"I think we're in a very bad situation."

This is what Kenny Carr, who was sitting on the bench, said to Gan Guoyang next to him in the fourth quarter of the game between the Trail Blazers and Nuggets, with five minutes left before the end of the game.

At this time, the score of the two sides on the court is 107:100, and the Trail Blazers are still 7 points behind the Nuggets, which is not an unattainable score, and it is more than enough to recover 7 points in 5 minutes.

However, as Carl said, the Trail Blazers are in a really bad situation.

Gan Guoyang was supposed to fight with his teammates in the final moments on the court, but with 5 fouls on his back, he had to sit on the bench in advance.

The Trail Blazers didn't find a way to contain the Nuggets' offense from start to finish, and they had to wait and wait for the Nuggets to catch up when they didn't feel so good.

But it didn't take long for the Nuggets to adjust and reopen the scores on both sides with a sharp offense.

The Trail Blazers struggled and mediocre on the court, and they could still play very good offensive tactics, but they didn't handle as many details as they did in the first two games.

Their turnovers are starting to mount, which is the worst of all, and against an attacking team like the Nuggets, any one mistake can be very costly.

In contrast, the Nuggets' turnovers were very well controlled, and they kept them to a very low level in the regular season, which is even more terrifying when you consider their high-tempo offense.

And Ramsey also seems to have been influenced by Jim Paxson in terms of personnel, I don't know if it is out of the consideration of balancing the psychology of Paxson and Sampson, or he thinks that the effect of using these two against the Nuggets is really good, and the playing time of Paxson and Sampson has increased.

In that case, Kenny Carr must have no opinion, but Drexler's is clearly not happy.

In the first three games, Drexler was the defensive leader responsible for defending Inglish, and generally speaking, his defensive effect was still okay, much better than Van Dewig, and he defended Inglish on the field, which also released a lot of pressure on Van Dewig.

And after Paxson's playing time increases, he will definitely not be able to defend Inglish, and this task naturally falls to Van Dewig's head, so it is really difficult to say whether Paxson's points contributed on the offensive end can offset Inglish's score.

What's even more fatal is that the spirit of the pioneers is gone.

Whether Paxson starts or Drexler starts, as long as the player's spirit is there and he has fighting spirit, it is not too much of a problem.

But now in such a situation, the coach has a hard time, the players have conflicts with each other, and they naturally can't work together forcefully on the field, and some low-level mistakes occur frequently on the field, which is undoubtedly a secondary injury to the Trailblazers.

Therefore, even if everyone still plays very hard, how can a team that can't get together compete with the Nuggets who are fighting at home and have high morale.

“a~lex~en~glish！ (Alex Inglish!) It was the voice of the DJ on the field, and the audience let out a huge cheer.

It was Inglish, the razor that began to slash the Trail Blazers' neck again, and he hit two consecutive jumpers at the top of the arc to extend the gap to 11 points.

11 points, the difference is more than 10 points, and the time of the game is constantly lost.

"Beep!" The referee's whistle blew and Ramsey called a timeout.

At this time, Ramsey pursed his mouth tightly, held the tactical board in his hand, and watched the players walk off the field with their heads down.

"Okay lads, we've got four minutes left and we still have a chance. Defend, we have to defend, if we can't defend them, then all attacks will be in vain, so we have to show fighting spirit to defend! ”

At this time, Ramsey's words were particularly pale, everyone knew that defense was needed at this time, and if he could defend with his mouth, it would not be the Trail Blazers who were lagging behind now.

Ramsey wanted to say something, but looking at the tired eyes of the players, he suddenly lost his words.

"Gan, get ready to play, do your job, we still have a chance." Ramsey said with some weakness.

In just one game, on the Denver Plateau, the Portland Trail Blazers felt like they had lost their soul all of a sudden, or did they never have a soul?

Perhaps, because the Trail Blazers have been stellar this season, but they never seem to have a championship as the ultimate goal, and they don't have a guy who can inspire anyone to give everyone a slap in the face in such a frustrating moment.

Gan Guoyang really wants to stand up at this time, put everything on his shoulders, just like he did in Gonzaga, and drag the team across the finish line.

However, passion and confidence do not arise out of thin air, Gan Guoyang sees fatigue in everyone's eyes, including Ramsay's eyes, this fatigue cannot be easily awakened by roaring.

"Maybe, everyone is waiting to go home, and when we get back to Portland and have a good rest, we can give the Nuggets a head-on blow!" Gan Guoyang thought in his heart.

When he also began to think like this, it meant that the last glimmer of hope for the Trail Blazers had been lost.

