The whistle sounded across the court, and the game that garnered even more attention than the "main course" of the "Christmas Battle" ended with the Pacers winning at home 90 to 72, a 18-point victory over the Pistons.
"Let’s congratulate the Pacers for their victory and also congratulate Su for his strong comeback in this game, scoring 24 points, grabbing 6 rebounds and dishing out 5 assists," Barkley gleefully announced the final results in the TNT studio.
Next to him, Kenny Smith had been forcing a smile since Su Wan completed the layup, completely unable to speak his lines.
"What a beautiful night!" Barkley added with a hint of meaning.
"Indiana!"
"Indiana!"
"Indiana!"
The audience erupted in cheers as soon as the whistle blew.
This was a common scene on the Pacers’ home court:
Every time they won an important game, the Pacers’ fans would chant "Indiana" together after the game.
It meant something like "long live."
Artest couldn’t wait and rushed towards Su Wan, giving him an enthusiastic hug, "Man, you played amazing!"
Su Wan noticed his voice was a bit hoarse.
"Wasn’t it because of you? Man, you were really amazing!" Artest repeated excitedly, it seemed with his current emotional high, no other words could pop into his head.
The ABC live host also came towards Su Wan at this time, captured the embrace between Artest and Su Wan, then let the camera behind him focus on Su Wan.
By the numbers, Su Wan’s 24 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists were not the best for the Pacers. Young O’Neal racked up 23 points and 11 rebounds, Reggie Miller scored 25 points, and Foster put up 11 points and 14 rebounds, all of them performing outstandingly.
But the most explosive player was naturally Su Wan, who scored 19 points in the second half and dunked over Prince.
The Pacers began pulling away in the score starting from his rampage.
The Pistons were completely unable to contain the Pacers’ offense, and it all began from his rampage.
From this perspective, Su Wan was the MVP for the Pacers tonight.
Not one from the Indiana crowd in the stands had left, and when they saw Su Wan being interviewed, they sent over a unified shout:
"Su!"
"Su!"
"Su!"
...
Su Wan raised one hand high, clenched it into a fist, and shouted back at them, "Justice will prevail!"
Then, this phrase, like a highly contagious virus, began to spread among the crowd, eventually becoming unified and echoing through Conseco Arena:
"Justice will prevail!"
"Justice will prevail!"
"Justice will prevail!"
Larry Bird saw this and showed a joyful smile, his eyes filled with anticipation as he said to Walsh beside him, "Do you know what I thought of at this moment?"
Walsh turned with an inquisitive look, Bird was the icon of the ’80s and had witnessed many classic moments, ones that Walsh didn’t know about.
Bird said, "It reminded me of the last moments of the fifth game of the Eastern Conference Finals in 1980."
Walsh immediately understood what Bird was referring to.
Because that was a classic NBA moment:
The Boston fans had chanted that famous slogan towards the Philadelphia 76ers players in the last few minutes of that game:
"Beat LA!"
Bird understood that moment as:
Unity of emotional value!
Every Boston fan wants to take down the Lakers.
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Just like now, every Indiana native feels that defeating the Pistons is "justice must prevail!"
This is the embodiment of cohesion!
Behind every championship team, there must be a group of such fans.
Now, the Pacers have it once again...
"This year’s Pacers will create a major scene!" Bird had never been as convinced as he was now.
The chant "justice must prevail" continued, and the host kept observing Su Wan’s expression when she suddenly had a whimsical question, "So, Uncle, do you think it was the Pistons who were in the wrong, not the Pacers, and Ron didn’t do anything wrong, he shouldn’t have been penalized?"
As soon as Su Wan heard this, he knew it was full of traps, and he emphasized one point first: "Ron definitely did something wrong!"
In any industry that relies on the audience for its bread and butter, hitting the audience is wrong!
On this point, Artest was definitely mistaken.
However...
"In the game, it was the Pistons player Ben Wallace who started the altercation first, right? Next, it was a fan of the Pistons who threw the punch, right? So why did all the penalties land on the Pacers in the end?"
Su Wan posed three consecutive rhetorical questions that left the host speechless.
She wanted to say that Big Ben was also suspended.
But... compared to the Pacers’ "destruction," the Pistons’ penalties really weren’t much of an issue.
Post-game interview:
"We didn’t lose because of the rookie’s breakthrough, what we really couldn’t cope with was the Pacers’ shooting, that’s why we changed our defense strategy, allowing him the opportunity." — Larry Brown regarding the main reason the Pistons lost by 18 points.
"He’s not bad, but that’s all, just not bad, and if it’s just about limiting him, we have plenty of ways!" — Larry Brown on Su Wan’s performance in the second half;
"We played too poorly ourselves, that’s the main thing, not just this game, but our recent performances have been terrible, we need to find our rhythm as soon as possible." — Billups felt ashamed of the Pistons losing by 18 points tonight, especially about his own 6 for 16 performance;
"We always get whistles as soon as we make a move, you can’t defend like that, the calls tonight were too cautious, the refs’ goal was for us to have no physical contact at all, this isn’t a Christmas battle, this is just a show, I just hope that this only happens tonight." — Ben Wallace complained about the referees overacting, as he committed 5 fouls tonight;
"That was a good dunk, but I don’t think I’ll let my kids see it." — Prince on being dunked on by Su Wan;
"What else is there to say, he’s the most shining new star of the year, he will become a superstar in this league in the future." — Artest commenting on Su Wan’s 19 points in the first half;
"It feels really great to be on the court, I was in a good state tonight, thank God, I know I can do even more." — Young O’Neal on his performance;
"Very good, no problems, our communication was smooth, I know he’s a good person!" Young O’Neal commented on coordinating with Su Wan for the first time;
"My teammates created space for me, that’s very important." — Su Wan on his second-half performance.
"Uncle, both you and LeBron are rookies with unstable shooting abilities, but tonight your shooting percentage reached 60% while his was under 20%. What do you think caused this difference?"
"It’s normal, he’s just a high school student, losing to the Pistons is nothing unusual, I’ve always said that he needs to start from scratch, systematically learn what tactics are, if he continues like this, he’ll only know one tactic, which is the ball in his hands and everyone else revolving around him."
— Su Wan evaluating LeBron’s performance against the Pistons previously;
"On the first day you joined this team, you said you would bring a championship to the Pacers, tonight you beat the defending champions, how hopeful do you feel about winning the championship this year?"
"I’ve been looking for an opportunity to tell everyone, this is the current unified thought of all Pacers players, although things happened that none of us expected which caused some problems for the team, our goal has never changed, our goal at the start of the season was the championship, and it still is... despite missing Ron now, making this goal much more difficult, thankfully Stephen will be back soon. Please believe, all Pacers fans, we will make our utmost effort to vie for this year’s championship."
"Never compromise, always resist, this is Indiana!"
"And..."
"Justice will prevail!"
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