"Again?"
"Like this again?"
"But this time, I won't let victory slip away from me while I'm hurt."
He couldn't accept it!
Duncan refused to accept an ending like this again.
Tim Duncan remained expressionless.
His large, round eyes were fixed firmly on Kobe.
His gaze was filled with determination.
Countless times!
Countless times, the Spurs had held the lead and stood just one step away from victory.
But Kobe stepped up and crushed the Spurs' hopes.
Duncan had suffered this kind of torment far too many times.
And this time, Duncan had no intention of accepting that outcome!
He was no longer the rookie he had once been.
The Lakers were no longer the dynasty they had once been.
There was no reason for the Big Fundamental to lose again!
Duncan had prepared for this day, for this moment, for far too long.
Kobe sensed something unusual in Duncan's gaze.
"Come on, Big Fundamental."
"TIM DUNCAN!!!" Barkley's voice cracked.
Duncan sprang into the air and viciously swatted Yao Ming's three-pointer out of bounds.
A three-pointer!
Yao Ming's three-pointer was widely recognized as one of the league's nearly impossible-to-defend weapons.
Like Kobe's fadeaway three, McGrady's pull-up jumper, Iverson's Butterfly Step, and Duncan's bank-shot jumper.
Every one of those moves could be called unstoppable!
Whether an unstoppable move went in depended entirely not on the defender, but on the shooter's touch and stamina.
Yao Ming's touch had been blazing hot in the second half!
He had made three three-pointers in the third quarter!
The Lakers had tied the score outright.
Yet right at the start of the fourth quarter, Duncan used a dominant block to declare that the Lakers would not take this game so easily!
"How did he block that?" Yao Ming's mouth fell open.
In his season in the