Edited by MinionMeA few days later, a ma.s.sive dome had been set up to deal with the large crowd that was coming to watch the game due to all the advertis.e.m.e.nt that the military had done had become an enormous success, and people from around the Eastern continents had come to witness these playoffs. The NBA playoffs were over. Hence, a few foreign celebrities out of curiosity also arrived in town to watch the matches. The first game was going to be the U.S. Navy versus the US Army. Not many people were excited to see that match. Regardless, people still came to watch as their curiosity won them over. Curious about how the games would go and who would be playing in them.
They kept seeing a picture of Paige and me whenever the Ground Force team was announced. With Paige by my side, some people just came to see a girl play with the guys, especially one as fine as Paige. Looking at all these pretty ladies performing while I sit on the bench, half-listening to the coach go over a few things. They didn"t have a locker room for us to discuss matters, so we had no choice but to be on the court while all this loud noise was in the background. The place was packed about halfway through the dome; it showed not a lot of people wanted to see this match; I can"t blame them. This league is entirely underground and overshadowed by other more significant leagues with more fans.
The game had finally started. We won the tip-off, which impressed me because we usually lose as the ball came straight to me. I heard cheers and decided to entertain the crowd as I took the shot right away. Ron could only shake his head as he knew it was going in.
"Splas.h.!.+"
The ball went straight into the hoop, making a splash sound. We continued to go back and forth as I made it rain from downtown on every possession until we"re up by 40 points before I went to the bench, letting my bench get some playtime.
Forty points down, the coach on their side already knew they had lost, so with no point in straining his starters, he decided just to rest them, letting the whole bench play the rest of the game. I was still getting them ready for the next season whenever it became a bench vs. bench game. For the rest of the game my bench players began to get their confidence up since they were getting a lot of time to play, they would get to learn each other"s weaknesses and strengths in an actual game. I wanted the bench to get better physically and mentally, so I was yelling at them nonstop whenever they made a mistake. The same goes for whenever they did an excellent job; I"ll congratulate them.
I wasn"t going to be around for next season, so this was their chance to get stronger while having a strong backbone to rely on whenever they were in a pinch. Basketball is as much a physical game as it is a mental one. If you didn"t have the confidence to take that shot, they would always come out short when taking it at the paint. That"s the problem with the bench, no, better yet the whole team since they"ve been losing for so long. I don"t think they have the hunger or the confidence in themselves to win, win, win.
I want them to freely be able to experiment right now, playing in front of a crowd. It becomes nerve-racking at first, but they should have gotten used to it by the time I leave, I"ll make sure of that. The coach seemed to have started seeing the changes in the team also. This playoff game they seem to have brought their game and have turned into a LeBron in the playoffs as they were making most of their shots, grabbing rebounds, scoring like never before. Not to mention how they were also making their free throws from the line. I was incredibly proud of them as I sat on the edge of the bench, watching every play while throwing out tips here and there.
By the time it reached the fourth quarter, it seemed like the crowd wasn"t very excited as all the star players were on their respective benches. The bench players were doing alright, but not flashy enough to please the crowd. They started yelling out either Ron"s name or my name, which the two coaches had no choice but to put us in because those were the people that supported them and lowkey paid them. So with 3 minutes on the clock, all the starters came back on the court, and it became more like an All-Star game where we"re just either dunking or shooting ridiculous shots. I tried out weird ways to fire half-court shots only to please the crowd while Khalid was doing windmill dunks, and
Paige was doing spin around layups.
n.o.body was playing defense, which got the crowd pumped up. When the clock finally ran down, the score was 110 -70. We had crushed them, and they didn"t even feel bad for losing this match facing off against a monster like me. They had nothing but respect and were glad that I was only playing for one year. If they had to play me a second-year, they would lose their s.h.i.+ts. After the game, Ron congratulated me and wished me luck in taking the cup and going to the NBA. I thanked him for his excellent sportsmans.h.i.+p, shaking his hand.
That night, Paige came over to my place as she wanted to give me a present for winning the first game of the playoffs. I laughed when I heard that as I knew what she wanted. For the whole night, we had some crazy s.e.x. The next day, there was another match that was going to happen, China versus Russia. China was the team most likely to win the whole thing this year, but I wasn"t just going to let that happen. They had a significant setback to their plan because of me. Russian, who had the ability to block and rebound, was at a complete disadvantage against China, which had An, as he was the second-best shooter apart from me. So China easily won the match, destroying the Russian"s by 20 points.