At this time, the players of Gan Guoyang and the Portland Trail Blazers had not yet realized the danger was coming. Perhaps only Gan Guoyang smelled a trace of danger.

After arriving in Indiana, the Trail Blazers suffered their first injury this season. After the old master, Buck Williams suffered a calf strain during pre-match training. The specific injury situation will not be confirmed after returning to Portland.

For an inside player who has been fighting in the NBA for many years and is under-size, it is normal to be injured. Moreover, the intensity of the training in the team in the Trail Blazers is also very high. Driven by Gan Guoyang, the intensity of the inside training may even exceed that of the regular game.

It is normal for Williams to be troubled by injuries. The Trail Blazers' forward line is overcrowded. A Buck fell down and someone else could take over.

Later, when the training ended and everyone noticed Reggie Miller's declaration, threatening to end the Trail Blazers' winning streak in this game, while the Pacers have only won two games so far.

At this time, Reggie Miller was just a second-year shooting guard and was famous in the league because of his three-point shooting, and he had no connection with the stars at the moment, but was considered a potential newcomer.

One of the Pacers' truly powerful players is their outside star, "Rifleman" Chuck Pesson, who is also an excellent marksman. He entered the league only a year earlier than Miller, but he is already the Pacers' number one star.

However, Miller was able to get the first place in the team's three-pointers by his side, which is enough to show Miller's shooting level.

Also, their inside lineup, Hober Williams, a 6-foot-10 center, has been with the Pacers since entering the league, working diligently, gradually improving from a center who averaged 11 plus 7 per game to averaging 19 plus 9 per game, which can be said to be a step by step. However, this season, his condition has begun to decline. With the Pacers' poor record, he has also begun to be involved in the trading message.

Gan Guoyang was not too worried about these two people, but instead, he was about Reggie Miller, a guy who can be called an unknown man. Gan Guoyang knew that he had amazing explosive power on his body.

"You seem to be a little worried, Gan." Before the game started, when the team came to the venue for training, assistant coach Bellman noticed that when Gan Guoyang practiced three-pointers, he missed five shots in a row, and the more he shot, the more he made the rhythm, the more chaotic it became. This is a sign that Gan Guoyang was worried about.

"Yes, I am indeed a little worried. In fact, everyone is worried, worried about when we will lose the first game, this day will always come, but everyone is staring at us, waiting for that day, and we are trying our best to avoid this day. This is really tiring." Gan Guoyang put away the ball and said to Bellman.

Judging from the previous game, the Trail Blazers players were still in a very good state. Most of their victory was relatively easy, and there were few games that fought until the last minute, but everyone was increasing.

When Buck Williams was injured, Jerome Cauchy even said to Williams: "I really envy you, I was injured at this time."

"Are you worried about Reggie? I remember that in the high school final, you also had such concerns. What were you afraid of him?" Bellman remembered the final eight years ago. "I was not afraid, I just... I just felt a little different from others. Reggie is indeed special, but he doesn't scare me yet. In fact, what I worry more is the state of the entire team. The impact of Buck's injury on us may be greater than we thought. I'm worried whether Avidas can take on the heavy responsibility of starting the game. He looks a little too nervous."

For Gan Guoyang now, although Reggie Miller's future fame will make him a little worried, as a mature NBA player, he is no longer the high school student. He knows that it is not Reggie Miller who can stop the Trail Blazers, but the Trail Blazers themselves.

After Buck Williams was injured, Adelman and his coaching staff discussed and decided to push Sabonis to the starting position. This is the ideal starting lineup that Adelman has always envisioned and is also the request made by Gan Guoyang.

Originally, Adelman was still hesitating how to get Buck Williams, who played very well, back on the bench. Now, Williams' injury gave Sabonis a chance.

Moreover, according to the current news, Gorbachev's visit to the United States is almost in front of him. The Trail Blazers will soon have a game to be selected as the observation match for the supreme leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union. The Trail Blazers also attach great importance to this. Adelman happened to take this opportunity to let Sabonis adapt to the starting position.

As the core player of the team, Gan Guoyang himself recommended Sabonis to start. However, Gan Guoyang's original idea was to start Sabonis, and he would play for more than 20 minutes in each game. If Williams is the sixth man, his playing time would be longer.

Because Gan Guoyang believes that the defensive pressure is low at the beginning, Sabonis's support will be used to pass the ball, strengthen the offense of the Trail Blazers, which is still relatively weak at present, and enrich the team's tactical level.

When the game is about to be strong, Williams, as a veteran with strong defense and rich experience, was present with Gan Guoyang, and could better control the situation. Williams was obviously more reliable than Sabonis at critical moments.

