We were finally back at our home court. The game against Australia was finally upon us as we didn"t waste any time to start the game. Looking at the stands, we had more fans this time around as the place was packed with our army mates that were cheering for us and who came to support us. As soon as the ball went up, both our players went for the jump ball, and we surprisingly won the jump ball as the ball was pa.s.sed to Paige, she saw me give her a sign, so she pa.s.ses the ball to me, but just before the ball could reach my hand, their point guard had come out of nowhere and stolen the ball.Wayne, their point guard, ran down the lane and laid it up for the first two points. I was surprised by this but didn"t overthink it as I left it as Wayne had gotten lucky and somehow read the sign I made. Paige brought down the ball as she tried to cross over their point guard, who was called Wayne. Wayne was able to steal the ball once again from Paige, he ran up the lane and laid it up, giving them a four-point lead. I was surprised by this guy and thought maybe he also had a unique ability, so I decided to test him out as I told Paige to switch with me.
I brought down the ball as Wayne was guarding me, I quickly got the first step on him as I rushed past him, and just when I was about to lay it up the center came in my way attempting to block me. Still, I was already in the air, so I decided to do a floater as I tossed it way up above his head and made it go up in a rainbow shot, coming back down into the hoop...swish~ Nothing but a net baby. Wayne was surprised by the ball control I displayed and thought that it was quite tricky, but he knew he could do it better, but he didn"t say anything.
As the game continued, I was checking Wayne, this time around as he brought down the ball before I knew it the ball was out of his hands and in the hands of his Center. The center went up and dunked it before Aldrich could even get to him, I was shocked by the pa.s.s that Wayne had made, as I didn"t also see him pa.s.s it at all and thought to myself, what an interesting guy. The game continued as I brought down the ball once again, I was dribbling around the three-point line while Wayne was in front of me staying vigilant.
I did a step back and shot it in his face, he looked surprised as he tried to chase after me and jumped up in the air to block it, but he was a little bit too late as the ball went into the hoop giving us three points. Wayne was a bit confused by that play but thought of it as luck, he brought down the ball once again, and his shooting guard had managed to shake off Paige in the mix. Wayne pa.s.sed him the ball, and he took the shot from the 3-point line to give them three more points. At this point, they were winning by four points, and I was starting to think I figured this guy out, it seems like he was the guy that An was talking about last time. The point guard that makes the craziest pa.s.ses questionable, his team has been able to win game after game, and this season he was also a rookie and an excellent player in the Australian League.
I brought down the ball once again, Paige came and set a pick for me, so I used the opportunity to do a step-back behind her while Wayne was in front of her and I took the shot closing the score gap. Wayne started to get serious as he thought my chances were pretty good, but he had no idea that I could not miss it. Wayne brought down the ball once again and pretended like he was pa.s.sing it to his center, but his powerful forward was wide open at the mid-range. Since Gonfreak thought that the center was going to get the ball, he went to help Aldrich double team the center, not knowing that he got tricked as their power forward took the mid-range shot to give them a three-point lead.
I thought of Wayne as a trickster as he was able to trick the defense and break it down a little bit to his comfort zone, but I was done playing in his game. As I brought the ball down, I pa.s.sed it to Paige, who drove past her defender and laid it up, scoring two points for the team. She came and high-five me as I tapped her a.s.s, causing it to jiggle as she blushed a little, saying, "we"re in the middle of a game." When Wayne saw that I wasn"t taking the game seriously, he got pretty p.i.s.sed off as he started telling his teammates to go hard at the paint.
Wayne pa.s.sed the ball to his power forward as the guy made a ma.s.sive dunk hanging on the rim for a few seconds, looking down on us. The crowd was going wild as everyone got off their seat and cheered for their team, but their voices were quickly muted by the overwhelming support that we were getting by our fans and army mates. This pumped us up ready to retaliate, the ball went inbound, and Gonfreak got the pa.s.s as he went on the offense, he went straight into the paint and did a 360 dunk over his defender, the crowd went nuts as both teams were getting pretty fired up in this game, going back and forth with crazy dunks. This game was entertaining to play due to all the crazy pa.s.ses that Wayne was pulling off.
Not to mention, I was learning quite a lot from them. He seemed to be having a lot of fun too because generally by now, they would be blowing out an opponent, but this time around, he had finally met his match as we went into the second half and winning the game by 10 points. Regardless of anything, even though he was great at pa.s.sing, they still couldn"t stop my 3-point shots. Also, if I did get into the paint, it wouldn"t matter due to my acrobatics ability. Well, they were able to get in one block, I"ll give them that.