He either drilled another cold-blooded mid-range jumper over Duncan's head, or drew contact on a drive and calmly sank both free throws.
The Spurs tried switching matchups, putting Sean Elliott on him, only for Li Fei to overpower him with his body and easily convert an and-one.
The final five minutes became Li Fei's personal scoring show.
When the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard froze at 127–116.
The Knicks had taken another win on San Antonio's home court, seizing a 3–0 series lead!
Li Fei stood at center court, his jersey drenched in sweat, his chest heaving violently.
He looked up at his numbers on the big screen.
33 points, 18 rebounds, 18 assists.
The scoring total might not have seemed particularly outrageous, but everyone knew that 15 of those 33 points had come in the final five minutes, as he used the most brutal, direct methods to utterly destroy the Spurs' defense and confidence.
He spent 43 minutes earning his teammates' trust through patience and passing, then killed the game with five minutes of unsolvable isolation scoring.
This was the terrifying dominance of the league's number one player!
Beneath the dome of the AT&T Center, noise and silence traded places the instant the game ended.
The fans who had just erupted into scattered cheers during the Spurs' final struggle now slumped in their seats as if their souls had been sucked away, staring blankly at the glaring scoreboard. 127–116 was not an enormous margin, yet it felt like an uncrossable chasm, pronouncing San Antonio's death sentence.
At TNT's commentary desk, the three veteran commentators, men accustomed to grand occasions, also fell into brief silence, seemingly trying to process the suffocating reversal of the final five minutes.
"Unbelievable... I have to say it again: unbelievable."
Marv Albert was the first