

However, Abdul-Jabbar and the Magic are still sitting on the court, it is estimated that they will come back after the timeout, and the possibility of preventing the Lakers from attacking is not high, but it is advantageous to consume the Lakers on both offensive and defensive ends and keep suppressing them, which is advantageous to deal with such an old team.

Adelman thought for a moment, looked back at the bench, and said, "Sabonis, your time is up, get ready to play, we need you on the offensive end." ”

After seven games, Sabonis has never been able to play, and some people think that Sabonis will only play in garbage time, but he has not been given a chance in garbage time, indicating that Adelman does not trust him at all.

But in his usual training, Adelman always told Sabonis to be patient and asked him to watch everything on the field carefully.

After watching seven big wins, Sabonis finally got the opportunity to come off the bench in this crucial game against the Lakers, and there was obviously some surprise on his face, he thought that in such a strong conversation, he would not get a chance, and his appearance would have to wait until the next game.

Gan Guoyang didn't expect that Sabonis was going to play now, and said to him: "Are you ready, buddy, give some oil to the old guy opposite?" ”

Sabonis nodded nervously, then shook his head again and took a deep breath.

The spectators on the sidelines apparently spotted the big man on the Trail Blazers bench, knowing that the Soviet player was about to play, and some fans began to applaud and others whistle.

Sabonis' arrival in the United States is also big news, and now he is finally making his NBA regular season debut at the Great Western Forum Arena.

"The Trail Blazers replaced Buck Williams with a player from the Soviet Union, Arvidas Sabonis, and we could finally put the Soviet giant in the NBA. It looks like he's going to be on the pitch against Abdul-Jabbar, and I don't know what kind of lesson the 42-year-old will teach the big guy. ”

Clearly, everyone's eyes are wide to see what kind of quality the center forward who sent the United States to defeat at the Olympics.

On the sidelines, Adelman looked very confident, and he sat down all of a sudden, having been standing on the sidelines.

Adelman's confidence does not come from Sabonis, but he believes that when Sabonis's giant tower is on the field, it means that Gan Guoyang will be completely liberated.