Chapter 291 Unhappy Beginning of Year 3
Jamison received the pa.s.s entering the inside line and soon finished the play with a layup after protecting the ball, the opposing player risked committing a foul and thus Jamison scored the 2 points for the team Tar Heels.
Only quick plays like this bypa.s.sing Duncan in defense were most effective for Team Tar Heels, and soon after Wake Forest made another move that ended with Duncan pulling the defense for Woods to enter alone and lay up to score 2 more points.
This was the most common type of offense for the Wake Forest team, they were inside and if there were two players defending Duncan the ball would go to Woods if there was only one player scoring Duncan the ball would go for him.
It seemed simple, but it was a move that always had to be worked out and trained and depended on Duncan"s talent to make it work, Jake couldn"t say anything because it was the right move against Duncan.
Zwikker was a good Center, and Okulaja also did his job well as a PF, but neither had the ability to score Duncan alone in defense, so players like Duncan, Jamison, Carter, and Jake were more likely to score at the university.
In the NBA there would always be players who could take care of Duncan"s defense individually and the opposing team would not have as much advantage as in this game, not to mention that the other players in the Wake Forest team also did a good job in this game.
In another move Jake was organizing the attack for the team to have Heels, after moving to the attack court he went to Jamison which was more open on the right, Jamison advanced and pa.s.s by Peral easily.
When another player arrived in defense Jamison went to Okulaja who had left the painted area to receive the ball, Duncan soon arrived in defense and Okulaja moved to Zwikker inside, Zwikker tried the mid-range shot and Woods fumbled.
Jamison tried to catch the rebound, but Duncan was quicker and took another defensive rebound for the Wake Forest team, Duncan tried to get out quickly and Jake took advantage of his careless moment to steal the ball.
Duncan did not expect to have the ball stolen on his defensive court and when he recovered he saw Jake making a dunk to score 2 more points for the Tar Heels team and the cheering crowd, soon after the game restarted again.
Jake played for the end of the first half and did what Coach Smith asked by focusing only on the two-point play, so Jake can only make a three-point play in that first half, in 7 minutes he made 9 points, 2 a.s.sists, 1 steal, and 1 rebound.
Even though not playing, as usual, Jake was the best player at the end of the first half and brought more confidence to the team that missed the least in attack and played better in defense, yet they finished the first half 7 points behind on the scoreboard.
Even though Jake played well he did not have much time to change the score of the game and Duncan was also playing well the same way, if they were playing in the same position one could restrict the other, but in different positions the two played quietly.
In the second half, Jake hoped to start playing so he could make more plays and maybe reverse the difference in the scoreboard, but Coach Smith decided to start with Ed Cota playing as PG and Williams playing as SG.
"I don"t really understand what team coach Tar Heels is thinking, Jake clearly played very well in the few minutes he can play, but is he out of the team early in the second half?"
"Maybe it could be a game strategy change? Carter seems to be starting in reserve by the second half."
"What change could be effective in this game? They could change their strategy to make more three-point play, but Jake was clearly better than Ed Cota."
"This we will have to see in the next few minutes."
Maybe if Jake hadn"t said that to Coach Guthridge the day before, Coach Smith would have realized that this game was headed for defeat and would have let Jake play longer, but after what Jake said he couldn"t stand to let him have more than 20 minutes in this game.
If it were another player who said something like that, perhaps Coach Smith would have removed that player from the team, but since Jake was one of the best players on the team, the coach could give a few punishment games at most by playing for less time.
This change made even the players of Tar Heels confused, the opponents with the full team decided to take this chance to further increase the lead on the scoreboard, was again seen the team Wake Forest dominating the game.
After 5 minutes Coach Smith took Shammond Williams to put Vince Carter in the game, but Jake didn"t join him as the commentators had hoped, Jake can only come in after 10 minutes of the second half in place of Ed Cota.
At that point, the team was losing by 14 points and even the Tar Heels players were starting to get discouraged in the game, when Jake came into the game the Wake Forest players started paying special attention to him.
That"s why in several plays Jake had no opportunity to go inside to score, yet he took advantage of this difficult situation and made more a.s.sists when the defense on him had more than one player.
Even though Jake had a tight defense he didn"t make a turnover and could always continue the play, so Carter and Jamison who was suffocated the whole game had more freedom to make the play.
When Jake was given a lot of s.p.a.ce he found an opportunity to try the shot from outside, in 3 more attempts in the second half he could hit two of them and thus help the team a little to recover the score.
In another move, Jake received the ball out of the three-point line, as he had already scored 6 points from that position in the second half of the game when opponents were paying more attention to him when one left the inside area to press Jake and another player was waiting. the conclusion of the play.
Jake was quick and pa.s.sed to Carter who was entering the indoor area, Carter soon received another player"s marking and pa.s.sed the ball to Jamison who had been free, Jamison ran and made a dunk to score 2 more points for Tar Heels.
Jake took full advantage of the attention he was getting from the Wake Forest team defense and even failing to score more points he made room for his teammates to have more freedom.
So after a few more minutes, the game ended with the Wake Forest team winning by 14 points, even though Jake played well they could not diminish the Wake Forest team advantage before Jake entered the second half.
In that second half playing for 10 minutes Jake scored 8 points, 4 a.s.sists, and 2 rebounds, was a good performance considering he was very well marked and thought more of a.s.sisting than making points.
"This was another big game from Tim Duncan and the Wake Forest team that won their tenth straight game and a bad game for the Tar Heels team who lose their second game of the season and finish their winning streak."
"I also didn"t understand why Coach Smith let Jake play only 17 minutes in this game, the time Jake was on the court were the best moments of the Tar Heels team in this game, more plays could be made, the team gained more quality in the shooting of outside and Carter and Jamison had more freedom to make the moves."
Like commentators, everyone realized that it was a wrong decision to give Jake so little court time in this game, many even a.s.sociated that Jake"s absence for most of the game had to do with the team"s defeat.
Even though Coach Smith and Coach Guthridge came to think of this several times from the warning Jake had given before the game, in the next game Coach Smith was still undecided about whether to leave Jake out of the next game as well.
After the game, the players were not very excited about the outcome of the game and hoped that in the next game the team could win again, everyone was smart not to mention why Jake was out of that game because Coach Smith was so prestigious in that team.
Fortunately, everyone was happy to remember that in the next game they would play at home and this was the last game as a visitor, so playing at the Dean Smith Center they were more confident in winning.
After returning to university Jake didn"t even have to tell the bad result to his teammates who had watched the game on television, his friends just said losing was normal and that the Tar Heels team would win in the next game.
Jake called to talk to his mother and learned that she had also watched the game and was very annoyed that Jake had not played long enough and said that Coach Smith was to blame for the team"s defeat.
Jake knew his mother was like that and didn"t argue and just listened to her talking on the call, then she comforted Jake just saying that they would win in the next game, which Eva didn"t know was that would make Jake even sadder because he hoped the team lost again in the next game.
The next day Jake returned to his daily training running 50 km, as usual, Zack seemed to be running the 6 km much more easily and asked Jake again if he should increase his distance traveled every day.
Jake agreed and so told Zack to run 8 km every day, which Zack didn"t realize is that after a few weeks he was running the 6 km daily in much less time than before, that was Jake"s goal for Zack, after all. Finis.h.i.+ng the most disputed marathons has to be run in the shortest time possible.
Later the basketball team had their training normally, the players were saddened by the defeat the day before and the training mood was not very good, yet everyone trained hard so they would not lose again in the next game.