Chapter 326: A Phoenix Style Victory
The road win was a weight off Chen Yan's shoulders.
After the flight back to Phoenix, he slept like someone had finally unplugged his brain. When he woke the next morning, it was already 10:00 a.m.
He did not bother checking the headlines. He could already predict the tone.
Win and they praise you. Lose and they bury you. Chen Yan had seen that movie enough times to skip the reruns.
He glanced at his phone instead.
Dozens of missed calls. Hundreds of unread messages.
A 50 plus explosion in the Western Conference Finals will do that, and it did something else too. It put a mountain of pressure on the rest of the 2007 rookies. Chen Yan had not just separated himself, he had opened a generational gap.
Durant, Conley, and the others cut their vacations short and went back to work early. Part pressure, part motivation. Nobody wanted to spend their career as a footnote under someone else's highlight reel.
Durant especially.
Before the NBA, people joked he was "perpetual second place." In high school he lived behind Kevin Bales III on the national lists. In college he spent the year under Greg Oden's spotlight. After entering the league, he was done with that story.
This time, he wanted to be the headline.
…
May 20.
Game 3 shifted to Phoenix, and the city wore Suns colors like it was a holiday.
Restaurants, movie theaters, billboards, big and small, all splashed the Suns logo across the streets. By the time you reached US Airways Center, it was a sea of No. 0 jerseys.
Chen Yan's rise had been fast, but it made sense. It is hard to earn a city's love. You need personal brilliance, and you need wins that actually matter.
Chen Yan had delivered both all season.
Even during warmups, the building was alive. Phoenix fans roared for their guys and showered Kobe and Garnett with boos the moment the Lakers stepped onto the floor.
On the broadcast, Kenny Smith leaned into the noise.
"Charles, this place is on fire tonight. Were the fans this crazy when you played here?"
Barkley chuckled. "They've always been crazy. That's because Phoenix always has somebody who drives them crazy too. Used to be me. Now it's Chen Yan."
Kenny smiled and let it hang. Barkley had never met a compliment he could not redirect into his own trophy case.
Barkley kept talking anyway, like a man allergic to silence.
"Those kinds of players are scoring machines. Doesn't matter how many bodies you throw at them, doesn't matter what angle, they still drop it in. Especially Kobe and Chen Yan."
Kenny nodded. "Exactly. Both guys went for 50 plus last game. That matchup is what everybody came to see."
The broadcast booth sounded ready. The arena sounded hungrier.
Then the introductions hit.
The Suns ran out to a wall of sound. The DJ cranked the volume until it felt like the building was vibrating. The crowd roared like Phoenix had already won.
And Chen Yan felt it instantly.
Adrenaline flooded him. The home court energy hit like a shot of electricity straight to the spine. He had waited for this, and he carried that surge onto the hardwood.
First possession.
He pulled up from the logo.
Swish.
A clean splash, and the crowd detonated like the sound itself had lit the fuse.
From there, the perimeter followed his lead. The Suns guards and wings started raining 3s, feeding off the noise and the confidence.
After the 1st quarter, Phoenix had already hit 6 triples and led 28 to 20.
The 2nd quarter did not cool down. The shooting stayed hot, and the ball kept finding open hands, starters and bench included.
By halftime, the Suns had drilled 14 3 pointers.
They walked into the locker room up 15.
Barkley shook his head on air. "You afraid of heavy rain? Because Phoenix is raining 3s tonight."
Kenny laughed. "This is not rain, it's a 3 point downpour. Phil Jackson might need to call the arena staff and get the Lakers some raincoats."
…
Los Angeles tried to respond after the break, mixing coverages, changing matchups, searching for anything that could slow the bleeding.
But there is no defensive scheme for a team that cannot miss.
Every time the Lakers threatened to cut the gap, Phoenix answered with another clean perimeter strike, like the rim had been widened by a few inches.
By the 4th quarter, the lead had ballooned to 20, the biggest margin of the series.
Kobe refused to let it end quietly.
He went into takeover mode, hunting his own offense, driving hard, scoring through contact, trying to drag his team back into the game by force.
Phil Jackson did not stop him. Even if the Lakers could not win, he did not want them getting embarrassed. Pride mattered, and morale mattered too. A blowout can follow you into the next game.
Kobe's surge worked for a moment. The deficit got trimmed to around 10.
Then Phoenix hit the gas again.
Run and gun, constant pressure, quick decisions, and the home crowd pushing every possession like an extra player.
The Suns controlled the tempo all night, and it suffocated Los Angeles.
Final score, Suns 101, Lakers 87.
Kobe finished 12 of 27 for 32 points.
Garnett had 22 points, 12 rebounds, and 3 blocks.
But outside the stars, the Lakers got almost nothing. Posey scored 7. Fisher scored 7. Radmanovic had 6. Kwame Brown had 5. Nobody else reached double figures.
With under a minute left, Kobe headed to the bench and slammed his hand down on the seat cushion, a sharp, angry motion that said more than any quote.
Phoenix looked like the opposite team.
6 Suns scored in double figures.
Stoudemire led them with 27 points and 11 rebounds. Nash had 14 points and 9 assists. Diaw posted 13 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds. Grant Hill gave 12 points and 4 rebounds off the bench. Azubuike added 10.
And Chen Yan?
25 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds.
Lower numbers than the last 2 games, by choice.
When the whole roster was cooking, he did not need to torch the league alone. He enjoyed this kind of win, the kind where the scoreboard looked like a team effort instead of a solo act.
As the Suns headed toward the tunnel, Chen Yan raised his right fist high and shouted over the noise.
"This is a Phoenix style victory!"
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