Fushimi vs. Tokiwadai

The second-quarter started with the ball in Fushimi's possession, their shooting guard took a risk and scored a three-pointer.

The ball was once again in possession of Tokiwadai. Shun inbounded the ball to Mibuchi, and he passed in it back to Shun.

They both ran towards Fushimi's basket, at the half-court line Mibuchi changed his direction and headed to the corner of half-court line and Shun continued forward.

Fushimi's power forward came ahead to guard Shun.

Shun, while in transition, switched the ball from his left hand to right in a crossover.

Fushimi's power forward fell for the crossover as he moved to the right, but Shun pulled back and stopped.

He passed the ball from his right hand to left behind his back. In a single motion, threw a pass to Aone in the low post.

Fushimi's power forward, who was accepting a drive, said in shock.

Fushimi's PF: "A pass?!"

Shun smiled at the power forward's reaction.

Shun: 'Good, they are expecting me to score on my own. I can pass all I want with an element of surprise.'

Aone caught the pass and jumped for a layup, Fushimi's center also jumped and got real close to Aone, but Aone was ready.

Aone pulled back his hand back and rolled the ball in a hook shot.

Fushimi's C: "A hook! Dammit, it will go over me!"

He tried to extend his arms more, but the ball went over the center's hands into the basket.

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

On Tokiwadai's next possession, Shun charged into the paint.

Fushimi's small forward yelled at the power forward.

Fushimi's SF: "He is going to score, jump!"

Fushimi's power forward did as he was advised and jumped.

Shun jumped, and the ball was in his right hand straight above his head.

Shun saw Fushimi's power forward in front of him. Then came the jolt of God-Speed Impluse that traveled through his body.

[A/N: Dear Readers, I might not be able to use the phrase 'God-Speed Impulse' as I did above, so when I write 'jolt' assume that I am talking about God-Speed Impulse.]

Shun: 'I can force the ball in with a dunk, but let's change it.'

Shun looked at the court with his Hawk-Eye and found that Yuki was right behind him for a rebound if Shun missed.

Shun: 'Yuki, it is.'

Shun turned his wrist so that the inside of his hand was now facing away from the basket. With his elbow and wrist, he passed the ball behind to Yuki.

Yuki was surprised when the ball came to him, but he raised his hands and nevertheless caught the ball.

Kaitani, who was away from the paint, could see the positioning of the players well, yelled.

Kaitani: "Yuki! You are free from your left."

Yuki followed Kaitani's words without checking. He moved to his left near the basket.

Kaitani was correct as Fushimi's point guard was coming from Yuki's right.

Fushimi's PG: "Dammit."

Shun and Fushimi's power forward was below the basket. Shun raised his arm to bar the power forward from intervening.

Yuki moved just below the basket near its left and jumped. Shun stopped the power forward. Fushimi's point guard had to move around Shun and his team's power forward to get to Yuki, but he was late as Yuki had already scored in the basket.

Shun and Yuki high fived as they returned to their side of the court.

As they were moving back, they heard the coach yell.

Coach: "Yuki! There is no need to close on the basket every single time. You can score from the perimeter if it is better! Don't move below the basket every time."

Coach, who had stood up from his seat to yell, sat back down and picked up his cup of lemonade that he was drinking from before.

Yuki stopped, nodded, and continued forward.

Kaitani slapped Yuki's back as he moved back to defense.

Kaitani: "Come on. We are on defense."

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

The ball was now in Fushimi's possession. They had taken a time-out to get some time to think about it, and their coach had given them a good suggestion.

The point guard took the ball, and the Fushimi's team got into positions.

Yuki was the one who came out of the pack-line to defend him.

The point guard dribbled the ball and didn't move. He did a fake or two but didn't move a single step.

He remembered what his coach had said.

Fushimi's Coach: "The weakness of pack-line defense is three-point shooters, absence of a shot clock, and patience. We don't have the advantage of the first two options, so we have to be patient."

The point guard internally smiled as he saw Kaitani break formation and move towards him, and the coach's words echoed in his mind.

