Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

"Why is Game 5 of the Western Finals so important? It's not just because the winning team will gain a match point, but also because this is the game where the MVP proves why they are the MVP," Doug Collins said in the final minutes of the game. By then, the game had already entered garbage time. Yu Fei, with 54 points, 14 rebounds, and 10 assists, had already rested. The Supersonics' lead had been consistently maintained at more than 13 points towards the end. And the Lakers, they didn't have much they could do. After Kobe exploded, the morale of the Lakers unavoidably collapsed. Even if Kidd wanted to maintain the situation, it was impossible because he wasn't a reliable presence on the offensive end. Jermaine O'Neal began to question his journey with the Lakers. Why did he join the Lakers? Obviously, it was for the championship. After his arrival, the Lakers indeed displayed championship qualities. However, the competition with Fei clearly put Kobe's mentality to another extreme. He said he didn't care about the MVP, but in fact, he did. He didn't just care; he was full of competitive desire towards Fei and wanted to prove those media people voted wrong. So he could ignore the team's play style and keep seeking one-on-one plays against Fei. The Lakers prospered because of Kobe, and they were also ruined by Kobe. They clearly had a better inside advantage, yet they poured all their resources into the outside. Now, Kobe was defeated by Fei. The series wasn't over yet, but who still believed the Lakers could win the series? Even the idea of them winning at home to push the series to a Game 7 seemed far-fetched. Kobe's hand injury worsened in the fierce battle of Game 5. As the only one on the team who could match Fei's intensity on the perimeter, if he had a problem, the Lakers couldn't compete with the Supersonics. The final minutes were torture for Little O. The Lakers started to focus heavily on the inside game in an attempt to reduce the deficit. This wasn't to win, but to lose with dignity. As long as they could win, the Supersonics didn't care by how many points. So, they let Frye play the center position, and let Durant play power forward, aiming to use the playoffs as practice to experiment with more tactics. As a result, Little O had his way inside. Whenever he scored, Kwame Brown would jeer at him, "Offensive foul!" Little O hated this man. Why was he so annoying? In the last minute, the low-intensity garbage time allowed Durant to shine. He really didn't understand why the physical confrontation earlier could be so intense. Wasn't it better like now? Everyone was just playing token defense. You score, I score, and then we welcome the final moments of the game. As the final whistle blew, 117 to 104, the Supersonics, playing at home, defeated the Lakers, with the series score at 3 to 2 in their favor. The people of Seattle cheered. The Supersonics were just one game away from becoming the Western champions. The home stadium announcer, Bob Blake, excitedly said, "It's like 1978 all over again. That was the year the majority of Seattleites became lifelong Supersonics fans. " 30 years have passed, and the Supersonics have endured many eras and faced the risk of relocation, but now they are about to reach the pinnacle of the West once again. This undoubtedly was like a dream come true. Yu Fei, who achieved a triple-double of 54 points, received a courtside interview. There were many questions from ABC. Fei answered them all. "If you make it to the Finals, how confident are you in winning the championship?" "100%." "If you win the championship this year, you'll become the first player in history to win three consecutive titles with different teams. Does that give you motivation?" "No, not at all," Fei said, "Compared to winning consecutive championships with different teams, I would rather win three in a row with one team. It's a pity I didn't achieve that in Milwaukee, so this is my goal in Seattle. Focusing on this bigger objective, I'm more concentrated on the present. We will win the championship, not just for ourselves, but for everyone. Seattle needs this championship, we've been waiting for thirty years." That night, the Los Angeles media broke the news that Kobe's hand injury had worsened, and his appearance in Game 6 was in doubt. This did not affect the Supersonics' preparations at all. Because Kobe would definitely play in Game 6. So, this sort of smokescreen had no effect. A day later, the Supersonics returned to Los Angeles. If you looked at the sports sections of major newspapers or browsed websites like ESPN at that time, you would find that many people still believed the Lakers could overturn the series. Just as if it were certain that the Celtics would make it into the finals in the East. Since the summer of 2003, the League's image had been hit multiple times, and viewership had plummeted. In the latest collective bargaining agreement, the NBA was the only major American sports league that signed a new broadcast contract without an increase in overall revenue. This indicated that cable TV owners lacked confidence