Hubby Brown's guess is correct. After confirming that the opponent in the semi-finals was the Phoenix Suns, Adelman decided to let Duckworth be the team's starting center, so that the Trail Blazers would have an absolute physical advantage in the inside. The 7-foot Duckworth, Gan Guoyang at 6-foot 10, and the Suns on the opposite side were on the lightweight road, the center was Mark West at 6-foot 10, and Tom Chambers at the front. Both of them were one number smaller than the Trail Blazers in terms of weight, height and strength.

Mark West entered the league in 1984, just like Gan Guoyang, when he was selected by the Dallas Mavericks, then he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks and sent to Cleveland the next season until he came to the Phoenix Suns last season and finally got a stable starting center position.

Mark West is strong and has a big mouth. He likes to squirt a few words when he has nothing to do and is brave. No matter who is opposite, he dares to squirt against him. Tonight he has no chance to compete with Gan Guoyang, so he dumped the trash talk to Kevin Duckworth.

Kevin Duckworth is gentle and a little lazy, but he is also very diligent under the encouragement of Gan Guoyang. However, he played as a starter for the first time tonight and was still in the playoffs. He was inevitably a little nervous. As a result, he never competed for West while competing for the ball. West jumped and drew the ball from the air to Hornersek.

As the Suns' shooting guard, Hornersek is actually the Suns' real offensive organizer. Although Kevin Johnson is the Suns' point guard and averages an astonishing 12.2 assists per game in the regular season, he is still attacking in his style. Many assists come from the passers-by after hitting the inside. In terms of positional warfare organization and fast offensive rhythm control, the Suns still have to rely on Jeff Hornersek.

"Honasek's propulsion was very fast. The Suns wanted to open the Blazers and landed on the ground but Honasek's ball was destroyed. Gan poked the ball out of the bottom line, and the Suns sent the ball to the sideline."

Hornersek made rapid advance and wanted to open the Blazers off guard. Tom Chambers had already rushed to the inside to catch Hornersek's lob. However, Gan Guoyang did not stare at Tom Chambers, but went forward and pressed Hornersek and hit Hornersek's ball out of the sideline, winning time for the establishment of the Blazers' defensive formation.

"Gan is very accurate in judging the timing. Hornersek walked from the sideline. Just after halftime, Gan immediately came up to suppress Hornersek and squeezed Hornersek into the corner of the half court, almost causing his mistake." Huby Brown knew that Gan Guoyang's goal would take a lot of risks, because this kind of rapid advancement in the inside line is most likely to leak large gaps and let the opponent cut, break through, and lose points too easily. Therefore, in general, inside players will fill the basket. Even if the opponent wants to play and is not stable, they can only choose to jump shots from the outside, which will cause much smaller threats.

If Gan Guoyang started playing center in this game, he would definitely not have oppressed Horacek, but because of Duckworth, he was relieved and boldly intercepted the ball and caused him to go out of bounds. The Trail Blazers showed that they would put pressure on the Suns on the defensive end.

Sure enough, when the Suns re-selected the sideline ball, the Trail Blazers were ready. Kevin Johnson took the ball at the top of the arc for a long time but did not find an offensive breakthrough. The Suns coach shouted outside, but he could only pass the ball to Tom Chambers who came forward to meet. Chambers wanted to break through the basket in the face of Gan Guoyang, but missed the ball under the interference of Gan Guoyang.

"Chambers missed a throw, but Mark West got the frontcourt rebound and made a layup! The Suns got the first point after the opening!"

Mark West somehow grabbed this frontcourt rebound, ruining the Trail Blazers' opening defense. A simple frontcourt rebound is sometimes more effective than a sophisticated tactic.

"You want to get stuck, Kevin, how can that fat guy grab the frontcourt rebound?" Gan Guoyang patted Duckworth's arm. Duckworth looked obviously unable to let go, and he was not very comfortable with the starting feeling.

In the subsequent game, Mark West suddenly became the surprise of the Suns. Gan Guoyang had to spend his energy to make up for defense and assist in defense of the outside players, so he didn't even bother to get stuck and compete for the backcourt rebounds.

