Ryuo vs. Tokiwadai, Part-One

The time for the game was upon them, and both teams changed into their jerseys.

Tokiwadai in their black base with purple accents and Ryuo suited up in their navy blue with yellow accents.

Shun beamed as he relaced his shoes.

Hyakuzawa questioned, seeing his smiling captain.

Hyakuzawa: "What's with you? You were so grumpy before, and now you are grinning."

Shun pointed at his jersey and said.

Shun: "How many times we get to wear the jersey, of course, I am excited."

Unlike high school, where the tournaments were longer and more in number, and the players could wear the jersey a lot, the middle school students had less opportunity to wear the jersey.

A practice game was the perfect opportunity for players to wear the jersey.

Hyakuzawa sighed and said.

Hyakuzawa: "Just put the jersey on during practice. I don't think anyone would mind."

Shun waved his finger sideways and responded.

Shun: "We wear a practice top during the mini-game, and that would hide the jersey, no use of wearing it there."

Both of them looked at the coach, who called out.

Coach: "Huddle."

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The coach looked at his team, sitting in front of him and started.

Coach: "We have two full-length games against Ryuo Middle School.

One before lunch and one after lunch."

Ryuo had come from another prefecture, so a single game wouldn't be worth their effort of traveling to another prefecture. [1]

Coach crossed his arms and announced.

Coach: "Kageyama, Yuki, Kaitani, and Hyakuzawa would play in both games, full time.

And, for the fifth member."

He looked at the two first-year and addressed them.

Coach: "Narumiya would play the first-half in both games, and Sora would play the second-half in both games.

Understood?"

The team replied in unison.

Team: "Yes, Sir!"

The coach gestured for Shun to take over and walked over to sit on the side.

Shun stood up and walked over to the front of the team. He looked at his teammates and assigned them their duties.

He looked at Hyakuzawa and said.

Shun: "Hyakuzawa would take on Ryuo's center."

He turned to Yuki and spoke.

Shun: "Yuki, cover the power forward. Choke him out."

He looked at Kaitani and told.

Shun: "You are on the shooting guard. Stick to him, follow him, doesn't matter where he goes, make sure Ryuo is conscious of the fact that their shooting guard has a constant guard on him."

Finally, he arrived at the two first-year and assigned them their assignment.

Shun: "You both cover the point guard. Don't be pressured and make the decisions that you feel are right."

He looked at Yuki and instructed.

Shun: "If the point guard somehow gets inside, kill his momentum."

Shun put an open hand on his chest and declared.

Shun: "I will take care of Hayama Kotaro."

He smiled and spoke.

Shun: "Let's see what is the level of one of the best teams of heading to the Nationals."

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The game started and both teams assembled on the court.

The players from both teams bowed to each other and shook hands.

Players: "Let's have a good game."

An external referee was going to judge the game. He called out.

Referee: "Jumpers to the center."

Both teams' centers made their way to their tip-off positions and got ready to get their team the first possession.

The referee looked at the two jumpers and threw the ball up for them to fight over it.

Hyakuzawa jumped at got to the ball first and tipped it Kaitani.

Kaitani jogged and looked around to see the players and saw Shun moving towards the opposite side of the court.

Kaitani: 'Offense on the first play?'

He decided to move the ball along and passed it to Yuki.

Yuki was moving in the middle of the court caught the ball. He saw Shun increasing his speed and running towards the baseline, so he bounce-passed the ball to Shun just before Shun entered the paint area.

Shun caught the ball and ran parallel to the baseline.

In his path, Ryuo's Power Forward came in like a wall, but Shun passed that wall with a simple spin-move and laid the ball quick and fluidly.

Shun clapped as he moved to defend.

Shun: "Good play."

Leaving behind a confused Ryuo, lost after seeing Tokiwadai's play.

The play had started slowly with Kaitani and Yuki in no hurry to get the ball to the basket, but then there was a long bounce-pass to the baseline, and Shun nimbly laid the ball into the basket.

-*-*-*-

Coach Koetsuji smiled as he judged the first play of his team.

Coach: "Ah, a shift in pace."

He looked at Shun and thought.

Coach: 'He made turned the slow start into a speedy quick score.'

Shun saw that the pace of the play was slow, so he decided to gain an element of surprise by switching the pace up and grasped the first points.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Hayama recovered quickly and clapped his hands to snap his team out of their confusion and loudly said.

Hayama: "That was surprising, but let's move past that and focus on the next play."

After saying that, he moved forward to get into an attack position.

Ryuo's point guard got the ball and ran the offense for his team, he thought about the play he should run and looking at the all ready Tokiwadai defense, he decided to let his ace handle it.

So, he passed it to his shooting guard, who moved it along the line to Hayama.

-*-*-*-

Hayama caught the ball and turned his body towards, and immediately saw Shun in front of him.

He beamed and addressed his purple-eyed defender.

Hayama: "Let's do it, one-on-one!"

Shun softly smiled and got into a defensive stance.

Shun: "Yes, show me what the lightning beast can do."

Hayama dribbled the ball normally, and they slowly inched towards the basket. He tried to pull little fakes, but Shun didn't fake for them and deployed a solid defense that didn't give a lot of space to Hayama, and restricted his progress.

As he defended, Shun thought.

Shun: "Hmm? He is not using his dribble skill.

Well, it is just the start of the game."

Seeing that Hayama wasn't using his lightning dribble, he decided to corner him to the side of the court and restrict his moment.

Shun opened a little opening to the right and led Hayama to the side of the court, and in a moment, Hayama had his back to the sideline, with not a lot of space to work.

