Chapter 137 The Decision Defining the Future 6
Jake played a lot in these three positions and so he could say that he has more experiences than David and Harrison in those positions, so he could play so well in any of those positions.
Of course, it was not that Jake was thinking of playing in other positions, but because he thought that if he knew how to play in various positions, his decisions as a PG at the time of the pa.s.s could be based on his own experiences in other positions.
So Mark was doing a much more dangerous thing than he thought, because if Jake learned all of Mark"s moves he could play hundreds of times like Center and PF as well.
So soon Jake could take his position, of course, this would never happen, Jake"s greatest talent was in the shots from outside, if he played in an internal position he would lose his most powerful weapon.
Jake had thought this over and over, the system did little for him as a basketball player, but these two things were able to solve the two biggest problems of basketball players, which was experience and his physical condition.
The talent had to come from Jake from the beginning, so Jake sometimes trained with Mark as he prepared to play that fourth game in the state champions.h.i.+p.
After a few days came the day of Jake"s fourth game in the state champions.h.i.+p this year, in the morning he as always woke up well pleased and Eva who had woken up much earlier had already prepared the food.
After eating Jake went to the site of the animated game, this was a game that although not very difficult in the expectation of Jake would be a great challenge to fulfill his goal of making a Triple Double in all games.
When he arrived at the playground everyone had arrived and this time coach Mike was just watching and did not give any instruction, Liza as always was on the side of the coach, it was only in the intervals of play that she was busier.
Liza did not talk much to Jake about unimportant things, she"d heard so much from Jenny and Joseph that Jake did not like talking to her much like a woman she had her own pride.
So she did not talk more than needed with Jake, she thought she was giving Jake some kind of cold treatment, but she did not know Jake was very happy with her doing it, he did not like talking too much anyway.
Jake looked at the other side where his opponents, the coach was a good time sweating even before the game started talking nonstop while showing something in the small clipboard that was in his hands.
The players had serious looks as they listened to everything the coach spoke, looked like they were preparing something to try to win the game, fans could see the stark contrast of the two teams before the game.
One side was completely calm while the other side looked like it would play the game of their lives, of course when the game started all Elite team players would be serious.
After a while the game referee called the two teams to the court, the game would start, the team that would be the Elite team"s adversary in that semifinal was the Penguins team, as it was in the semifinal showed that the team had good strength.
The main players of the Penguins were the PG and the SG, the PG was called Sam and the SG was called Paul, Sam was looking at Jake as if he were his mortal enemy, he did not want to score a player who made a Triple Double on top of him , it would be a shame for Sam.
After a while, the game began and Mark gained possession of the ball for the Elite team, Jake picked up the ball and calmed down a bit before starting the first attack.
This time Sam did not do as Jake"s last opponent and gave way until Jake reached the three-point line before beginning to defend more firmly, David playing with Jake a long time ago was always around waiting for precaution.
Jake looked for a short time before pa.s.sing the ball to Harrison, Harrison soon pa.s.sing by his opponent and did the layup to make the first 2 points of the game.
Jake who saw this was happy because it seemed that after venting Harrison managed to return to his best form, this would be very important for his team, so everyone quickly returned to the defense.
Sam received the ball and started the first attack of his team, everyone played this game prepared to lose, but even so, they knew they had to try their best to win if they beat the Elite team they would surely win their next opponent in the final.
Sam went to the PF of his team who got rid of Carter"s defense and went to Center who can do the layup and make 2 points and tie the game, Jake got the ball and started another attack for his team.
Jake advanced calmly and pa.s.sed the ball to Mark who had his back to the basket and turned to do the dunk and the 2 points, Sam tried to attack quickly and Jake realized that it moved quickly to intercept the pa.s.s, so Jake pa.s.sed to Mark who again did a dunk for another 2 points.
This time Sam received the ball and did not do anything hasty, he did not imagine that Jake was that fast, Jake and the Elite team also went back to the court defense, Sam advanced calmly this time.
Arriving at the three-point lineup Sam pa.s.sed the ball to Paul, Paul tried several ways to get clear of David and got after making a feint, so Paul fired a shot from outside to make 3 points.
Even though David was much better at defense after two years he was still much worse than Jake, Carter, and Mark, and all opponents knew that.
Jake got the ball again, he reached the three-point line and made a feint pretending to pa.s.s the ball, so Jake sped up and ran until he stopped after doing the dunk and 2 points for his team, Sam had to think of a way to stop Jake.
When the first period ended Jake had made just 6 points but had made 5 a.s.sists and 4 steals, even if the opposing team defended with all force against Jake the pa.s.ses and steals were impossible to prevent.
And that"s because Jake was not pus.h.i.+ng the individual plays much, because if he did he could score even against 3 opponents, at least for the state champions.h.i.+p teams Jake was unstoppable.
In the stands this time Eric was there, he had been in a bad mood when he was forced to cover an NBA game and missed the last game of Jake, yet he got a colleague at work to take the pictures in his place.
After the NBA game that time he even argued with the general editor who had done it, after all, Eric was one of the newspaper"s top reporters after all these years, he was no longer in the position that he was forced to be sent out to cover games without being warned beforehand.
The general editor did not imagine that Eric was usually so quiet would get so angry, so the editor realized that he could not do whatever he wanted with anyone like that, usually, Eric did almost everything they asked for, so they made a mistake this time.
Eric complained about this exactly because he had realized this, even if he did not need it he liked to do others favor, but he noticed that the others began to confuse kindness with cowardice and began to send him everywhere.
Eric was very thrilled with Jake"s growth that he had been following for almost 4 years now if it was a question now it was a certainty for Jake to become an NBA player with such rapid growth.
Eric thought that if Jake ended up going to college before entering the NBA and had time to improve, even more, he would enter to be the rookie of the year in the NBA in his debut, it was missing to know if Jake would have the patience to wait the right time.
Because the NBA could tempt anyone into this world as fast as possible, and Eric was sure Jake would be in high demand next year if it were not for the coach"s mistake of leaving Jake out of the team last year, this year this bleacher would be full of scouts from the teams.
In the second period of play Jake seemed more erased, even more so he made his a.s.sists and steals, he only had three shots out and had already made 9 points, that was the difference of a great player.
So the Elite team led by 12 points at the end of the second period, but Jake was already close to making his Triple Double, Mark had made 4 dunks in the game so far, and David also made his shots out.
With a team like that Carter and Harrison who were playing very well seemed erased in comparison to their teammates, Carter was a player who cared more about the victory of the team than with him and was happy about it.
Harrison had already reconciled that he was not as good as his teammates and just did his best on the court, Paul from the opposing team was also playing very well but they were still missing.
In the third period, the coach of the opposing team was already discouraged and asked that all try to make several shots from outside to manage to reduce the advantage on the scoreboard, so Jake was doing what was there to do in the three-point line and made 4 blocks in the third period.
Thus the Elite team had 16 points in front of the scoreboard at the end of the third period.