Chapter 298 Using a Coach as an a.s.sistant 4
Meanwhile, the Duke Blue Devils team also had a normal game attacking efficiently and trying not to be far behind on the scoreboard.
In the second half while finding the game strange the team Tar Heels was always ahead in the scoring, the advantage was always only 2 or 4 points and never pa.s.sed that, yet the team Tar Heels was confident that could win the victory.
After halfway through the second half Team Tar Heels still won and the two teams looked like they didn"t care if the score went on, Team Tar Heels just wanted to know about the win and Team Duke Blue Devils seemed to have accepted defeat and not I wanted to lose so badly.
"It"s not really the game I expected to see considering the rivalry of the teams, I expected a tougher and tougher game, but it looks like Duke Blue Devils have given up on the win completely since the start of the second half."
"The two teams don"t have such a different season, team Tar Heels has 15 wins and only 2 losses and team Duke Blue Devils have 15 wins and 5 losses, they lost more because they played more games."
"We can understand that the Tar Heels team is stronger considering the player"s ability, Jake seems to be being forgotten by the opponents and is not getting many pa.s.ses."
"It seems like a Duke Blue Devils team strategy where they are isolating Jake from the rest of the team, they let him do more points, but they can keep him from doing what he normally does as PG is to arm the moves well."
"It could be a good strategy, but the Tar Heels team is winning this game."
The game continued like this until 16 minutes into the second half when Jake came out of the game, the Duke Blue Devils team who seemed to have given up the game started to react and the Tar Heels mood had cooled.
Without Jake on the court, Duke Blue Devils team played with a strategy in which they focused fully on the defense inside and placed two players when Jamison or Carter caught the ball.
After another two minutes they had turned the score around as when Jake left they were just 2 points behind on the scoreboard, so with only 2 minutes left the Tar Heels team was losing 2 points.
Jake thought Coach Smith would put him on the court again and soon got ready, but contrary to what he expected Coach Smith didn"t do that, he saw that Ed Cota was better helping the team than Jake.
So Jake just had to watch and hope his teammates did something for them to win, so in the next minute, each team made a move and scored 2 points each, so the last-minute difference was still only 2 minutes.
In another play, Ed Cota was with the ball and even with Wojciechowski firm in defense he tried to advance and went to Okulaja which was open on the right, Okulaja tried the individual play and could not move and can only pa.s.s to Jamison.
Jamison made a feint and went to the back of the court with the ball in his hands, yet a two-point move would not change anything, so he saw Carter free across the block, Carter thought the same as Jamison and stepped back and tried the three-point shot.
Unfortunately, Carter"s shot went wrong and Duke Blue Devils got the ball missing 42 seconds and with 2 points in front of the score, yet being anxious about the result Tar Heels returned to defend.
The Duke Blue Devils team was smart and held the ball as long as they could, they had 30 seconds to spend and end the game, after 26 seconds Langdon went to make the mid-range shot and Carter missed it.
It seemed that this was planned because Trajan Langdon was the one who had the best average free throws. .h.i.t, in the first attempt Trajan Langdon made the shot calmly and made another point increasing the lead to three points.
On the second attempt he calmed down and then fired again, but this time the ball didn"t come in and Zwikker was quick to catch the rebound, so Coach Smith soon called for time, even though Trajan Langdon didn"t seem to believe he missed the second attempt.
Asking for time for the Tar Heels team to begin the midfield attack, the referees reviewed the video and saw that the game was stopped with 14 seconds left to the end of the game, so the Tar Heels team had plenty of time to make the move.
Jake was prepared to come in and didn"t know why Coach Smith hadn"t put him up so far, after all, he could have made two three-point plays in those last minutes and secured the advantage.
But this time it was obvious that he should join the team after all the best players on the three-point line was him for sure and he showed that the coach could trust him for those important moments.
"What a thrilling game this one is at Cameron Indoor Stadium, a whole game that was very warm and seemed won for the Tar Heels team, but in the end, we had a turnaround and Duke Blue Devils almost won that game."
