Just like that, they were up by six points with looks of confidence in their eyes. I told Paige to pa.s.s me the ball as I brought it down. I stopped at the half-court line and shot it. An had utterly forgotten that I could shoot from there as he stepped up too late. I made the shot cutting the lead in half, the little Americans that were there started cheering us on. Boa brought down the ball and pa.s.sed it to An; as soon as An received the ball, I did time freeze and stole the ball from him.
When time resumed back, I had already pa.s.sed him as he started looking for where the ball had gone. Still, I had already reached the 3-point line by the time he looked back as I took the shot to tie up the game.
I looked at them and smiled as they all looked at me in horror. An smiled as he was the only one that knew what I was capable of as he said:" I told you guys you need to stay sharp with this guy around he could make it a game anytime he wants, don"t get discouraged by his shots but just try to contain him as much as possible."
The rest of An"s teammates nodded as they got serious. The game continued as we traded buckets back and forth. I also tried to contain An much as possible, but his shots were just as good as mine from the 3-point line.
An kept shooting rainbow shots over my hands, making me not be able to defend against those shots. Still, I"ll come back down and do the same thing to him as it had become a shooter"s game.
On one of the plays, I was able to force An to put his foot on the line causing it to be a 2-pointer which he automatically missed, but luckily for him, his tall center Li was around to grab the rebound and dunk it. I frowned at this because there was n.o.body tall enough to keep up with this guy.
I told Aldrich to box Li out of the post; if he were able to box him out, he would be able to get some rebounds. The only problem was when Aldrich did box Li out, the refs would call a foul on him, sometimes causing us to lose the ball, so this game was quite balanced.
By the end of the first quarter, they were up by three points. In the second quarter, since I saw that the game was pretty close, I decided to sit that one out and let Chris the other shooting guard on our team get some minutes in.
During the second quarter, the bench team was getting demolished. Sheila could not keep up with their point guard. Limiyou and Blackpool were on lockdown as their defenders didn"t let them do anything. Garett and Chris were keeping us in the game.
Garett used his fancy footwork to maneuver his way around in the post to get some shots in while Chris took a page from my book as he was moving around non-stop to get open and shot the ball whenever he was free.
Chris had gotten hot during that quarter even though Chris had missed a few jump shots, he still made most of them, which kept us in the game and when Chris couldn"t get open, Garett would dominate the post due to being faster than China"s bench center.
The game continued as they went back and forth. Still, China was able to push the lead even bigger as I thought their bench was also good compared to our bench, but it seemed like my bench had a little fire in their eyes this time around as they wanted to win this game.
If it weren"t for the referees hara.s.sing us, we would have been winning by now, and my whole team knew that. By the time the first half was over, the China team was up by 13 points as everybody went to rest, and the crowd enjoyed a halftime show full of tricks and performances.
When we got to the locker rooms, Coach Andre was telling everybody how proud he was of them, generally in the past, they would be losing by more than 30 points by this time. Still, we were only down by 13 points, making it a close game to them. Coach Andre told me I was going to be playing the 3rd quarter and 4th quarter, but half of the time for each as we don"t want to give them too much hope.
Paige came up to me and thanked me for holding us up during the first half. I told her it was no problem and that we have to go and celebrate after the game, just no drinking. She left, and she said "okay" as we continued to relax before the halftime break was over.
We went back to the gym as the crowd saw us. They started to boo us, but we paid them no mind as the game started up again. Paige received the ball and brought it down she drove past the Boa. Still, n.o.body attempted to step up and guard her, so she shot the mid-range shot and made it, closing the lead for us.
Boa was a little annoyed that Paige was able to get one over him, but An quickly comforted him and told him that he"d get her next time. Boa had malicious thoughts for Paige as ever since he had met her; he wanted to take her in his bed. Boa had a little fetish for pretty, thick, black women.
Hence, seeing the look in his eyes and quickly stopping him from whatever he was thinking. An told Boa to focus on the game as he nodded and got out of his thoughts for Paige. Whenever Paige got the ball and was dribbling around to set up the play, Boa was always close by hara.s.sing her, and the previous season he had even grabbed her breast in one of the plays. Paige complained about it, but the refs didn"t see it, so they brushed it off.