Fushimi's Coach: "We have to be patient and wait till one of them breaks the formation."

Kaitani saw that Fushimi's point guard was not doing anything, so he decided to gamble and moved to double-team him with Yuki.

But that was his mistake as the moment he was a distance away from his mark, the ball directly went to Fushimi's small forward, who Kaitani was guarding.

Kaitani: "Oh, crap!"

The moment the ball landed in the small forward's hand, every single member of Fushimi's team charged inside, and their defenders concentrated on them.

Among the chaos, the small forward took a two-point jumper right from his position, and the ball went into the basket with ease.

Fushimi's team celebrated as they moved back to their side of the court to defend.

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

Mibuchi walked to Kaitani and said.

Mibuchi: "Kaitani-chan, don't go out on your own. Didn't the coach warn you us to stay within the perimeter."

Kaitani bowed and apologized.

Kaitani: "Sorry, captain. It won't happen again."

Mibuchi nodded and patted his shoulders.

Mibuchi: "Okay, it was only one time, but make sure it doesn't happen again."

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

While Mibuchi was talking to Kaitani, Shun went near Aone and said.

Shun: "Aone-san, let's take the momentum back, all right?"

Aone nodded, so Shun continued.

Shun: "Jump and, I will get the ball to you, so make sure to stuff the ball powerfully."

Aone once again nodded and hummed in agreement.

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

Shun jogged as he cleared the half-court line, and as he approached the three-point arc, Fushimi's power forward came in his way to stop him.

Shun stopped and started to dribble the ball between his legs. He kept looking into the power forward's eyes.

The power forward felt Shun's eyes and turned to look at him.

Shun smiled and moved right at that moment.

His right hand was ahead of his body, the ball went to his right hand, and exploded to the left.

Fushimi's panicked as he had looked away from the ball into Shun's eyes, he moved to the left to defend Shun, but it was a fake as Shun pulled back and ran to the right.

Fushimi's power forward felt his feet slip, and he fell to the floor.

Shun stopped just beside the power forward and said.

Shun: "Don't worry, I will give you company."

The power forward was confused by what Shun meant.

Fushimi's PF: "Huh?"

As he said, he saw Shun shooting the ball. He spoke.

Fushimi's PF: "It's not going in."

Shun smiled and replied.

Shun: "Oh, it will go in. It just won't be me scoring."

Fushimi's power forward's eyes bulged as he saw the tallest player on the court take flight as he caught the ball mid-jump and bought it down into the basket.

Fushimi's PF: "No way..."

Shun smiled as he declared.

Shun: "Yes, way. Our center played quite a lot offense last year. There is no way he is not going to score from time-to-time."

The crowd bonkers when they saw the alley-oop from Shun to Aone, a lot of them exclaimed.

Person A: "Oh my god, an alley-oop!"

Person B: "Did you look at that ankle-breaker before the alley-oop."

Person C: "How did he place the ball from over that distance?!"

The bench also got up and chanted.

Bench: "Aone! Aone! Aone! Aone! Aone!"

The second-quarter ended with 48-29 in Tokiwadai's favor.

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

On Tokiwadai's bench, the coach explained the second-half.

Coach: "We have a solid lead. In the second half, we will be pulling out Aone and Kaitani for Hyakuzawa and Kurumatani.

If we are above by a good margin at the start of the fourth quarter, then I will pull out Mibuchi for Kaitani."

He looked at Hyakuzawa and Sora and said.

Coach: "Hyakuzawa and Sora will work as a unit if Sora shoots and misses, then I want Hyakuzawa to rebound the ball."

The coach looked at Hyakuzawa and ordered.

Coach: "Hyakuzawa don't go on offense, support the team defensively, I want you to focus on rebounding and guarding Fushimi's center and keep him from scoring.

Fushimi's center is the main scorer, so if you keep him from scoring, it would be a worthy performance."

He rubbed his chin, looked at Sora, and then turned to Shun.

