9 Perfect Chemistry

It is now time for the last phase of the tryouts. This will decide who gets to be in the starting lineup.

It was a Saturday and classes are only in the morning. Anne and Charles decided to watch Quin's game against the varsities as well as their other classmates who were surprised that Quin was actually a terrific basketball player. They're cheering for him from the side and are excited to see the game as it has attracted a lot of audience from the other students.

"Alright guys, huddle up." Coach Alford shouted to the players to gather.

"This will be a four-quarter game with 8 minutes per quarter. There are 8 of you per team so 3 will be substitutes while the remaining 5 will be the starting players."

"We will evaluate you all according to your performance in this game and decide whether you will play for the starting lineup or not. To make sure you will not fight in getting a starting position in this game, we will select who will be benched based on your previous performances."

"You're given 5 minutes to discuss with your team and another 5 minutes for warmups. After that, we will start the game. So move to your teams and we will start this now. Go!" After Coach Alford said that, he also told us who are benched.

For our team's starting lineup, it will be me as the PF, Aaron as the PG, Noah as the SG, Gabriel as the SF, and Ikenna as our center.

I decided to be the PF so that I can support Ikenna in dealing with Jerrold in the post. The guy's just 4 inches taller than Ikenna so I'm assuming Ikenna will need all the help he can get.

The game's about to start so we're on our way to center court. Ikenna decided to make the tip-off since I'm pretty sure I won't have a chance against Jerrold.

"Alright guys, just like what we talked about, just stick to your roles and watch out for the switches."

We're all now ready and Ikenna is preparing for the tip-off.

Prriiiiii!

The whistle blew and the ball is thrown up in the air. Just like I expected, Jerrold won and tipped it to Isaac who then slowly advanced the ball to their side of the court.

Isaac made a sign to their team and immediately, their SG moved to make a screen for him to the left. Isaac got inside the perimeter because of that screen and made Ikenna move up from the post to stop him. Isaac realized that quickly and dropped a bounce pass to Jerrold who made an easy dunk making the first points of the game.

0-2

There was nothing we can do with that as I was just a step too late for that play. We regained our composure and I inbounded the ball to Aaron. As Aaron was just crossing the half-court, I sprinted immediately from the right baseline to the left baseline and got ready to receive a pass which Aaron didn't disappoint. My defender was surprised by my play and was just too late to block my jump shot from the corner 3-point line.

Swish! Nothing but net.

3-2

My team didn't cheer exaggeratedly and just complimented me on my play as we went back to defense.

We were too focused to mind the celebrations because this game will determine our role in this team, so we're going all-out right now.

Isaac calmly advanced the ball and again made the sign to his team but this time, the left side SF made the screen. Aaron and Gabriel made sure to press on Isaac this time and it worked as they double-teamed Isaac after he got out of the screen.

But Isaac got the better of them this time and Isaac passed the ball to the middle near the free-throw line which their SF was wide open after making the screen. Their SF shot a jumper and made the 2-point shot.

3-4

Despite the adjustments made by Aaron and Gabriel, it just wasn't enough to stop Isaac from making plays. He now already has 2 assists.

Aaron then advanced the ball to our side of the court and made a beautiful cross-over against Isaac to pass through, but Isaac is still sticking with him so he just passed the ball to Noah who was on the left. Ikenna tried to demand a pass to him as he was posting up Jerrold and Noah made a bounce pass to him.

Ikenna is having a hard time trying to make a clearer angle from the taller defender but then he saw Gabriel making cutting through the lane so he made a quick bounce pass that resulted in Gabriel making an easy layup.

5-4

Without hesitation, Jerrold threw a full-court pass to Isaac who is already sprinting to the other side of the court, and made a quick layup gaining the lead back in just a few seconds. We were not prepared for that play. It just shows how good the chemistry between this duo has.

5-6

I'm now getting even more hyped than ever. I was just smiling dumbly after that play. Now it's my turn to show off.

After inbounding the ball to Aaron, I asked him for the ball. Their SF is definitely a better defensive player than the one from my previous game so I made sure not to lose focus. I positioned myself on the right side of the court and was making dribbles against my opponent finding an opportunity to breakthrough.

And the opportunity presented itself when my defender took the bait to my right so I quickly crossed over to the left. My defender panicked and tried to stick to me so he quickly advanced to my left trying to get ahead of me but then I stopped midway making one dribble between my legs. He saw me stopping my advance yet he can't get back to defend the momentum only made him fall to his butt on the floor and could only watch me from the ground shooting the 3-point shot.

Everybody in the gym at that time could only watch the trajectory of the ball slowly going through the basket with their mouths wide open.

Another swishing sound echoed through the gym and the crowd went wild as they marveled at the spectacular play I just made.

8-6

As the game went on, it was just a sequence of back and forth scoring and only occasional stops on the defensive end but the crowd was hyped for having seen such an exciting game.

At the end of the half, the score was 38-41.

We were losing by 3 points because we still have no answer to the Isaac-Jerrold combo.

Jerrold is just too big for us to handle so he made 22 points for their team while I only have 19 points.

It wasn't bad as I got 8 rebounds and 3 assists because Ikenna's job was to box out Jerrold from the rebound.

I made 4 3-pointers in that half and missed only 3. But still, we need to take care of the basketball better since Issac is actually a stealing machine. He got 3 steals already and also contributed 11 points to his team. Isaac makes good reads on our play and makes the right plays at the right time. An ideal Point Guard indeed as he also only made 1 turnover, only missed one shot from the field, and made 8 assists already.

We still have 3 minutes for the half-time break so we discussed a little about the adjustments we should make to get back our lead in the second half. Only Ikenna and I were not substituted during the first half so we will not the second half to take a longer rest to be more prepared when we finish this game.

Assuming that Jerrold is also staying out. If Jerrold plays then Ikenna can only get back in the game since we don't have any other tall guys who can deal with him. But we made sure of making a better defensive formation to lighten the load on Ikenna's shoulders.

It's really nice to have smart teammates. Most of these calls are coming from Aaron and me. I'm actually quite surprised that Aaron knows a lot about basketball. I guess his Game Intelligence should be around grade C. That's already very impressive.

The whistle blows for the start of the second half.