In the NBA, there was a fundamental consensus: a player’s level of performance dictated the treatment they received on the court. A star who didn’t draw double-teams couldn’t be considered top-tier. And only those who could maintain consistent production through double-teams earned the title of superstar.
During this year’s playoffs, Dirk Nowitzki shed his "soft" label and embarked on his path to superstardom. On the flip side, Kobe Bryant’s star power had dimmed somewhat due to his abysmal performances. But Kobe had his own grievances. Sure, they were both getting double-teamed, but one had to consider who was doing the trapping.
Shawn Marion was an elite perimeter defender. Powerfully built and known throughout the league for his freakish wingspan, he was an absolute lockdown presence on the outside—the premier wing defender in the NBA. James Posey was cut from the same cloth. A supreme athlete with an equally absurd wingspan, he had long been utilized by the Phoenix Suns as a defensive specialist and a bench enforcer. Both stood over two meters tall with standard small forward builds, yet they never lost a step when switching onto guards. Frankly, pulling either of them aside individually would be enough to give any star guard in the league an absolute nightmare.
And now, the two of them were teaming up, suffocating Kobe in a relentless double-team. No, someone else had to be factored in. Anfernee Hardaway, who lurked ready to pounce at any moment, was another two-meter-tall star with highly capable defense.
The Suns possessed perimeter length that would leave many teams across the league drooling with envy. Even Nowitzki moved with the agility of a guard, frequently rotating over to plug the gaps. If someone actually managed to force their way into the paint, the rim was patrolled by the incredibly athletic, 2.16-meter-tall Tyson Chandler. In Kobe’s eyes, Phoenix had woven a sprawling defensive web from the perimeter to the paint. It bound him tightly and constantly constricted, rendering all his efforts and aggressive drives completely futile.
TWEET!
The whistle blared once again. Marion wore a look of utter innocence, shouting his protests at the sideline official. The referee ignored him, signaling a reaching-in foul. Kobe remained silent. He stepped up to the line and sank both free throws.
On the sidelines, Brian, sitting next to Chen Yu, was already throwing a relentless fit.
"Don’t tell me," Chen said. "Go complain to Joey."
"What good would talking to him do?" Brian scoffed. "I’m filing a formal grievance after the game anyway."
Chen rolled his eyes at him. Filing a grievance was nothing but a useless formality.
"Chen, don’t you feel like the refs are targeting us?" Brian retorted.
The whistles hadn’t stopped blowing all night, and half of them had gone in Kobe’s favor. Kobe had practically been handed a get-out-of-jail-free card tonight. The slightest bit of physicality on defense resulted in an immediate foul call. Riding those whistles, he had managed to scrape together 14 points in the first half alone.
Chen didn’t reply. In truth, he felt just as frustrated and helpless as the Suns fans in the stands. Anyone with eyes could see that the officiating was highly questionable today. There was an entirely different standard being applied to Phoenix compared to the Lakers. They had even hit the Suns with two illegal screen calls. Chen had never seen illegal screens officiated so harshly.
Then there was the new "no hand-checking" rule. Being a recent addition, the referees were still feeling it out and familiarizing themselves with its enforcement. Yet tonight, if Kobe exaggerated his movements even slightly and squeezed into the seams of a double-team, nine times out of ten he drew a foul. This was the fucking playoffs! When had it ever been this strict? The crucial thing was consistency. If they were strict with one side, they had to be strict with the other. Instead, Yao Ming’s moving screens went completely uncalled. When Hardaway drove to the basket and got practically clotheslined to the floor by Kobe, the whistles remained frustratingly silent.
Seeing Brian still fuming, Chen couldn’t help but speak up. "Let it go, Brian. Thinking about it now, we did go a bit overboard. We didn’t leave the Lakers any dignity."
Judging by their performance, the Suns were clearly gunning to sweep Los Angeles. Sweeping the San Antonio Spurs in the first round was one thing. The Spurs were a great team, undoubtedly, but they never drew high ratings. But the Lakers? From the very start of the season, the media had hyped them up as an invincible juggernaut destined for the championship. Lakers fans had been chanting "we are the champions" since day one. They were an incredibly popular franchise, further bolstered by the immense draw of the Chinese market. With such staggering viewership numbers, an early 4-0 sweep in just the second round wouldn’t merely turn them into a complete laughingstock—it would destroy any guarantee of high Finals ratings.
