In the United States, a developed capitalist country, sports have become an indispensable and important part of people's lives, and highly developed professional sports have brought countless fun and passion to people's spare time.

Among the 50 states in the United States, except for two overseas states, each of the remaining 48 states has its own state's representative sports team, of which football, baseball, ice hockey and basketball are the four major ball sports.

Some states have exceptionally strong professional sports, such as California, which has three NBA professional teams, two NFL teams, and five MLB teams, and has won countless league championships.

Like the famous Los Angeles Lakers, they have won seven NBA championships as of 1984, and they will have more to come.

Indiana, for example, doesn't have as many professional teams there as California, and the history of the team isn't particularly illustrious, but the sporting atmosphere there is one of the best in the country.

As a result, India is known as the "State of Basketball" and "The State of Racing".

Ohio, also located in the middle of the United States, also has its own pride in the field of professional sports.

In football, they have the Cleveland Browns, who have won the NFL championship four times — even before the Super Bowl.

In baseball, they had the Cleveland Indians, who formed in 1901 and won two world championships, in 1920 and 1948.

Only in the basketball world is Ohio a real "championship desert".

Neither of the two teams here, the Cincinnati Royals and the Cleveland Cavaliers, have ever won an NBA championship — not even made it to the Finals.

And by the time of 1984, Ohio hadn't won a single professional sports league championship for nearly 30 years.

The Cincinnati Royals, who have lived here for 27 years, will also move out of the land next season to California, the hotland of sports.

Ohioans' hopes for a basketball championship can only be pinned on Ohio University and Ling Yizhi's only team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Since joining the NBA in 1970, the whole team, like all the new teams in history, has started from scratch, from scratch, and from rotten.

Until 1984, the Cavaliers showed no signs of becoming a league powerhouse, although there were many famous stars such as Lenny Wilkens, Nate Thurmond (Gan Guoyang's first teacher), and Walter Fraser, but they were either incapable or in the twilight of their careers, and they were difficult to make a difference.

To add insult to injury, in 1978, the Cavaliers welcomed the "legendary" owner of "I call the second worst and no one dares to call it the first" - Ted Stepion.

In 1980, Stepian acquired a 37% stake in the Cavaliers, becoming the team's largest investor and true decision-maker.

In the three years until 1983, the Cavaliers had a record of 66 wins and 180 losses, barely exceeding 30 percent, ranking at the bottom of the league.

The team lost $15 million over the course of three years, when Stepian bought the Cavaliers for just $2 million.

In three years, he changed six managers for the team, including four in the 1981-1982 season alone, and frequent personnel changes saw the team win just 15 games that season.

Over the course of three years, he traded the Cavaliers' first-round picks for the next two consecutive years, 1981 and 1982, leaving the team without first-round picks for several years.

One of the most famous examples is when he traded the 1982 first-round pick to the Lakers, and the amazing Cavaliers who had always had a good face in the lottery got the top pick, which gave the defending champion Lakers the first pick that year.

This is the only time in NBA history that a defending champion has been picked with a No. 1 pick, and the Lakers used this pick to select James Worthy, which directly allowed the Purple and Gold to complete the transition between the old and the new on the front line.

The Cavaliers paid a heavy price for this, and the entire team's rebuilding plan went bankrupt as a result.

The NBA league couldn't stand his self-serving behavior anymore, and forced him to transfer the franchise to local billionaire Gordon Gunde for $20 million at the end of 1983.

At the same time, the league tailor-made a "Stepian" rule for him, prohibiting the team from trading his first-round picks for two consecutive years, in order to prevent a second-level boss like Stepian from learning from Lei Feng.

By the 1984 season, the Cavaliers had not improved since Stepion's clutches, with a team record of 16 consecutive defeats on the road, winning just five away games all season.

Sitting in fourth place in the Central Division with 28 wins and 54 losses, even so, this is the team's best result since the '78-79 season.

Their home court attendance averaged 5,075 — less than a third of the Trail Blazers. However, it is still an increase of 30% over the previous year.

