Chapter 364: Early FMVP Talk
LeBron James watched from the sideline as an assistant helped Larry Hughes down the tunnel, and his expression turned unreadable.
Cleveland already struggled to score in stretches. That was who they were. Now they had lost their most reliable perimeter threat outside of LeBron himself, and the offense looked like it was about to grind into something even uglier.
The idea of getting swept for a second straight year was no longer a fear. It was walking closer, one possession at a time.
Over the next 4 trips, the Cavaliers managed just 1 made field goal.
Mike Brown stood on the sideline adjusting his glasses, looking like a man trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. There were not many levers to pull, and even a genius coach would have struggled with this roster in this moment. Brown was not a genius.
"Larry Hughes going out changes everything," Charles Barkley said on the broadcast. "Now Phoenix can load up on LeBron even more."
Kenny Smith agreed. "Exactly. LeBron has to run the offense, score, and then still anchor the defense. That's too much for anybody."
…
Phoenix, meanwhile, kept playing basketball the way a confident team plays it, quick decisions, sharp spacing, and zero sympathy.
Nash drove, drew the defense, and snapped a pass to Chen Yan. Chen Yan attacked instantly, forcing the defense to collapse again, then kicked it to Raja Bell.
Two straight drive and kick actions, and Cleveland's rotation was already broken.
Raja Bell stood alone in the corner.
Swish.
Cleveland came back and LeBron responded the only way he could, by smashing into the paint and earning free throws. He hit both.
But every time he tried to pull them closer, Phoenix answered with something colder.
Nash came off a screen and buried a 3.
Chen Yan decided he could not just watch everyone else set the nets on fire. After the next defensive stand, he floated into space and pulled up on the move.
Swish.
That was 3 straight makes from deep for the Suns, and it sounded like the rim was applauding.
With the game starting to slide, LeBron forced the issue. He drifted sideways off a screen, then whipped a frustrated pass to Daniel Gibson in the corner.
Gibson caught it with no hesitation. Being down big had finally taken the weight off his shoulders.
Swish.
A small answer, but at least it stopped the bleeding.
…
Phoenix came right back.
Nash crossed half court, slowed, scanned, then raised his hand and called Chen Yan over. The two guards ran a simple pick and roll, the kind Cleveland had seen for 3 games and still could not fully solve.
The goal was always the same, manufacture a mismatch.
Cleveland switched. Nash delivered the ball immediately.
Chen Yan faced Gibson and palmed the ball casually with 1 hand, like he was deciding which page to tear out of the playbook.
Bang. Bang.
Then he went.
A couple hard dribbles, and an exaggerated crossover that covered so much ground it looked unfair. Gibson read it, but his feet did not cooperate. The gap between their speed was obvious, and the hopeless feeling on Gibson's face lasted about as long as it took Chen Yan to blow by him.
LeBron started to shade over, thinking about the double.
Too late.
Chen Yan was already downhill.
Ilgauskas stepped up from the paint to help, and Chen Yan lifted the ball with his right hand.
For a split second it looked like a floater.
It was not.
It was a pass, soft and perfectly timed.
On the weak side, Stoudemire understood immediately, planted, and exploded upward.
BANG.
He finished the alley oop with both hands like he had been waiting all night to take something out on the rim.
When he landed, Stoudemire pounded his chest and roared toward the nearest camera. This was the kind of basket he loved, loud, violent, and certain.
"Great decision from Chen," the ABC broadcast crew said, the tone turning admiring despite the blowout. "He gets into the lane, draws the help, and delivers it right on time. His gravity is real, everybody leans toward him."
They were not wrong.
Ilgauskas could not be blamed for stepping up. If he stayed home, Chen Yan would have finished himself. Either way, it was 2 points. Cleveland was just choosing which kind of pain it preferred.
A 3, then a dunk, Phoenix followed with a quick combination that made it feel like the Cavaliers had taken a clean shot to the jaw. The lead ballooned past 20, and the arena's energy turned into something strained and brittle.
Cleveland's problem was simple and brutal.
They could not defend the drive.
They could not defend the 3.
And if they tried to trade baskets, they did not have enough creators to keep up. Outside of LeBron, there was no one who could reliably manufacture offense. Hughes could at least threaten it, but now he was back in the locker room watching the rest of the game unfold like a slow funeral.
By the end of the 3rd quarter, the scoreboard said it plainly.
83 to 60.
Phoenix led by 23.
…
With the margin that wide, Barkley and Kenny drifted into the conversation everyone in the building had already started having.
Finals MVP.
"I'm voting Chen," Barkley said without hesitation. "This series has been his stage."
Kenny nodded. "No argument. The scoring displays alone have already decided the story."
They said it like the sweep was inevitable, because at this point it felt inevitable to everyone watching.
Back home, fans were already counting down.
If Phoenix finished it, Chen Yan would not just be the first Asian player to lift the Larry O'Brien Trophy as a starter. He might also become the first to win Finals MVP.
And the craziest part was that tonight, he looked almost relaxed.
Through 3 quarters, Chen Yan had 19 points, 5 assists, and 3 rebounds. His teammates were in rhythm, the ball was moving, and he did not need to force anything.
But nobody forgot what happened in the first 2 games.
Back to back 50 plus explosions do not fade from memory just because one night is calm.
Even with a quieter box score, most people still treated Chen Yan as the Finals MVP already.
Because the series had been decided the moment he made the Finals look like his personal playground.
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