The result was that Gan Guoyang worked hard to disrupt the Suns' outside rotation pass, interfered with Kevin Johnson's breakthrough and Hornersek's organization, and also defended Tom Chambers alone. Their shooting percentage was a mess, but such a successful defense was solved by Mark West's frontcourt rebound at the basket. More than 20 seconds of full defense were still lost two points, which was a big blow to the Blazers' defensive morale.

Not only that, without the backcourt rebounds, the Trail Blazers could not make a quick counterattack, and they could only compete with the Suns in a position. Fortunately, Gan Guoyang and Drexler were in good shape, and Hornersek and Chambers were given in vain in these two positions.

"Hornersec's three-pointer! Missed, but Mark West grabbed the rebound and passed it back to Kevin Johnson. Johnson broke through the middle and made a layup! The Trail Blazers made a foul, Duckworth's foul, Kevin Johnson wanted a free throw."

Horacek was so defensive that he threw a three-pointer around, and the ball collapsed far away. As a result, Mark West sucked the ball into his hand as if he had a basketball vacuum on his hand. This was his fourth frontcourt rebound in the first quarter, and Kevin Johnson made a foul and went to the free throw line. At this time, the Trail Blazers only led the Suns three-pointer.

"What's wrong with you? Kevin, stop him and watch him, don't let the ball slip away from your fingertips!" Gan Guo stepped forward and shouted at Darkworth in a vehement.

Mark West laughed aside and muttered: "This big stupid duck can't handle me, this big stupid duck can't handle me..."

Gan Guoyang was furious when he heard West's words. He knew that since the first quarter, West had been trashing Darkworth, and Gan Guoyang was too lazy to find fault because he didn't match West. Now seeing that West is so arrogant, Gan Guoyang knew that it was time to teach him a lesson.

Kevin Johnson made a free throw. Gan Guoyang deliberately walked in the three-second zone after Johnson finished the first free throw and switched to the other side. I wonder if Gan Guoyang glanced in front of him to remind Johnson of the past. As a result, Johnson missed the second free throw. Gan Guoyang quickly stuck Mark West behind him, and then grabbed the long arm and the ball went into his arms. Mark West had no chance to grab the frontcourt rebound. You must know that they were facing the NBA four rebounding kings. If it weren't for one year of reimbursement in the middle, five rebounding kings would be no problem.

After Gan Guoyang handed the ball to Porter, he ran through the frontcourt quickly. Porter understood it and also pushed forward quickly with the ball. After halftime, Gan Guoyang did not go to the low post, but stood at the free throw line to ask for the ball.

The easiest way to get the ball in this position is. Porter also took advantage of the Suns players returning to the defense and directly hung the ball to Gan Guoyang. As soon as Gan Guoyang got the ball at the free throw line, the defender was Mark West at this time, because the Suns' defense has not yet arrived, and everyone is misplaced.

Gan Guoyang paused after receiving the ball, and then a simple Sigma turned around and broke through from the right side regardless of the 21st. Mark West naturally grabbed the front defense, but his strength was not enough to block Gan Guoyang. Gan Guoyang did not accelerate, so he pressed Mark West at a medium speed and crushed it inward.

Horacek, who was standing beside him, wanted to reach out and get the ball. Gan Guoyang hugged the ball with both hands to avoid it. At the same time, he also started to start and jumped directly with West in two steps.

"Gan broke through the middle and dunked directly by pressing West! Oh, West was dunked to the ground, the referee did not whistle, no one fouled, these are good goals." Patrick was also shocked to see Gan Guoyang's ball. This ball was indeed too domineering. Mark West was at least similar to Gan Guoyang in height and weight, but Gan Guoyang could just crush West and dunk on his face through the person.

After scoring the goal, Gan Guoyang glanced at West who was lying on the ground, and then said: "You can't handle me, you can't handle me..." w

West looked at Gan Guoyang helplessly and could only stand up from the floor with the help of his teammates. Indeed, if he was one-on-one with Gan Guoyang, West would definitely not be able to deal with him. Like Tom Chambers, he basically gave up with Gan Guoyang one-on-one, and hoped that Gan Guoyang would not score goals by himself.
Chapter completed!