By the end of the 1985 season, the Cavaliers' record still didn't look any better, and they started the season with a nine-game losing streak, and so far in 14 games, they have won only two games, the bottom of the entire East.

In the face of such a thousand-year-old team and the knights with the lowest record, the pioneers who are currently in the limelight naturally can't raise any spirit.

Before the start of the game, Gan Guoyang looked at the sparse cheering fans in the Ridgefield Stadium and couldn't help but think of the huge contrast between the Clippers' home court and the Lakers' home court during the Los Angeles game.

At that time, the facilities of the NBA arena were still relatively old, especially some old gymnasiums built in the fifties and sixties.

Looking at such an environment, Gan Guoyang always felt that he was not playing the world's highest-level basketball game, but playing a friendly fundraising match in poor areas.

If there was any surprise in this game, one was the few fans in the stands wearing Trail Blazers jerseys, they wore No. 11 jerseys, apparently to support Gan Guoyang, and many of them were Chinese.

Gan Guoyang has undoubtedly become the pride of Chinese in the United States, and wherever he plays, there will always be Chinese fans, even Asian fans.

The other is that Gan Guoyang saw an acquaintance in the Cavaliers' starting lineup, the shorter one of the University of Kansas "tin-fools", Melvin Tupping.

This and Sam Bowe form the Kansas Twin Towers, a 6-foot-11 tall and 240-pound big center, and because of Gan Guoyang, their fate has changed.

In its original history, the University of Kansas, where he was based, also fell in the Final Four, only they lost to Ewing's Georgetown.

Later in the draft, he was drafted by the Washington Wizards and then traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

And now, they died at the hands of Gan Guoyang in the NCAA game, and the death was ugly.

Because of this, he fell to No. 12 in the draft, and was directly selected by Cleveland, but it was also the same way.

His teammate Sam Bowe was selected by Washington to replace him, and Gan Guoyang replaced Bowe to the Trail Blazers.

Gan Guoyang quickly became the starter and main player after coming to the Trail Blazers, and Tepin also became the starting center for this Cavaliers, and their other center, Mark West, is a 6-foot-10 big man.

It's just that the records of the two teams are really worlds apart, one has only lost two games and the other has won only two.

"Hello, Teping, long time no see." Gan Guoyang looked at Teping, who was wearing a knight's uniform, and said expressionlessly.

"Hi...... Sweet. Tepin responded with a hint of fear, it seems that the shadow of being played in the semifinals has not been erased in Tepin's heart.

Coupled with the poor record of the Cavaliers and the Trailblazers' prosperity, Teping was a little stunned when he saw Gan Guoyang.

However, the current Gan Guoyang is no longer the Gan Guoyang of the university, and the pioneer is not the Gunzaga bulldog, Gan Guoyang is no longer the first choice, so what Teping was most worried about after the opening did not happen.

Gan Guoyang mainly responds to his teammates on the outside, does a good job of basic card positions and blocking people, and is also a conscientious filler in defense, a blue-collar style.

Before the start of the game, Ramsey communicated with Gan Guoyang privately, saying that he would let Sampson be the main attack point in this game, and asked Gan Guoyang to complete other tasks.

Although Gan Guoyang was reluctant, he still listened to Ramsay's words, so he also made concessions and did not raise any objections.

It's just that when the first quarter was more than halfway through, the Trail Blazers trailed the Cavaliers by three points 20-17.

Ramsey had to call a timeout, thinking that the team had broken up after Thanksgiving, and that it was the way it was in the first quarter.

"I don't know what the hell you're doing? Do you think the Cavaliers are a Thanksgiving turkey, grilled and put on the table for you to eat? Take out our intensity! I don't see your oppressiveness in the attack, where your speed goes! Ramsey yelled angrily at the bench.

The Trail Blazers as a whole weren't in great shape, with Vandewich and Paxson no longer feeling as hot as they did against the Bulls, and Sampson having no touch at all, missing all four shots in the first quarter.

