novelThe Decision Defining the Future 4
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The opponents of the Elite team for this game were the Pigs team, they had a PG named Max and an SF named Alan.
These were the two strongest players on the opposing team, the Pigs team were hopeful that they could win this game because they knew that even though the Elite team won last year they still had a lot of difficulties doing so.
And the Elite team this year had two more new players than last year, so the Pigs team's opponent having a team with players all of the third year of high school shows that the school team was weak.
Jake naturally did not know any of this and was ready for the beginning of the game, soon the game began and Mark got the first possession of the ball for the Elite team, Jake received the ball and prepared to start the attack.
But when he advanced to the Max attack that was the opposing PG came to defend against Jake near the middle of the court, Jake realized this, but did not care about it and just made the pass to David.
Such pressure against a player was a bad idea to make against a PG that has only to organize the plays, soon everyone reached the line of three points and David passed the ball back to Jake who looked at the position of his teammates and passed the ball to Carter who was freer, Carter received the ball and turned to make the mid-range shot and make the first 2 points for the Elite team.
After the opponent went to make his first attack, Jake did not pressure from the middle of the block as Max and waited in the line of three points, Max advanced calmly and passed to the SG of his team that even on the strong defense of David managed to make 2 points with a mid-range shot.
Jake started another attack and Max was close to him from the start again, so Jake again gave the ball to David to advance to the attacking block near the three-point line. Jake got the ball back and fired out to make 3 points for your team.
Max did not expect that and can not even react, actually whoever told him to stay on top of Jake was the Pigs team coach who saw how Jake had made a Triple Double in the first two games and was worried about it.
But not always the data told the story of the game, Jake was not the only player on his team and did not even have to spend much time with the ball in the hands to make the moves, so the defense of Max besides bothering a bit was nonsense.
The game continued like this until the end of the first period, Jake had made 4 assists and 8 points in the attack and got 4 steals in the defense, which was almost the same as he got in the other games, the difference was that whoever was with the ball the longer it was David and not him.
The Pigs coach who saw this knew that his strategy had not worked but had nothing else to do because he realized that the other players also played well so he could not play a double game on Jake.
In fact, the coach was even underestimating Jake, even if Jake was under two-man defense he could still make the points and the plays, it was just that Jake did not think it necessary to get rid of Max.
But if it had a difference was that the difference in the score was only 6 points in the first period, this showed how the opponents were much better in the state championship, another cause of this was that Alan had managed to make 6 points in Harrison.
So in the short time that had coach Mike reprimanded Harrison a lot for that, after all, Harrison was much better in defense after these two years of training, so these points on him only showed that he should be devolved in the game.
In the second period the defense remained tight on Jake, Harrison looked more focused on defense but was not yet in his best condition, Jake gave more passes to David who managed to hit three shots from outside and make 9 points.
So when the second period ended the elite team led by 14 points and Jake had already made 14 points and 7 assists with 7 steals, meaning he was close to triple-double in that game as well.
Jake also realized that even though David was almost always the highest scorer of the team he now made almost all points with shots from outside, now he had 15 points, Harrison had not received any pass from Jake because he was being erased by the opposing defense.
So the third period began, the game was almost the same way of the second period, but Harrison seemed to have finally returned to the game, so until Jake returned to pass the ball to him, Jake was still marked by Max closely, but after making the double Double Jake made two beautiful plays and made two dunks in that period.
He did this to show how this individual defense was useless, Mark also cheered up and did a dunk too, so at the end of the third period the Elite team was 22 points ahead and the Pigs team gave up winning the game, so the game finished after the fourth period with the Elite team winning by 28 points difference.
Jake saw that Eric had not come to this game and found it a pity, he wanted to ask Eric to prepare an album for him with the pictures he took at all games, but Eric had lost that, after everyone calms down Jake was ready to go away.
But before leaving he saw that Harrison was a little quiet, as captain of the team he thought he had to talk to Harrison and approached.
"So, Harrison, has anything happened to you?"
"No... it's nothing important."
"You can talk to me, I realized that you were very quiet today and even had an unstable performance in the game if you want to talk to someone, can talk to me."
So Harrison looked at Jake for a while and then looked down for a while longer, Jake kept quiet waiting because he realized that Harrison was wondering if he should talk or not.
"I think I'd better talk than stick with this myself, actually I was kind of weird today because, in the third game of the state championship, I was thinking about stopping playing basketball."
That made Jake surprised, he never thought Harrison wanted to stop playing after all Jake knew that all his teammates really enjoyed playing basketball.
"And why did you think of that Harrison?"
"Actually I've always loved basketball a lot, a few years ago at the beginning of Middle School I thought I was a basketball genius. Since I was little I always played with friends and always thought about attacking and I loved to score."
"So in the first two years of Middle School even being in a school that was not so good at basketball I thought I was a genius yet, I was able to win the regional championship in the first and second year, and I also scored a lot."
"In the second year I managed to win the state championship too and I was happier, but when I lost in the national championship, I realized that with that team I could never win."
"Just playing is not fun, I wanted to win and so I knew that the Elite team was recruiting good players from weaker teams to make a winning team and they would even give a university scholarship to the players."
"When I was called I was very happy and I accepted quickly so I thought I could be the star of this new team as well but when I met everyone I realized that all of you had great skills in attack and defense and I was the weakest between you."
"And you had Jake too, I knew I could never be the best player on the team, but even so I thought I could improve a lot and fix my faults and be on the same level as everyone on the team as well."
"After the final of the national championship that year we all played very badly and you had to take the team alone for the victory I realized that there was still a lot to improve and that the defense was also very important for a good player.
"So I thought my biggest fault was the defense and I decided to train a lot so that when I played in high school I was just like you, but then the new coach arrived and even you left the team and I realized that besides my other defense disability as a player was the height."
"So after staying almost two years without playing and seeing that I would not be high to play well in the future, I thought about giving up basketball in this third game last year."
"But then David came back to the team and we won and then the coach left the team and so I thought I could still play, and now I'm playing with all of you, so I got a little distracted, but I've recovered."
So Jake who heard it all felt bad for Harrison, even though he stayed two years off the team he wanted to be a professional player and knew he had a talent and a system to help him fulfill his dreams.
But Harrison did not have all these things that Jake had, Harrison was young, did not have many talents, did not know how Jake could or could not grow in the future and stayed the same time out of the team, so it was normal for him to start thinking about these things.
| ← Ch. 134 | Ch. 136 → |