Shaquille O'Neal carefully analyzed the footage from tonight's game.
He focused especially on the final few seconds, breaking them down almost frame by frame:
"Look again. Even when he was down six points with four seconds left, his expression was still relaxed, still confident."
"Now look at what he said to Jalen Green while standing at the free-throw line. Let's have a lip-reading expert decipher it."
The lip-reading expert beside him watched Wang Yi's mouth on the screen and said:
"Young man, watch closely and learn."
Then the expert slowed the footage to 0.75 speed so everyone could get a good look. The audience watched the movement of his lips again.
Sure enough, those were the words.
Young man, watch closely and learn.
Next, O'Neal paused the footage and said:
"That's why I'm saying Wang Yi had planned all of this in advance. He'd been plotting it for a long time. You can certainly interpret those 13 points in 35 seconds as Wang Yi paying tribute to Tracy McGrady, but the confidence he showed in the final moments—and, most importantly, the fact that he said those words—were more than enough to show he'd already decided to hit a game-winner against the Rockets."
"Why go scoreless for more than 47 minutes, only to put up 13 points in 35 seconds at the end? I think he wanted to tell the Rockets, Jalen Green, and all the fans: 'If I want to toy with you, Jalen Green, I can do it whenever I want.'"
"It was the strongest possible rebuttal to those who believed Jalen Green was better than Wang Yi."
Guest Magic Johnson nodded beside him.
"Shaq, I think your analysis was right on the mark. I just saw people online saying Wang Yi got lucky. I think that claim is