in professional basketball. The Donaghy scandal last summer dealt the NBA a heavy blow. This scandal during the Stern era provided a bit of fertile ground for all sorts of conspiracy theories regarding NBA games influenced by referee bias. Since then, whenever referees performed poorly, fans wouldn't question their competence but would suspect that they were involved in gambling or were carrying out a task for the League. Every sports league driven by commercial interests needs to create icons, and the NBA, with its rich experience in myth-making, can either deliver classic basketball contests or turn into a WWE-like entity crafting narratives for stars and teams. This speculation had always existed, but it reached its peak during the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Kings; the Donaghy affair later turned these doubts into a kind of fact without evidence. People no longer believed in the sanctity of the referees and the League. Under such circumstances, how could viewership possibly be high? This was also the reason experts speculated that the Lakers would make it into the finals. Lakers vs. Celtics was like the sequel to a classic series, akin to "iPartment 5" which aired in 2020. It might not have been as brilliant as in the past, but it was sure to attract a large number of fans. However, this was ultimately the California media's usual subjective conclusion with themselves at the center of the world. Because the League didn't have just one script. Having Frye save the Supersonics was an even bigger plot, and it had been building momentum over the entire season. The viewership for each Supersonics game was also high, and Yu Fei's star power far exceeded Kobe's. Most importantly, the significance of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry in NBA history stems first from the original competitions, full of tragic color and historical backdrop, where Baylor and West's Lakers could never defeat the Celtics, while the victorious Boston players led by Bill Russell couldn't receive due respect locally due to racial issues. This tragedy continued into the 80s with the second generation rivalry becoming purely about class struggle and racial promotions, the black and white titans, Los Angeles vs. Boston, East Coast vs. West Coast, the prosperous capital of entertainment against the rational city of intellect, white-collar against blue-collar... It was a special time that gave them significance far beyond basketball. Now, could the Lakers-Celtics carry such grand narratives? No, even for the Lakers, their focus was on how Kobe could transform from a scoundrel into an angel, while the Celtics, in reality, were following a script similar to the Supersonics'. They wanted revival, wanting to dispel the series of misfortunes brought by Len Bias's sudden death due to a cocaine overdose. But these stories weren't as attractive as saving the Supersonics. Because Yu Fei had indeed given up the opportunity to win three consecutive championships in Milwaukee to transfer to Seattle, with the purpose of saving the nearly relocated Supersonics. Now the team had stayed, they still had a few years to fight for a new stadium, and the local focus was on this because this once non-competitive team had become the center of national conversation. The Supersonics were determined to end the series on the road. The League's arrangement of referees for Game 6 indicated their opinion. The head referee was Joe Crawford, who could sense Duncan mocking him with a silly smile off-court and, in a furious outburst, eject him from the game — a referee notorious for his temper. Although Crawford was infamous, there was one thing about him: he seldom made controversial calls. This indicated that the League hoped Game 6 would proceed normally. On the night of the game, Kobe indeed entered the Lakers' starting lineup as expected. This proved that all the rumors before were just smokescreens released by the Lakers. To the Supersonics, it had no impact. The game was one-sided from the get-go. Fei fired from the perimeter, and the Lakers' inside was frequently penetrated. Little O and Foster were exhausted, but even more crucial was the perimeter. Kobe had taken the court, but his injury was undoubtedly aggravated; his shooting touch was gone, and he could almost only serve as a decoy on offense. But relying on Kidd and others to fill his offensive firepower was utterly a daydream. The Supersonics' momentum grew stronger, and they led by double digits by the end of the first quarter. They had gained a 16-point lead by halftime. In the second half, the increasingly dispirited Lakers did not respond to the Supersonics as the fans had hoped. Instead, they crumbled at the touch, offering no significant counterattack. By the end of the third quarter, the Lakers were behind by 27 points. By then, the defeat was certain. The fourth quarter was entirely garbage time; the Supersonics continued their pursuit of victory and eventually expanded the gap to 35 points, crushing the purple and gold on their home court with an exciting victory. With a 4-2 series score, they advanced to the finals after a 12-year hiatus.