Chapter 015: They still have Tinh Hai Tuong Lai
Kamomedai Gymnasium.
A few more possessions went by.
During that time.
Hoshiumi Mì missed a few three-pointers in total.
But because of the defensive ability of 'Dance of the Spider's Legs', Iwai wasn't able to use this opportunity to pull away. In fact, it wasn't until the current offensive possession that they finally broke their scoring drought with an inside-out alley-oop, pushing the lead back to 4 points.
But on the other end.
Kamomedai's offense.
Hoshiumi Mì once again cut into the Iwai paint, weaving nimbly around their four interior players. Tsugawa was great at on-ball defense, but he had a real headache dealing with this kind of off-ball movement.
For a moment, the Iwai interior was thrown into chaos by Hoshiumi!
Immediately after...
Hoshiumi Mì made a sharp turn and quickly dashed out to the perimeter. Tsugawa, having learned his lesson from last time, was in hot pursuit. But Hoshiumi Mì cleverly used a screen from Imamatsu Shinshu, who delivered a hand-off pass, placing the ball steadily in his hands!
He caught the ball outside the three-point line and pulled up!
Tsugawa stumbled while trying to get around Imamatsu and bumped into Hoshiumi Mì's side!
Under these circumstances... Hoshiumi Mì still displayed immense confidence!
His release was extremely fast!
The motion wasn't even complete, but the ball was already out of his hands!
Tweet~!
Swish~!
The moment the referee's whistle and the sound of the net swishing were heard almost simultaneously, Hoshiumi Mì felt like he could hear the excited pounding of his own heart. Under Tsugawa Tomoki's relentless pursuit, he not only made the three but also drew the foul!
In an instant.
The entire gym seemed to have been hit by Hoshiumi Mì's three-point cannonball, falling silent for a moment. The Iwai player acting as the referee on the sideline, having witnessed this scene up close, was completely stunned!
Even the whistle he had just blown was subconscious!
"..."
What an incredible three!
He can make it like that?
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Under Tsugawa's pursuit, Hoshiumi Mì hit the three and drew a foul on Tsugawa for a chance at a four-point play. Following that, Hoshiumi Mì made the free throw.
At this time, there were only a few seconds left in the third quarter...
In the end...
The score was tied at 86-86!
To come back from a twenty-point deficit to a tie in just half a quarter, the speed of this comeback was terrifying. It all stemmed from Hoshiumi Mì's defense locking down the opponent's key player, combined with his steals and barrage of threes, which completely opened up the game for Kamomedai!
The atmosphere in the Kamomedai gym reached its peak as Hoshiumi Mì left the court.
The cheers and heated discussions were endless.
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During the break between quarters.
Almost all of Kamomedai's players swarmed to high-five Hoshiumi Mì. He felt a little emotional. He had played basketball for so many years in his past life and had never experienced a scene like this. Now, in just two games, everyone on the team was relying on him.
At this time.
A first-year junior brought over the stat sheet, his face full of excitement.
"Senpai!"
"Guess what your stats are right now!?"
Hoshiumi Mì shook his head and said, "What are they?"
Just now, all his attention was on the court, focused on playing every possession well. As for how many points he scored or how many threes he made, he really hadn't been paying attention.
The junior handed him the stat sheet.
Hoshiumi Mì looked at the statistics on it.
19 points!
In just 6 minutes, he had scored 19 points, including 6 of 9 from three-point range, 1 of 1 from the free-throw line, plus 2 steals, 2 assists, and 1 block. This was the report card Hoshiumi Mì had turned in in just 6 short minutes!
Even he felt a little dazed looking at this string of data.
Putting the defensive stats aside for now.
But 19 points... were indeed earned through his solid grasp of his three-point ability.
He turned his head to look at the Iwai rest area.
His gaze settled on Tsugawa Tomoki.
It was revealed in the Kuroko's Basketball plot that Tsugawa Tomoki had near-Miracle level one-on-one defensive skills. Whether that was an exaggeration or not, after personally experiencing the defense of the second-year junior high Tsugawa today, Hoshiumi Mì at least felt that the guy's defense was quite formidable. The reason he was able to dominate Tsugawa on offense in the third quarter wasn't because Tsugawa's defense wasn't strong enough, but because he had been clever.
Tsugawa's defense was extremely oppressive to the ball-handler. Hoshiumi Mì happened to be playing off-ball. If he had been handling the ball and gone one-on-one with Tsugawa, with his current strength, he would have definitely ended up the same way as Kise Ryota.
However... at the rate of one 'Future Preview' per game, ball-handling ability would probably appear sooner or later, right?
He looked forward to it, looked forward to the next time, when he could use 'effort and sweat' to acquire on-ball offensive skills and fight again, not like now, where he could only play off-ball.
..................................................................................
Soon, the fourth quarter began.
Kamomedai let Imamatsu Shinshu rest, and Hoshiumi Mì also did not enter the game for the time being.
In Coach Nakama Sho's eyes, although Hoshiumi Mì had only played for 6 minutes, on defense, he had to deal with Mitsubayashi Koji, and on offense, he had to constantly run around screens and shoot threes. It could be said that on both ends of the court, he hadn't stopped for a second.
Therefore.
Nakama Sho planned to let Hoshiumi rest for a while.
He had other considerations as well. From the looks of it, through two games, Hoshiumi Mì had proven himself to be a quality 3&D player. A player like that was best paired with a strong, driving-type player like Imamatsu Shinshu. So he planned to have Hoshiumi Mì play alongside Imamatsu when he returned to the court.
On the court at this time, without Imamatsu Shinshu and Hoshiumi Mì, center Ouboki Taro was temporarily leading a group of substitutes. However, what Nakama Sho hadn't expected was that after both teams' rotations were on the court, there was a rather good point guard on the Iwai bench who could organize the offense. As a result, Iwai's offense flowed smoothly in the first half of the fourth quarter, while the Kamomedai substitutes continued their brick-laying ways.
Finally, with 6 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Iwai had pushed the lead back to 9 points.
But despite this, the entire Kamomedai gym, whether it was the Kamomedai players or the spectating students, had an extremely unified attitude of not panicking, because they knew...
They had Hoshiumi Mì