Chapter 378 Continuing the Winning Streak 2
After that, team coach Maryland Terrapins asked for a break from scolding the team that he was not doing a good job in defense. On the side of team Tar Heels, coach Guthridge said the team was doing well and they were supposed to do more pressure on the defense.
So, Maryland Terrapins didn"t make as many mistakes as at the beginning of the game and Tar Heels continued well in defense and without failing in attack, those 7 points in the first minutes of the game would greatly help Tar Heels to play more calmly in that game.
The defense in Jake increased a lot and it didn"t hinder him that he could use his speed and get rid of the defense if needed and could a.s.sist with Jamison who was playing very well in this game and for Carter who was also well in the game.
After 10 minutes with Jake hitting 2 more three-point shots and getting 2 steals, Tar Heels"s lead increased even more, so Jake began to take more of the defense"s attention on him and started making more a.s.sists.
Even coach Guthridge put Williams in place of Okulaja to further increase the strength of the Tar Heels attack, it was for a few minutes but increased pressure on the Maryland Terrapins defense.
At the end of the first half of the game, Tar Heels had a good lead on the scoreboard taking advantage of Maryland Terrapins" mistakes early in the game and with Jake not letting the Tar Heels attack go awry.
In this 1st half, Jake played for 20 minutes and scored 18 points, 7 a.s.sists, 5 rebounds, 4 steals, and 2 blocks, knowing that the team could have difficulty. Jake was giving as much as he could for the team and was seeing the advantage in the score that the team Tar Heels finished in the 1st half.
"Good 1st half for the Tar Heels team, a very strong start to the game by Jake and the Tar Heels team who took advantage of the Maryland Terrapins defense and attack errors and managed to open a small lead."
"After the team Tar Heels continued strongly in the attack with Jake and Jamison playing very well and putting a lot of pressure on the defense, so the team Tar Heels finished the 1st half with a good advantage that will give greater tranquility in the 2nd half of the game."
"Yes, Jake and Jamison are doing very well in offense and Carter also scored 9 points with Jake"s a.s.sists and taking advantage of rebounds, and the defense of Tar Heels was fine with all the players."
"Jamison already has 16 points in the game and seems to be doing very well in that game too, Tar Heels"s attack is concentrated on those 3 and yet the Maryland Terrapins defense is having difficulty."
In the 2nd half Maryland Terrapins was behind on the scoreboard and had to try to attack more to try to win the game, but the Tar Heels players were focused on defense and after the Maryland Terrapins players began to tire Jake had more freedom to make the moves.
Maryland Terrapins went for the offense and in the middle of the pitch Jake steals the ball from Laron Profit and held the ball calmly, Jake was hindering many attacking moves by Maryland Terrapins and being careful about Tar Heels don"t miss the attacking moves so much.
Jake stepped forward and before pa.s.sing the middle of the court pa.s.sed the ball to Carter, Carter advanced to the three-point line and pa.s.sed to N"Diaye who advanced a little and had to stop under heavy pressure from Maryland Terrapins defense.
N"Diaye pa.s.sed the ball to Jamison on the left and Jamison made a nice feint getting rid of the defender and running and running to try the layup and score 2 points for the Tar Heels team, with N"Diaye and Okulaja playing near the painted area Jamison had more freedom to make plays like this without having multiple players defending against him.
The Maryland Terrapins defense was doing a great job in this game, they were making a defense in which everyone within the three-point line ran out of s.p.a.ce to make the move and anyone outside the three-point line had difficulty getting in on the three-point line.
But Jake didn"t have to be inside the three-point line to make the points and most of his points were shot off, so the Maryland Terrapins defense had a hard time dealing with Jake if another player came to defend against Jake, he pa.s.sed the ball to Carter and Jamison.
Jake, Carter, and Jamison were very close friends at the university and trained a lot of time together, so with Jake"s talent it was normal for him to do some a.s.sists in unexpected situations and Jamison and Carter easily got those a.s.sists because they had a good rapport.
After half of the 2nd half, Jake felt Jamison was a little tired after running so hard to make more than 20 points in a difficult save like Maryland Terrapins, so with a good lead, he decided to slow down the attack. team and focus more on defense.
This made the Maryland Terrapins team further increase the pressure on the attack and made it difficult for Tar Heels to defend, even though the Maryland Terrapins team scored the attack points they could not prevent the Tar Heels team from scoring too.
Coach Guthridge also noticed that Jamison was tired and made some changes to the squad and Shammond Williams stepped in for him, which caused Tar Heels"s attack to change and the quality of the defense to decrease.
So, in a few minutes Tar Heels" lead in the scoring diminished, seeing that Coach Guthridge called for time to stop the game and get the team together, Jake already had an idea of attacking him and Williams with only three shots points.
Jake had a good hit average and Williams also had a good average and so Team Tar Heels could scare the defense of Team Maryland Terrapins, returning to the game was what Team Tar Heels did by taking Team Maryland Terrapins by surprise.
Thus in a few minutes, they tried several three-point shots and even if they missed some could still further increase the lead after the Maryland Terrapins defense failed to block the players from attack.
Team Tar Heels ended up winning a game that would have been lost without Jake in the team in another situation, Team Tar Heels scored 92 points against Team Maryland Terrapins 71 points, the game also did not reach over time and thus the team"s winning streak Tar Heels increased.
In this 2nd half, Jake played for 20 minutes and scored 21 points, 5 a.s.sists, 7 rebounds, 5 steals, and 1 block, making 39 points. Jake landed another triple-double and was instrumental in this Tar Heels team victory for the points in shots of three points and for his good defense in the game.
"What a great game we saw today between these two teams, Maryland Terrapins was perhaps the team that came closest to beating Tar Heels this season."
"A great game from Laron Profit and Obinna Ekezie, but that was not enough to beat the Tar Heels team who also relied on Jamison and Jake"s great performance to get that win over."
"True, even though Profit and Ekezie had played very well it was still not enough because Jake and Jamison also played very well and together scored over 60 points in that game."
"It seems that with Jake and Jamison playing so well this season it will be hard to find another team that can beat this team, so let"s keep following how far this Tar Heels victory sequence goes."
That was perhaps the hardest game they had this season, but this was the kind of game Jake liked the most and that"s why he worked harder at this game and managed to play so well, this game that Jake knew the team losing without him on the team was what he wanted to play best to ensure victory.
Coach Guthridge also saw that Jake was right and that was a tough game indeed and would have been hard to beat without having Jake on the team In that game Okulaja and N"Diaye hardly received Jake pa.s.s to try to score and even Williams had just a few minutes just like Carter to try to make the points.
But everyone could understand if it was to get the win in a tough game like this when Jamison was tired and playing badly in the attack at the end of the game Jake didn"t pa.s.s the ball to him either and that was what he had to do to get the victory.
Fortunately, the next game would be much easier for the Tar Heels team and they would have 3 more days to rest and Coach Guthridge wouldn"t even give training so players could recover.
Only Jake wasn"t tired and even though he didn"t have basketball training he still had the running training he always did, for Jake that running training was now very easy and he couldn"t wait for the holidays to start for him change the training.
He had to start with Yuen Woo-ping martial arts training for the movie The Matrix that would also hinder Jake"s training for the marathons that would be on his vacation.