As soon as the second quarter began, O'Neal was thoroughly enraged.
The paint monster who had spent two months pent up with an injury stopped caring about any tactical positioning. He muscled his way into the low post, using his massive body like a bulldozer to shove Magic Johnson all the way from the elbow to beneath the basket.
The moment "Penny" Hardaway's lob dropped into his hands, O'Neal caught it with his back to the basket without even looking back. A second later, that mountain of flesh slammed backward!
Boom!
Johnson felt as though a heavy truck charging at full speed had struck him square in the chest. The impact knocked the breath clean out of him, and he staggered back half a step.
O'Neal gave him no chance to regain his footing. The instant he created space with that collision, he forced his way around, like a wall of black iron slamming shut. Beneath an overwhelming shadow, he rose off the floor right against Johnson.
"Double-team! Hold him down!!" someone on the Boston Celtics' bench screamed, their voice cracking.
Dino Radja lunged desperately in from the side, sweeping his long arms across to join Johnson in cutting off O'Neal's path upward. Two big men over 2.11 meters tall converged at once, their four huge hands blocking almost his entire field of vision.
But airborne, O'Neal completely ignored that weight. Inhuman brute force erupted from his core as he powered against both interior defenders and raised the ball above his head.
Johnson's arm pressed against his chest, and Radja's palm nearly struck the side of his face, but O'Neal's two enormous, ironlike hands still cleared every obstacle and hammered the ball toward the rim!
Clang-!!
The basket support nearly snapped under the slam, and the net whipped upward as though struck by a cannonball.
The tremendous impact knocked Johnson and Radja over the baseline together, sending them tumbling into the photographers' glaring flashes.
Hanging from the rim, O'Neal let out a beastlike roar before his massive body slammed back onto the floor. With a tremendous bang, the entire hardwood seemed to tremble.
And that was only the beginning. "Penny" Hardaway began taking over the game too.
Taking advantage of the terrifying defensive attention O'Neal commanded in the paint, Hardaway attacked the cracks in the Boston Celtics' defense again and again. His movements were the complete opposite of O'Neal's. Where O'Neal bulldozed with brute force, he made elegant incursions with artistic crossovers, sudden-stop stepbacks, and midrange pull-ups.
Sam Cassell was already doing everything he could to hound him at close range, but every shot Hardaway took seemed to come half a beat ahead of the defense. He threaded through gaps between bodies, stopped and rose before the help arrived, and sent the ball securely through the hoop time after time.
Orlando Arena came alive again. The roar of twenty thousand fans poured down from every direction in the stands, almost lifting the roof off the building.
In the final three minutes of the second quarter, O'Neal continued wreaking havoc beneath the basket while Hardaway repeatedly picked out defenders to attack in isolation on the perimeter.
One destroyed the defense with his body; the other tore open its wounds with skill. The two All-Stars pressed down like mountains, and before halftime, the Orlando Magic clawed back the expanded deficit, one bite at a time.
Lin Qi sat courtside, his expression calm, but he knew: This was what a strong team looked like.
An information advantage had a shelf life.
Sure enough, the Magic were no pushovers.
At halftime, Magic head coach Hill smashed the locker room whiteboard and went back over their entire defensive scheme against Garnett from beginning to end.
As soon as the second half began, the atmosphere on the court changed.
Grant changed too.
Those fifteen minutes at halftime had cooled the veteran's head. He no longer let Garnett's cutting trash talk affect him. He reclaimed something a veteran ought to possess-discipline.
When Garnett retreated beyond the three-point line again, Grant no longer sagged off. With his playoff-caliber reach and lateral movement, he dutifully followed him out. When Garnett tried to beat him with his first step again, he no longer lunged blindly or took suicidal gambles. Instead, he steadily used his feet and body to stay with Garnett and funnel him toward O'Neal's help-defense area.
The empty space where he had done whatever he wanted in the first half disappeared.
"Penny" Hardaway began turning it on too. The Magic's other All-Star no longer just fed O'Neal. With his own drives and midrange jumpers, he began taking points back over Sam Cassell again and again.
The Magic began chipping away at the gap.
On the Boston Celtics' bench, the youngsters started getting nervous.
That exhilarating ease of sweeping everything aside in the first half was gone. Once the Magic adjusted, the Boston Celtics' offense became difficult again.
But Garnett did not panic.
Grant was guarding him tightly, and threes were harder to get off-so he stopped taking them.