Gan Guoyang didn't play much in attack, he only tried one mid-range shot, but he didn't score.

On defense, Gan felt as if he didn't have much passion, and the Trail Blazers' defensive flaws at the forward position were once again exposed, and the Cavaliers' shooting guard Ward Flynn scored eight points on all four shots.

Gan Guoyang met Ward Fellin when he watched the NBA preseason game live for the first time, when he was still in the Golden State Warriors.

When Gan Guoyang watched the game in Oakland, he and Bernard King formed a strong forward line, but the Warriors who did not perform well eventually traded him.

In this game, his breakthrough pull-up jump shot made Paxson unguardable, and Gan Guoyang, who was guarding the inside, naturally had no choice.

"Clyde, you come on the pitch and raise the tempo of the attack; Gan, you come down and rest, Carl you play. "Ramsey made personnel changes.

Gan Guoyang took the towel handed by the staff, wiped the sweat on his head, sat on the bench, and watched his teammates continue to play.

"What's the matter, Gan, you don't seem to be very excited, do you mind if I give the right to Sampson?" Ramsey sat down and said as he watched the game.

"No, I just think there are too few viewers, so I don't have a **." Gan Guoyang took a sip of water and said.

"I hope you understand the role of a coach, Gan." After Ramsey finished speaking, he glanced at Gan Guoyang, then stood up again and continued to watch the game on the sidelines.

Gan Guoyang remembered what Ramsey said to him, a coach is not only to design good tactics, but more importantly, to adjust the relationship between the players in the team, so that everyone can do their part, so that the stars can be satisfied.

Only in this way can the team move forward smoothly, otherwise there is no need to play against other teams, and internal contradictions can stop the team.

Thinking of this, Gan Guoyang also sighed that even in the United States, in a place like the NBA team that relies on strength the most, interpersonal relationships are extremely important.

Gan Guoyang didn't know if Sampson went to Ramsey to complain, and he didn't know who Ramsay valued more, but as a rookie, he still chose to take a step back and listen to Ramsay's arrangement.

The team's interior offensive power is more given to Sampson, while Gan Guoyang focuses on defense and strategy.

When necessary, Ramsey will arrange tactics for Gan Guoyang and let him use offense to solve the problem, as for when it is necessary, Gan Guoyang does not know.

"I fucking think now is the time to do it." Gan Guoyang looked at the game situation on the field and couldn't help but say in his heart.

After the timeout, the Trail Blazers' offense improved, and Drexler's sharp breakthrough and excellent scoring easily tore through the already weak Cavaliers defense and led the Trail Blazers to consecutive points.

Defensively, however, Sampson had no way to limit Tepin.

Sampson is experienced with old fritters like Gominsky, because he is an old fritter himself.

But when encountering a young center forward like Tepin, he seems to be a little out of reach.

Although Teping was played by Gan Guoyang in the NCAA, he is also a high-quality center who has been trained in a prestigious university for four years, with solid basic skills, not bad talent, and outstanding physical fitness.

Anyone who can enter the NBA and play the game, there is no one who doesn't have two brushes, and no matter how bad the player is, there is a big explosion, not to mention that Teping is still a round show.

Tepin, who has an advantage in height and weight, grabbed back-to-back rebounds in the Trail Blazers' three-second zone and hit it successfully.

Without the backcourt rebounding guarantee of the Trail Blazers, a quick counterattack can't play, and without a quick counterattack of the Trail Blazers, there is no way to open the score.

At the end of the first quarter, the two sides were evenly matched and tied at 32:32, which also made the Cavaliers fans at the scene quite excited, and gave a standing ovation for the Cavaliers to play like this with the first place in the West.

"I think it's time for me to play, let me deal with that guy Tepin, I'm not afraid of him at all." Gan Guoyang said to Ramsey.

"No, don't be in a hurry, follow my command." Ramsey, who had his back to Gan Guoyang, said coldly.

〖