Nationals vs Reo Mibuchi

At the morning, the first game is Teiko vs Shoei. And Hanabira vs Seika Middle School would be the ones on the afternoon.

Hideki is feeling ecstatic to face a prodigy like Reo Mibuchi and test his defense against an ever changing shot mechanic of Reo Mibuchi, Hideki was able to study a little about Reo's shot mechanics, but the data on those shots were too few and of low quality so he couldn't come up with a solution but to just wing it. 

With Seika's half court strategy of five out, this would spell disaster for Hanabira, but Coach Yoshida is a defensive mastermind for a reason and he incorporates a lineup of 3 Forwards and 2 Guards, to try and counter their speed. As Seika loves to use screen and pops for Centers that love to shoot three pointers, and Seika's Center is the rarest example of that.

Another defensive assignment is that Hideki is to guard Reo Mibuchi and prevent him from shooting the lights out from three point land.

But before their game there is the game of Teiko vs Shoei.

In a one-sentence summary. Teiko dominated Shoei.

In a longer explanation, Ryoma was unable to stop all 5 players of Teiko and Teppei was especially traumatized against Muasakibara, Teiko's dominant Center. Murasakibara was the game's player as he constantly stopped Kiyoshi's offense and was able to dominate on the offensive end.

This was one big factor as to why Ryoma would retire from coaching next year.

This game made Teiko advance to another Nationals Finals appearance.

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Now it was Hideki's turn to shine.

At the court they shook hands with each player, Hideki's eyes was on Reo, who smiled back, to which Hideki cringed.

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At the tip-off, Hideki was the "Center" this game so he has to be the one at the jump ball, which he succeeds and taps the ball towards Renji. As Hideki landed he then rushed towards the basket where he signaled Renji the sign for Rush A. Renji got the memo and as Hideki is near the basket Renji faked a shot and instead threw the ball to Hideki who was up for an alley-oop.

At defense, Seika was shocked as Reo was facing against Hideki, the ace matchup which made the game more spicier. Reo now had a smile that welcomed the challenge and has gone to his normal shooting stance and faked a shot, Hideki reacted appropriately and didn't jumped, but Reo changed his mind and began fading away for the three-pointer, Hideki reacted a millisecond too late and was not able to block the shot, Reo was lucky that the shot went in.

Hideki got back on offense and told the team not to worry as they still got the game in the bag. Hanabira got into their standard motion offense and was able to score an inside shot courtesy of Hideki.

Back to Seika's possession, Reo again got the ball and this time tried his luck on a quick Heaven, which was disrupted by Hideki and the shot didn't went in, Kobayashi (C) got the rebound and passed the ball to Hideki who then rushed to the other court and tried for a layup, as two Seika players tried to block him, he spotted Renji in the corner where he could see him, so Hideki threw the ball to the corner for Renji to shoot, but due to his short height Reo was able to disrupt that shot and Seika got the ball back.

In their next possession, he was able to bait Hideki into his first foul and an and-one opportunity for Reo, who sunk the free throw.

The first quarter was like that, but Hideki was able to exercise more caution, only netting one more foul before the end of the quarter. The score was a surprising 24 to 18, with Seika in the lead, Reo was able to bait the other players with his Earth shot, which was more easier as Hideki had his 'cheat' ability, being able to react to anything in front of him, or the "God-given Reaction Speed".

In the second quarter, Reo tried to hunt more fouls onto Hideki so his team can advance to the Finals, but it was easier said than done, there are moments where Hideki was able to avert himself from a found courtesy of an Earth shot, but this gave Reo to shoot the rock to the rim. But these special shots from Reo miss on rare occasions, where it can only be counted by one finger. 

But at the end of the second quarter, Hideki told Reo "You know Reo, I can stop your Heaven shots now" Reo was shocked but of course, he was intrigued and a little bit miffed at Hideki's statement and directly went in for a Heaven, which Hideki stopped, Hideki grabbed the ball and rushed to the other end of the floor where he found Renji readied for a three, he passed to him the ball and two Seika players tried to block him, he saw Hideki positioned in the left corner so he passed the ball to Hideki who shot his first three-pointer, which sank and the buzzer was sounded, signaling the end of the 1st half.

The score at the end was tied at 50, with Hanabira able to stem the bleeding with Hideki's defense against Reo.

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At the half-time break, Coach Yoshida commended the team on the big adjustment to this game, it was tough to defend against a five-out offense, with a slower team like Hanabira. On his side was Assistant Coach Suzuki who commended the team on a well-oiled machine called offense. Stopping the scoring barrage of Seika was one thing but countering their three points was a better addition to the overall game.

Coach Yoshida then asked Hideki "Hideki, can you now stop Reo's foul-baiting shots?" Hideki responded and said "Yeah, his I got the mechanic for his Earth Shots after seeing the others getting baited 9 times out of 10", it was unsaid but the last one was a freebie, which Reo took.

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Back to the game, Hideki was again assigned to Reo and now he said, "Reo, I have now voided your Earth shots" Reo denied it and said "Never once you prevented me from my Earth shots, Hideki-kun" Hideki cringed at that and Reo then said, "Let's see if your claims are true, my lovely Hideki-kun"

Reo then lowered his stance and got forward nearer to Hideki and when he felt that it was time to shoot the rock, he faked a shot in which Hideki stepped back to avoid fouling, and Reo tried another fake but Hideki didn't bite the bullet and Reo quickly shot the rock, which Hideki was able to block, while jumping Hideki told him "Told ya"

Hideki ran with the ball and seeing one defender, he euro stepped to the right to avoid the defender and shot a falling away floater, which sunk in.

The game got out of hand from that point on and Hanabira was able to capitalize on Hideki sealing Reo Mibuchi, with the others having below-average reliable three-point shots, Hanabira was slowly pulling away from the game. 

Slowly but surely the third quarter ended in 78 to 70, in favor of Hanabira. 

In the next quarter it stayed the same until the remaining six minutes, Seika's coach told the team to help Reo get out of Hideki's shadow so he can shoot the ball. This netted them success but it was a little too late as at this point they are behind 16 points with the score at 97 to 81.

This change in the offensive strategy made Reo shine a little as he was able to pull away from Hideki and shoot the rock against Hideki's teammates, and tried to rack more points, but Hideki was more adamant this game so he tried to get back on the offensive end with his improved offensive game which caught the Seika bigs by surprise, he incorporated shots below the rim that are not layups or dunks and he was able to shoot it all in.

In the end, Hanabira defeated Seika with a score of 104 to 92, Reo was not able to pull his team to a victory. 

At the end, the players shook hands and as Reo shook Hideki's hand, he told him "That was a nice showing Hideki-chan." Hideki cringed with the nickname change and this time it sent chills to his whole body. Reo chuckled and told him "Next time, I will be able to defeat you with my shots" Hideki told him "Sure Reo-san, next time try to incorporate your shots in a same single rhythm so we have to guess which one is which. Or, develop a new shot, you're a genius, I know you can come up with another one."

Reo was shocked to hear Hideki helping him and thanked him, "Thank you for the comment, but are you sure about telling this to me?" Hideki told him, "Yeah, I want to help a fellow competitor so we can all have a fun game next time" Their hands separated as they gathered center court and bowed for a good game. 

As the teams were going back to their benches, Hideki found the Teiko team and in an act of showing off, he pointed his fingers to them, more especially at Nijimura. 

References used:

Five out - Five players are outside the three-point arc and their offense values space and perimeter shots more than meats colliding against each other, bodies banging, and inside shooting.

And-one - a term where a free-throw opportunity was given after a shot (or dunk/layup) was made, was fouled by the opposing player.