He brought the ball to the high post more often. With those exceptionally long arms and a guard's court vision, he began facilitating. When Sam Cassell cut, he fed him; when Johnson rolled, he delivered a bounce pass; when Jones cut backdoor on the weak side, he threw a long pass over the top.
The Magic's defense went all out to limit Garnett's scoring, only to discover that this rookie had stopped scoring and started passing. And the passing vision afforded by his 2.11-meter height still gave the Boston Celtics' offense a way through.
When Grant really came out at him, Garnett used the footwork he had practiced for two months to drive face-up and attack the paint. Even if O'Neal came over to help, he could try that absurdly high floater or, at the last moment, dish to Johnson, whom O'Neal had left open.
Scoring was no longer as easy as it had been in the first half. But Garnett discovered that as long as he wasn't stubborn, as long as he wasn't single-mindedly determined to score himself, the scheme could still function.
That was something that pleased Lin Qi more than a string of made threes...
After his opponents adjusted to him, this young man did not struggle helplessly. Instead, with a frightening, almost instinctive adaptability, he brought out a second weapon for influencing the game right there on the spot.
In the fourth quarter, the game reached fever pitch.
O'Neal did whatever he wanted beneath the basket, while "Penny" pulled the strings outside. With their two All-Stars' experience and ability, the Magic stubbornly kept the score close.
Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics relied on Garnett as their new hub, scoring at times and facilitating at others, on Sam Cassell's clutch nerve, on Jones's threes and defense, and on Radja's versatile offensive skills. They simply refused to let the Magic take the lead.
The two teams remained locked together until the very end.
In the final moments, the Boston Celtics led by one, with the Magic in possession.
"Penny" Hardaway held the ball, looking to end the game with a drive. But Jones clung to him like a shadow he couldn't shake. Forced into a corner, Penny Hardaway passed to O'Neal in the low post.
With his back to the basket, O'Neal prepared to overpower Johnson, who was holding his ground.
The instant he turned, a long arm suddenly appeared...
It was Garnett, coming over from the weak side to double-team.
He failed to swat away O'Neal's immensely powerful shot, but that timely contest sent O'Neal's little hook onto the front rim.
Johnson and Garnett boxed out and secured the rebound together.
The final buzzer sounded.
The Celtics had won.
By one point.
In Orlando, on the home court of that Shark who had just returned from injury and raged throughout the second half, these youngsters had narrowly stolen a win with a scheme nobody had ever seen and a rookie just beginning to show his edge.
When Garnett's final numbers settled into place, even the seasoned Orlando commentator paused in surprise.
23 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 3 blocks.
"...Ladies and gentlemen," the commentator said, disbelief in his voice, "23 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 assists? Those numbers are too well-rounded for a rookie. Much less a nineteen-year-old kid we'd never even given a second look before."
But what truly sent chills down the spines of everyone who knew the game was not that string of numbers.
It was the "process" behind them.
In the first half, he had used threes and speed to shoot All-Defensive Second Team member Grant full of holes. When pressed, he could still beat him with a face-up drive and score on a floater over O'Neal.
In the second half, when the Magic desperately tried to limit his scoring, he transformed into a "dealer" with six assists, bringing the entire team to life through his passing.
Points, rebounds, assists, blocks... That night, this nineteen-year-old bared his fangs to the entire league for the first time in a frighteningly complete display.
After the game, Lin Qi did not join the celebration.
He knew this victory had benefited enormously from their "information advantage." Next time, when teams across the league began studying this tape and preparing their defenses for Garnett, this scheme would no longer come so easily.
This 23-point game was only a beginning too. It was a fine battle won on one particular night through tactical advantages and surprise.
Garnett was still far from being able to play like this consistently every night. Opponents would still target him, shut him down, and make him taste helplessness again in higher-level contests.
But this one victory had never been what Lin Qi wanted.
He wanted this young man, who had been schooled in turn by three great interior players, hit the rookie wall, and once fallen into self-doubt, to find that fire again.
He wanted him to see for himself... what the things he had secretly learned, those five hundred extra threes he practiced every day, and his unique gifts could accomplish in this league when joined together.
And now, in the locker room, the young man who had just played a god-making game was once again surrounded by teammates, being shoved and jostled.
He grinned, his chatterbox mouth back in action, animatedly recounting to everyone how he had "shot Grant full of holes."
In those eyes, dimmed for so long by the rookie wall, the wildfire Lin Qi knew so well burned once more.
Standing in the doorway, Lin Qi watched that rekindled fire and smiled.
The rookie wall had been broken through.
That loud, boisterous, utterly fearless Kevin Garnett was back.
And he was stronger than before he hit the wall.