As expected, the Trail Blazers lost another game in Denver, 118-109, and Portland came to Denver with a 2-0 lead, not taking away the series victory, but returning to Portland with a 2-2 ending.

Everything seems to be back to square one, with a best-of-seven game turned into a best-of-three game, with the Trail Blazers still holding home-court advantage, but the morale and cohesion of the two teams are completely different.

On May 6, the Trail Blazers flew back to Portland to begin preparations for the Battle of Tenno's Mountain on May 7.

The importance of this game is self-evident, and if you win Tianwang Mountain, the initiative of the series is completely in your hands.

If the Nuggets lose this game, there is a plateau home to rely on, and if the Trail Blazers lose this game at home, then they are standing on the edge of a cliff, and they are very likely to be eliminated in six games.

Therefore, the whole team made sufficient preparations before the game, both tactics and details, and almost everyone felt that the Trail Blazers back home were different from the Trail Blazers in Denver.

Only Gan Guoyang felt that the team was still missing something.

"I think Ramsay's prestige is slowly being lost, very slowly, slowly, but it's really being lost." After the training, Gan Guoyang said to Adelman, such a more serious topic, now Gan Guoyang will always discuss with Adelman alone, he feels that Adelman is a very wise and intelligent person, and some of the suggestions he puts forward can always benefit Gan Guoyang a lot.

"Do you know the relationship between Paxson and Ramsay?" Adelman suddenly said to Gan Guoyang.

"I ...... Not very clear. Gan Guoyang suddenly found that because he was far away from Paxson, he didn't know anything about this player.

It's really a bit strange to think about it now, Ramsey has always supported Paxson, it doesn't seem to be just because he is better suited to the team than Drexler, and after Paxson "forced" Ramsey, Ramsey's reaction seemed to be a little too big, and he seemed to have been hit very hard.

"Hehe, so you don't know why Ramsay is so upset, and Paxson shouldn't be feeling good." Adelman said with some emotion.

"What the hell is going on?" Gan Guoyang's curiosity was aroused.

"Well, I'll talk to you, of course, I've heard from others, from General Manager Inman, and from Ramsey himself. I only came to the Trail Blazers in 1983, and of course, I've played here before, but not for long. As for Paxson, he's been here since 1979, and it's been six years now, and only Sampson has been around longer than him. He struggled a lot in his rookie season, he struggled a lot, he didn't play as well as you, but he was also a high pick with the 12th pick in the first round. As you can imagine, his self-confidence must have suffered a lot at that time. Then it was 1980, after the All-Star Game, and I remember that the All-Star Game was played in Kansas, yes, Kansas, Missouri. At that time, the players were on vacation, and the first game after the All-Star was played in Kansas, and some of the players happened to be in Kansas and stayed to prepare for the game, and others who were not in Kansas flew there by themselves. It was at the airport that Paxson and Ramsay met, and together they took a taxi to the team's hotel. That's right, in the taxi together, all the people who told me the story were emphasizing the taxi, and in the car, the two of them had a great conversation, and that conversation was very uplifting to Paxson. And then, Paxson was like flipping the scoring switch, he started scoring constantly, he started to turn into a great shooting guard, and he started to make it to the All-Star Level. To this day, he is Ramsay's most trusted choice for shooting guard. Adelman told everything he knew in one breath.

"Corny story." Gan Guoyang said after listening.

"That's right, very old-fashioned, the rookie who is motivated by the coach, the rookie who explodes, and the gratitude to the coach. But now it's different, Paxson forces Ramsay! Can you imagine Ramsay's mood? I'm sure Ramsey has put no less effort into developing Paxson than he has put into you. And before Paxson, there was also a Bill Wharton, that guy who could be said to really break Jack's heart. Now, is it all going to happen all over again? Or do you want to do the same in the future? Adelman also seems to have noticed Gan's slight dissatisfaction with Ramsey and his ambition to control the team behind him.

"Me? No kidding. In the future, Ramsey will be replaced by you, maybe you can't tell, Führer. Gan Guoyang gave Adelman a deep look.

"Now is not the time to talk about this kind of issue, Gan, the team is really dangerous." Adelman dodged the question.

Gan Guoyang sighed when he heard this, and then he clenched his fists tightly.

"If losing can bring change and explosion, I'd rather lose this game, there is an old Chinese saying, 'if you don't break, you can't stand'!" Gan Guoyang said in Chinese, while Adelman was at a loss, not knowing what Gan Guoyang said.

But he could feel the burning fighting spirit in Gan Guoyang's eyes.

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