Therefore, the referees intervening was entirely logical. Based on Chen’s understanding of David Stern, the commissioner was likely thinking that if Phoenix eliminated the Lakers, that was fine. The Suns were also a powerhouse franchise with sky-high ratings. A win was a win. But they couldn’t just win like this. A grueling seven-game series full of back-and-forth action, culminating in the Lakers’ tragic and heroic elimination—now that was a script that made sense.
"Brian, you know how the league operates. There’s no need to get worked up over this," Chen advised.
"I know how it works, but they don’t have to be this blatant about it," Brian’s expression soured. "They aren’t even trying to hide it anymore."
"Alright, just watch the game," Chen said, dropping the subject and settling back in.
In this game, the Lakers’ flaws remained the same. Phil Jackson still hadn’t found a way to contain Nowitzki. Ron Artest was phenomenally bad when it came to help defense and rotating. Even Kobe couldn’t resist abandoning his assignment to go double-team the big German. But it was useless. With his height, it would be a miracle if he managed to bother Nowitzki’s shot. Moreover, Phoenix hadn’t just sat on their hands. They had long prepared contingencies for Nowitzki facing front-and-back double-teams, diagramming exactly how he should pass out and where his teammates should relocate. Thus, from Chen’s perspective, Nowitzki was simply unguardable in this matchup. The Lakers simply didn’t have anyone on their roster capable of shouldering the burden of locking him down. If Jackson had successfully traded for Andrei Kirilenko like he had so desperately wanted, Nowitzki truly wouldn’t be playing with such brutal efficiency.
The Lakers’ only viable option was to outgun Phoenix on offense. And accomplishing that was no easy feat. Yao suffered from stamina issues, and Kobe faced endless double-teams. A victory would require an unlikely, synchronized eruption from every single role player. Yet tonight, they were poised to pull out a win.
By the third quarter, Marion and Poseidon had already picked up three fouls apiece. Kobe was also adapting his playstyle. Realizing that forcing the issue wouldn’t work, he began actively hunting for whistles. His acting, however, was a bit clumsy. In previous years, he hadn’t played this way. His younger, more arrogant self would have rarely stooped to such tactics. He constantly compared himself to Michael Jordan, and when had anyone ever seen Jordan rely on drawing fouls to score? But regardless of how terrible his acting was, with the referees actively bailing him out, it still got the job done. This ultimately forced Phoenix to dial back the intensity of their double-teams. And with Kobe’s elite skill set, giving him an inch meant he would take a mile. In the third quarter, he racked up 11 points.
As the fourth quarter began, Poseidon fouled out. Ben Gordon, who came off the bench, severely lacked experience and was a defensive sieve. After only a few minutes, head coach Scott Skiles benched him in favor of Bo?jan Nekba, sliding Marion over to the shooting guard spot. But it didn’t matter. Marion and Poseidon were the best resources Phoenix possessed to neutralize a single player. That defensive duo could lock down ninety-nine percent of the guards in the league; anyone facing them would be forced to eat dirt. Now, with one of them gone and Marion nursing four fouls, how were they supposed to defend? The Suns’ defensive scheme completely collapsed. If not for Nowitzki and Hardaway carrying the offense to keep them breathing, the Lakers would have already taken the lead by the midway point of the fourth quarter.
By then, the whistle-blowing had grown noticeably less biased. The officials had achieved their goal, so they needed to cover their tracks a little. Chen was no longer surprised by these refereeing antics. The underlying issue remained that Phoenix’s defensive structure had been thoroughly shattered. They could no longer stop Kobe. In the final two minutes, Kobe scored five straight points, ruthlessly crushing any hopes the Suns had of reclaiming the lead.
With a final score of 91 to 87, the Lakers narrowly defeated the Suns by four points. Nowitzki erupted for another 29 points. And Kobe finally returned to "normal," slashing his way to a monstrous 34-point performance and emerging as the hero of the Lakers’ desperate comeback!

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