Chapter 311: Chen Yan Goes Crazy And Reaches The Western Conference Finals
The game resumed after a brief timeout.
Phoenix inbounded from the sideline.
Nash used a screen, probed the top, then swung the ball to the corner.
Chen caught it, and his very first instinct was to attack the rim.
He exploded off his first step along the baseline.
Oberto slid over to cut him off, walling off the short corner. The space under the backboard was tight and dangerous. One wrong step and it would be a turnover.
Chen instantly pulled the ball back out, retreating toward the three point line.
Then, without warning, he slammed on the brakes and spun inside.
The sudden change of pace left Bowen a step behind, his balance gone.
The move was not something Chen had pre planned. It flashed in his mind in real time.
That was exactly why it was so hard to guard.
If even Chen did not know what he was going to do until the last second, how could the defender guess it?
Of course, improvisation only worked on top of elite talent and elite skill. One without the other would never be enough.
Chen knifed into the paint and met Oberto one on one.
He planted his left foot hard to the left. The instant Oberto shifted his weight to cut that off, Chen snapped his right foot back across his body.
The deceptive, almost ghostlike footwork completely froze Oberto.
Chen read it all on the fly.
If Oberto had stayed home, Chen would have taken the second step left and finished with a reverse on the other side of the rim.
Instead, Oberto bit.
As Chen lifted the ball, Duncan came too, leaving his man to help at the rim.
Three Spurs collapsing on one man.
At the peak of Duncan's jump, Chen calmly flipped the ball behind his head.
Boom.
Stoudemire exploded to the rim, caught it with both hands, and hammered down a violent dunk that shook the basket.
After he landed, Amar'e slapped Chen on the backside twice, grinning.
He had finished the play, but everyone in the building knew that 95 percent of the credit belonged to Chen.
...
San Antonio came back with their bread and butter.
Parker used a screen, dove into the lane, and kicked back to Duncan at the high post.
Tim rose, released that soft fifteen footer, and dropped it in.
Classic pick and roll, classic Spurs, 2 more points.
But right now, 2 points were just a cup of water on a burning house.
...
Phoenix ball.
Bowen shaded Chen tightly, and Ginobili kept flashing into passing lanes, doing everything they could to deny touches.
It did not matter.
Chen used an off ball screen, shook free in the corner, and caught the pass.
This time Duncan switched onto him.
San Antonio could not send a second defender. Phoenix shooters were flaming hot. Any rotation would give up a wide open look somewhere else.
Chen pounded the ball with his left, gave a sharp shoulder fake, then snapped into a change of direction.
Duncan's legs, heavy from the minutes, did not respond. For a heartbeat he looked like a statue planted on the floor.
Chen glided along the baseline, smooth and balanced.
Oberto rotated over again, but Chen was already under the rim. He swept to the far side, twisted in the air, switched hands, and finished a reverse layup off the glass.
Even some Spurs fans could only shake their heads.
There was no cooler sequence than watching a guard toy with bigs like that on back to back possessions.
From the bench, Popovich saw something different.
He saw his starters' legs.
He saw Duncan's feet glued to the floor.
He saw the cost of extended minutes coming due.
If things stayed on this path, it would not be a sudden collapse.
It would be a slow, inevitable one.
"Timeout."
Popovich signaled for a short break.
While an assistant went to the board to draw up sets, Pop pulled Bowen aside.
Horry was already gone. But under Pop, there had never been just one player willing to get his hands dirty.
Their eyes met, and Bowen knew exactly what this conversation was about.
His reputation as a dirty defender had not appeared out of thin air. It had grown year by year, in the shadow of his coach's approval. The Spurs' edge, their line stepping physicality, had Popovich's fingerprints all over it.
"Bruce, we need you," Pop said quietly. "What you do next is going to decide whether we live or die in this game."
Bowen swallowed. "Coach, these Suns are not like the past ones. They have Chen..."
He could still feel the memory of that punch, the concussion, the headache that followed.
This was his last season. He wanted to actually enjoy his retirement.
"Go," Pop snapped, his patience wearing thin. "This is our building."
"The last time I got my bell rung was also in our building..." Bowen muttered, almost in tears.
Popovich sucked in a breath, looked up at the rafters, and changed tactics.
"Do you see the banners up there? In the future, I am going to hang your jersey next to them. That is an honor that belongs only to you."
He mixed promise with pressure.
Bowen hesitated for a beat, then nodded. "Coach, leave the rest to me."
...
Out of the timeout, the plan went into motion.
On the first defensive possession, Bowen got his chance.
He crowded Chen, riding him over a screen, then as Chen rose for a jumper, Bowen slid his foot right into the space where Chen was supposed to land.
It was his most infamous trick.
But Chen had been waiting for it.
He adjusted in the air, spread his feet on the way down, and avoided the trap entirely.
Bowen, whose attempt failed, sprinted back on offense with an innocent expression, as if nothing had happened.
San Antonio set up on the other end.
Bowen moved to set an off ball screen on the wing.
Before he could plant, he felt his center vanish.
Raja Bell had stepped in and blasted him off his spot.