This rotation strategy was also approved by Adelman. Sabonis's starter could make the Trail Blazers' bench deeper and the personnel rotation was more diverse, which not only gave Sabonis the opportunity to exercise, but also allowed Williams to reposition himself and find a position that was more suitable for him.

This is the idea that Williams was killed by injury, and now Sabonis must be kicked on the shelves and directly promoted to the starting position.

Before the game, Gan Guoyang also had a conversation with Sabonis. The two talked about their views on the team's tactics. Sabonis still seemed a little confused about how he played a better role in the starting position. After all, the requirements of the starting player are still very different from those of the substitute player.

The most important thing for starting players to play is "stability". When both sides are on the same starting line, whoever makes mistakes first will often be beaten. How to compete and control the rhythm on the field requires rich experience or talent.

When substitutes come on the court, the situation on the court is often opened. They are either stalemate, lead by big score, or fall behind all the way. Therefore, the most important thing for substitutes to play is to "change" and have the ability to change the current situation on the court. Therefore, excellent substitutes are either energetic young players, who are good at stirring up the situation and bringing variables; or experienced old basketball players know how to read the situation on the court to understand the coach's intentions and bring about the due changes.

As an NBA newcomer, Sabonis's characteristic is change. Every time he plays, he can always bring changes to the Trail Blazers' offense, especially with the attributes of liberating Gan Guoyang, allowing Gan Guoyang to let go of his hands and firepower, which will always catch his opponent off guard.

However, now he is going to be the starter and lacks transitional training before the game, which really makes him feel a little uncomfortable.

Adelman had originally considered letting Duckworth start, but Duckworth overlapped with Gan Guoyang in terms of function, and it was impossible to let Gan Guoyang sit on the bench. Anyway, he would also train Sabonis in the future. Since that's the case, he gave him this opportunity.

……………………

Before the game started, Gan Guoyang tried to say hello to Miller. As a result, this guy had a good relationship with Gan Guoyang on weekdays and began to ignore Gan Guoyang on the court. Gan Guoyang also understood Miller's mood. Since Miller grabbed a championship from Gan Guoyang in high school, Gan Guoyang has never made Miller feel good.

Thinking about Miller, who was able to give Gan Guoyang a fatal blow in the high school arena, it seems that the gap between him and Gan Guoyang is getting bigger and bigger. Not to mention entering the NBA three years later, the two are now in the league.

Gan Guoyang is a hot superstar, while Miller is just a potential new star in people's eyes. How many years can you stay in the NBA is a question.

The trend after the game started was as expected. The Trail Blazers had the advantage from the beginning, and Gan Guoyang showed no mercy in the inside offense. However, Sabonis did not play his due characteristics. He made mistakes on the offensive end and always made fouls on the defensive end. Just five minutes into the first quarter, Sabonis was substituted twice for fouls.

Sabonis's performance disrupted the pace of the Trail Blazers, but the Trail Blazers still rely on their strong strength to maintain a large lead. Drexler gained the upper hand in the match with Miller. The thin Miller is not a strong and fast Drexler's opponent at all.

However, when the two sides entered the substitute rotation, the situation on the field changed. It was not the Reggie Miller that Gan Guoyang expected to change the situation on the field tonight, but the Pacers' sixth man Weman Disdale.

As the No. 1 pick in 1985, Weman Disdale, who was selected after Ewing, did not become the Pacers' Choice Son in Indiana. His greatest achievement in the future was not basketball, but music.

However, tonight, Disdale, a 6-foot-9 power forward, played his value. As the sixth substitute, he was in the Trail Blazers' inside line, causing fouls and free throws in the Trail Blazers' inside line.

Without Buck Williams, Kenny Johnson, who replaced him, could not limit Disdale at all. Gan Guoyang's responsibility was even heavier. It was impossible for him to block every time the other party appeared a fire point.

Disdale's power made the Pacers slowly turn the unfavorable situation around, and the "rifterman" Pesson's big mouth trash talk also began to work. His endless trash talk in defense finally made Drexler angry, and he overturned Pesson with one elbow in an offense. He was then sentenced to a malicious foul and was expelled by the referee.

The morale of the Trail Blazers, who had continuously lost the general, suffered a severe blow. Gan Guoyang, who had to rely on the whole game to score 41 points and 11 rebounds, struggled to support him.

Just in the fourth quarter, after the Pacers overtook the score by four points, Gan Guoyang used a difficult three-pointer from the outside to catch the score to only one point away. This was his only three-pointer shot in the whole game and the 41st point he scored.

But then, Reggie Miller immediately returned with a color and he also made a three-pointer, which was also the only three-pointer Miller made in the whole game, and it was just the 11th point Miller scored.
Chapter completed!