He frowned and thought.

Hayama: 'Shit, he cornered me.'

He looked around to see his options when Shun suddenly closed in, causing Hayama to stop his dribble and hold the ball in both his hands away from Shun's reach.

Hayama: 'Crap, I can't dribble anymore!'

Shun grinned and said.

Shun: "Got you."

Hayama saw his shooting guard running towards him, he had Kaitani behind him, but he decided to pass the ball to him, so he could a pass-back.

He threw the ball to his teammate, but mid-pass, Narumiya appeared and stole the ball.

Shun's eyes brightened, and he yelled.

Shun: "Nice steal."

Narumiya ran to the basket with the Ryuo's point guard on his tail, but even then, he was able to lay the ball in the basket, and even if he missed, Kaitani had switched from defense to offense for backup.

Shun looked at Narumiya.

Shun: "Hmmm...."

He thought of something but decided to wait before implementing it.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Outside of the three-point arc, Shun and Hayama faced off against each other.

Shun was in control of the ball while Hayama was on the defense.

Shun dribbled the ball between his hands in front of Hayama, shifting on his feet to make sure Hayama wasn't able to lock on him.

Hayama decided to close in for a steal attempt, Shun's reflexes reacted as he leaned back and did a back-change, and then cut past from the right.

Hayama was off-stance as he went in for a steal, so he wasn't able to follow after Shun in time.

Shun reached basket and was about to jump for a layup when Ryuo's center jumped for a block.

Ryou's C: "Got you now!"

Shun's reflexes warned him, and Shun was confident that he could score, but he decided to pass as,

Shun: 'If the center is here, that means he is free.'

Within a split-second, he confirmed the position of his teammate and passed the ball to the left.

Ryuo's center was startled when he saw the pass, and when he saw the receiver jumping for the basket all he could say was,

Ryuo's C: "Crap!"

The receiver was Hyakuzawa, and he jumped for a dunk. Hyakuawa ascended to the basket, as Ryou's center was losing height.

Hyakuzawa jammed the ball into the basket, and when he got down, he and Shun chest-bumped each other.

Shun and Hyakuzawa: "Yeah!"

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Current Tokiwadai's outside game was at it's weakest. Mibuchi was retired, and neither Sora nor Narumiya had developed their skills for them to be reliable in a game.

But, Tokiwadai still had Shun.

-*-*-*-

Shun had passed the ball to the inside and was now moving around the three-point arc.

He was ready for a pass to shoot the ball. At the same time, he was ready to defend in case of turnover.

Around the perimeter, Kaitani shot the ball, but it missed, but Yuki rebounded the ball and looked around for someone to pass, and saw Shun near the three-point arc, so he threw the ball to him.

Hayama and Ryuo's power forward immediately moved towards Shun to guard him.

Shun caught the ball with his defenders near him, but he didn't think of dribbling to create some space and entered shooting motion.

Looking at Shun, Hayama, and Ryou's Power Forward thought they would reach, but when Hayama jumped for the block, he found that.

Hayama: "I can't reach."

Shun was already at his release point and shot the ball from his apex reach.

The ball flew to the basket, made contact with the inside of the rim, and dropped into the basket.

Shun experimenting with Ivan's quick-draw and found that trying to shoot the fast as he can till his accuracy got back to normal wasn't the right approach, and almost all of his shots missed, which wasn't optimal.

So, he switched to increasing little and then maintain that speed till he was used to it.

The result was that Shun was just a tad bit faster than before, and combine that with his high release point did the rest.

It became very difficult to stop Shun from shooting if he had ample space.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The first quarter of the game was over, and at the Tokiwadai bench.

Shun stood in front of his team and gave them some instructions.

Shun: "Okay, listen. We are doing good, but this isn't the best we can do.

So, this is what I am thinking.

Ryuo is an offensive team, and they pride themselves on their offensive abilities.

So, for the second quarter, we are going to play defensively.

We are going to oppress their offense and make them panic."

He looked at Hyakuzawa and said.

Shun: "Hyakuzawa, ignore everyone else and solely concentrate on their center.

If he wants to score in the post, loom over him.

If he wants to rebound, box him out.

Make as much contact as you can so that he doesn't have a sense of freedom in the post."

He turned to Yuki and instructed.

Shun: "Yuki, I want you to make sure that when the Power Forward gets the ball, you either make the shot clock run out on him or force him to pass.

I don't want him to score, even if it is a poor attempt.

By the end of this quarter, or the third, I want Ryuo's members to think that their Power Forward is not an option to pass."

Shun arrived at Kaitani.

Shun: "Kaitani, it is fine if the shooting guard gets the ball, but don't give him space.

I don't mind if he dribbles past you, just don't give him space to shoot.

If he comes to close to the basket, I will be on him."

Shun finished with Narumiya.

Shun: "Leave the point guard free, he is an inside scorer.

Between Yuki, Hyakuzawa, and me, whoever is closest to him, will block him.

What I want from you is to move around the court. Be there to steal a hasty pass."

Shun looked at his team and declared.

Shun: "I want Ryuo's offensive ability broken, that is our sole goal today.

I don't care about pilling up points, as long we break their offense.

I don't want this turning into a score-out.

I want to defeat Ryuo by eliminating their strength."

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

[

A/N - 1: I will not be showing both the games.

They have come so far, so it is expected that they would want more than one game. I just wanted to put that out.

And, we won't be needing two games to do what Shun wants to achieve. I will finish them in one game.

]