When the assistant coach saw Saunders's expression, her heart sank.
After years of experience, Saunders had become increasingly steady in his approach to games.
Over the past two seasons, the Timberwolves hadn't always managed to beat the strong teams, but they absolutely never lost to teams weaker than themselves through some careless mistake.
Especially when he was on the sidelines, he always sat calmly on the bench, looking completely in control. Just seeing him like that made people feel reassured.
The Kings were clearly weaker overall than the Timberwolves. By all rights, Coach Saunders should have been able to secure a win.
But seeing him so flustered today was a first for the assistant coach in the two years she'd known him.
The reason Saunders was so flustered wasn't that they were down by 32 points. It was that Wang Yi had crushed the team's morale and fighting spirit, along with those of its two star players.
The most important things a team needed to win were fighting spirit and morale.
Without them, even the league's top team could struggle against the league's worst if the latter played with enough heart.
Faced with such a cruel reality, there was nothing he could say that would make a difference.
They were down by 32 at halftime, and Wang Yi had scored more than he ever had since returning.
That was already humiliating enough.
So all he could do now was tell the players:
"You've done a great job in the first half. They just shot at an exceptionally high percentage, and Wang Yi was in incredible form. But as I said, they can't keep shooting that well for an entire game. And you all saw Wang Yi's stamina for yourselves. After he made that Backcourt Three-pointer, he rested with both hands