"Now we only have a few seconds left and Duke Blue Devils is 3 points ahead, we can still see Duke Blue Devils win this game or Tar Heels can try the three-point play and take the game for the extension."
"Whatever the outcome, the Duke Blue Devils team made an unexpected and decisive endgame that took them to their advantage in the game today."
"It may have been a strategy of the Duke Blue Devils team from the beginning of the game to win this game where the Tar Heels team had the advantage from the start."
"After Jake left the second half that Duke Blue Devils team started pus.h.i.+ng harder and took Tar Heels by surprise and turned the game around in just two minutes."
"I realized that too, I don"t think it"s a coincidence and was surprised that Coach Smith didn"t put Jake back in the game at that difficult time."
"I also find it strange, it seems Coach Smith doesn"t trust Jake, yet Jake today has scored 28 points so far so of course, he"s doing great even though he"s not as good as his last games."
"True, and even though he is isolated by Duke Blue Devils team tactics he still made 6 a.s.sists, of course, Jake is one of the best college players in the world today."
"Now is definitely the right time to put Jake in the game, just one move and he"s best suited to hit this three-point move with this late-game pressure."
Even though everyone said that Coach Smith put Shammond Williams in place of Vince Carter, but didn"t put Jake in the game even with time that he asked for almost over, so Coach Guthridge called him and said something to him.
Clearly everyone was expecting Jake on this last move and it was not logical for him to miss out on such an important three-point move, at the last minute Coach Smith put Jake in place of Ed Cota after saying something to Williams and Jamison.
Early in the possession of the ball no one was inside Duke Blue Devils and had two taller players defending where Jake was, there was one more player over Williams and one player over Okulaja.
Clearly no one expected this final three-point ball to be attempted by Jamison or Zwikker, the last player of the Duke Blue Devils team was trying to hinder Jamison from making the initial pa.s.s.
Antawn Jamison moved to Zwikker and soon everyone moved closer to the three-point line, no player entered the Duke Blue Devils internal area if anyone wanted to make a 2-point play could make and lose the game.
Time pa.s.sed quickly and Jake kept moving to get rid of the two players defending against him, he tried to use speed but he had little room to move and still get the pa.s.s and try the three-point shot.
With only three seconds left Jake was not yet cleared and expected to receive the ball the same way and try the three-point shot, but to everyone"s surprise, Zwikker made a screen, blocking the defender of Shammond Williams who received the ball.
No one expected this and Williams was free to make the three-point shot and hit to tie the game with only half a second to finish, so the game was almost over and overtime.
"What a move from Team Tar Heels, n.o.body expected Williams to attempt this three-point shot in this final play, everyone paid special attention to Jake and so with Zwikker"s screen Williams was free to score all three."
"A really good and ambitious move, everyone hoped that Jake who had an average hit of over 70% would try this final move, even the Duke Blue Devils defense put two players in to score him."
"Shammond Williams is also a great player who has a lot of skill in the three-point play, so he seems to have the confidence of coach Smith and we will see this game go into overtime."
While the players waited for the game to start Jake wondered what happened, he admitted that it might be a bit arrogant and was sure the ball would be pa.s.sed to him on this last play even if there were 3 players scoring it.
But he thought this because he knew he had the ability to do it and they were more than 50 percent sure that he would hit the three-point shot even if he had three players scoring it, yet Jake had to admit that Coach Smith"s planned move was smart.
Not even did he expect it to be Shammond Williams who would get the ball to try the last three-point shot, but he wondered if that was proof that Coach Smith didn"t have as much confidence in him as Jake had thought before.
This was not only because of not receiving the last ball and also because in the last 2 minutes of the game Coach Smith did not put him on the court, so he stopped thinking about it because it would not help anything in the game.
After all, even if that were true, it was undeniable that Jake would still have to keep playing on the Tar Heels team for his college years, but that meant that if he did, Jake would never be loyal to the team.