Coach: "Shun, feed the ball to Sora when he is free. Sora, keep on moving on the court, remember the training you did with Kaitani."

He looked at all of them and said one last thing.

Coach: "Remain near your mark, and don't go out of the pack-line. Now go out and keep up the lead."

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

The match continued with the ball in Tokiwadai's possession as Shun let his teammates go-ahead to get into positions.

Shun, who usually jogged to the half-court line, ran at full speed this time.

Fushimi's players got tense when they saw Shun closing in, his defender, Fushimi's power forward once again came to stop Shun.

Fushimi's PF: 'Focus, keep focus. Maintain balance."

Shun stopped right on the three-point line and got into a shooting position.

Fushimi's PF was shocked when he saw no action from Shun to pass him. He felt insulted and yelled as he jumped to block Shun's shot.

Fushimi's PF: "Don't underestimate me!"

Shun, who had his arms above to shoot, lowered his arms in a pump fake and then jumped in an 'Earth' shot form to draw a foul.

Fushimi's PF: "Wha-!"

The referee blew his whistle to call a foul.

Shun savagely grinned as he released the ball, and everybody's eyes followed the ball.

The ball made contact on the inside-back of the rim and went inside, and then the bench went boom.

Bench: "Four-point play!"

All the players' eyes were drawn to Shun as he leisurely walked to the free-throw line to claim his free-throw.

Shun received the ball from the referee and shot the ball within three seconds of receiving the ball.

Fushimi's shooting guard's eyes widened at the quickness of the shot.

Fushimi's SG: "What a reckless shot, doesn't he worry about missing?!"

But nothing was important as the ball went in the net without any problems.

Shun passed Fushimi's shooting guard as he returned to defend and said.

Shun: "Four points."

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

The match continued as Shun passed the ball to the others, Shun's single score had tilted the defense towards him, this gave Shun to work through other players.

Sora followed his lessons and ran around the court, trying to keep his defender away.

Shun signaled Yuki, and Yuki got to work. He too ran, and set up a screen an off-ball screen for Sora.

Sora took advantage of the screen and yelled.

Sora: "Free!"

Shun smiled and yelled as he passed the ball.

Shun: "I see you!"

Sora received the pass and shot a long-range two-pointer.

The ball found the edge of the rim and the shot missed.

Yuki, who was a little away from the basket, yelled.

Yuki: "Hyakuzawa!"

Hyakuzawa was ready. He got in front of Fushimi's center and boxed him out, and harrumph he jumped.

The tall Hyakzuawa got to the ball before Fushimi's center could even jump.

Fushimi's Center: "This dude is huge!"

Hyakuzawa got to the ground and threw the ball to Sora.

Hyakuzawa: "Shoot!"

Sora caught the ball and once again got into position. With all of his concentration, he shot the ball.

Shun, who looked at the shot, smiled.

Shun: "Perfect."

And, as Shun had said, the ball went into the basket, setting in stone Hyakuzawa's first official rebound and Sora's first points.

On the bench, Coach Koaetsuji smiled as he said.

Coach: "This team will be just fine."

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

The game ended with Tokiwadai maintaining the lead. Their scoring did fall in the second half, with Aone out in the second half, they slowed down further when Mibuchi was substituted in the fourth-quarter.

But Shun made sure that they maintained their comfortable lead by making all of his teammates work on the court.

Hyakuzawa played well by contributing to blocking and rebounding.

Kaitani showed his offensive skills in the fourth-quarter, and Yuki showed that he could be a pain in the butt when defending.

Sora also showed that he could help move the ball around in an efficient manner. He contributed by acting as the pass bridge between Shun and the others.

Shun coordinated his teammates, but didn't score a single point and didn't use active pass stealing to increase the lead.

He played post defense and made assists.

The point guard in him was humming a happy tune as he played the game.

The game ended with the score 73-48 in Tokiwadai's favor.

Tokiwadai had successfully moved to Round-3 of the Tokyo preliminaries.

Day-2 of the Tokyo preliminaries ended.