Fired up after seeing Bowen's earlier move, and backed emotionally by Stoudemire, Raja delivered the message for the whole team.
Bowen hit the floor hard.
The collision sent a jolt through both benches.
Fans roared.
Everyone in the building could feel where this was heading.
Before it could explode, something unexpected happened.
Chen came charging in with a thunderous expression.
For a split second, even he felt the urge to let everything go.
Then he leaped, landed between Bowen and the rest of the Suns, and threw his arms out like a barrier.
He was not attacking.
He was protecting.
Protecting Bowen on the surface.
Protecting Phoenix in reality.
With the Suns in complete control of the series, the only thing that could really hurt them now was losing their composure.
"Look at this," Kenny Smith said on the TNT broadcast. "Chen is standing between Bowen and the Suns players, keeping this thing from boiling over."
"He does not look like some nervous kid," Barkley laughed. "He looks like the grown man in the room."
Chen knew exactly what the Spurs were doing.
If he swung, he would be stepping right into their trap.
But swallowing it completely was not in his nature either.
So he chose a third option.
He would not retaliate with a fist.
He would retaliate with the game itself.
...
What followed was Chen going wild in a way that did not show up on a stat sheet alone.
He used his feet, his elbows, his shoulders, every legal inch of contact the rules allowed.
A hard plant with a knee on a stop and pop jumper.
A sharp elbow while fighting for rebounding position.
On a drive, as he squeezed by Bowen, he made sure to swing his arm just enough so that his palm smacked across Bowen's body.
Each collision was subtle enough to live inside the gray area.
But the message was not subtle at all.
Against a guy with Bowen's reputation, playing gentle was the same as losing.
After a few possessions, Bowen finally understood why Chen had "saved" him earlier.
If he had been allowed to get into a pile then, he might actually have come out ahead.
Now, stuck on the floor with no whistle to save him, he was being punished one possession at a time.
...
Phoenix ball again.
Chen held it at the top, called for everyone to clear out, and pointed for an isolation.
He rocked Bowen with a sudden stop, gave him a slight push with his off arm to create a sliver of space, and rose from behind the three point line.
Swish.
Pure.
Bowen stumbled, recovered, and sprinted to the referee, complaining about the hand check.
The official kept his whistle down. In this era, that level of contact was considered a normal part of the game.
As Bowen argued, Chen walked past him and dropped a line without slowing.
"Basketball is a contact sport. If you do not like contact, go find something softer to play."
The words hit harder than the shoulder.
Bowen's temper flared, and the two kept banging all the way from one end of the floor to the other.
Chen never backed up.
On the next offensive trip, he posted at the right side, about a 45 degree angle off the free throw line, demanding the ball with his back to Bowen.
He wanted this matchup.
Bang.
Bang.
The sounds of their bodies colliding rang through the arena.
After two hard power dribbles, Chen went into a series of shoulder fakes.
Up, across, pause.
Bowen did not bite.
Eyes locked, attention fully locked on Chen's upper body.
The second Chen lifted the ball, Bowen jumped.
Only, that lift was a fake.
The jump was real.
Chen went up too, this time driving his body straight into Bowen in mid air.
A full speed slash.
There was a sharp crack.
As Chen raised his arms to finish, he could almost hear something give.
Bowen hit the floor, clutching his mouth.
His lower molar had been shattered by Chen's shoulder.
The whistle blew twice.
Blocking foul on Bowen.
Just like Horry earlier, he lost both the physical battle and the whistle.
Chen pointed at the fallen defender.
"Using his mouth to guard my shoulder," he said coldly, "has he always been that brave?"
The jumbotron cut to his face, and ATT Center exploded in boos.
For Spurs fans, this was the villain of the series.
First Horry, now Bowen.
Two of their own had gone down in front of their eyes.
But on Chen's side, the boos were just fuel.
He soaked them in and played on.
...
From that point on, there was no comeback left in San Antonio.
Chen had not only knocked out Bowen's tooth, he had knocked out the Spurs' spirit.
When the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard read 108 to 79.
Phoenix by 29.
They had blown the defending giants out of their own building and, with that win, taken the series and punched their ticket to the Western Conference Finals.
Conspiracy theories around the Spurs were a yearly tradition in the playoffs.
People said the league did not like them.
Said their slow, grinding, often dirty style was bad for business.
Said they were box office poison, and worse, that they were too good at knocking out the big market darlings the league wanted to see go deeper.
None of that mattered tonight.
This time, the Suns' win was clean and decisive. No controversy, no strange whistles to argue about.
Watching the Suns players embrace on the floor, many fans could not help thinking the same thing.
Phoenix had always been this close.
They had always had talent.
What they had lacked before was simply a player like Chen Yan.
D'Antoni pumped his fists on the sideline.
For him, this was a personal landmark.
The young coach had finally beaten Popovich.
Not squeaked by.
Beaten him down.
He had taken the series, broken San Antonio's will, and along the way, his team had finally settled old scores.
Horry.
Bowen.
Two names that had haunted Phoenix for years.
Now they had been dealt with, principal and interest repaid in full, as the Suns marched past San Antonio and into the Western Conference Finals.
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