One Year Left to Play-Chapter 72 - 23: Clocking Out at Halftime? (Part 2)
This is a difference in perception for the core ball-handlers of the two teams. Team A’s Marbury and Kobe are both eager to show off their abilities, feeling that everything must start from themselves.
On the other hand, Team B’s Bibi and Garnett understand that in such a match, competing on individual ability... who can really fall behind that much?
Clearly, when player capabilities are relatively balanced, teamwork is more important than individual skills. Even if they have a positional advantage over their opponents, cooperation as a team is more critical.
But that’s not the most crucial part. The key is that Marbury and Kobe quickly realized the problem and started to make changes. But what kind of change? Imitating the opponent...
Because they had never experienced this, nor did they prepare in advance like Team B, their first reaction was to mimic how the opponent played.
Then, at 13 minutes and 58 seconds into the first half, Team B was leading Team A by 12 points, 28 to 16!
Team A called a halftime break, a 200-second timeout!
The fans on site went wild with cheers!
Team B was putting strong pressure on Team A!
Team A was eager to show off their skills, which was fine initially, but as the game progressed, the high school prodigies who consciously wanted to display their multifaceted abilities played poorly.
Conversely, on Team B’s side, Bibi and Garnett weren’t intentionally trying to show anything, but as they played, Bibi’s ability to shoot when he got the chance and to seize passing opportunities became evident, along with the necessary one-on-ones. He also managed to avoid the deficiency of having average organizational awareness.
Though Garnett only scored 2 points, his stats of 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 2 blocks were quite impressive. He didn’t intentionally exhibit his high-post facilitation, but he took advantage of passing opportunities from the high post.
Moreover, when the defensive side was playing with a collective advantage, Garnett’s presence was overwhelmingly strong! This is a capability that no one else had.
Though Corey Benjamin still found Zhang Hao very annoying and wanted to compete with him, he had a reason to help Zhang Hao—if this guy couldn’t even make it to college, how could he compete with him in the future?
Raheem never really had a competitive spirit; he just wanted to win.
To say someone "intentionally" wanted to show off, it was only Zhang Hao in Team B, but he was indeed accurate! He scored 14 out of their 28 points!
That’s the difference!
...
Kobe and Marbury desperately wanted to showcase their skills, but their abilities weren’t enough to dominate everything, lacking a scoring method that far surpassed others like Zhang Hao’s.
Team A kept making substitutions, but no matter how they tried, the results were unsatisfactory. So they had to call this 200-second mid-game timeout.
Team B had been playing well, so they hadn’t made any substitutions, but now they finally started making adjustments. Billups, Rodney Buford, Raheem, Garnett, and Calvin Booth were sent onto the court.
After Team A’s timeout, Kobe and Marbury were temporarily benched, even though they were the main players.
Odom and Tim Berners teamed up at the guard line, with Hamilton and Quincy Lewis, two shooting guards, on the court together. The center was Little O’Neal.
Zhang Hao sat down to rest for 200 seconds, and once the game resumed, he still felt very excited; it was such a great game!
Previously, his mid-range shots in games were pretty good, but only among high school players. Now his mid-range shots were almost invincible!
As long as he had the opportunity to catch and shoot, the opponent’s defense had little effect because it exceeded the imagination of these fellow high school players. They had never encountered a super mid-range shooter like him in a match.
Zhang Hao imagined that if he faced such a situation, it would probably be the same, because the defense he remembered could influence the best shooters, but when defending him, it was basically useless!
Trying hard to calm his excitement, Zhang Hao couldn’t help but laugh when he saw the combination of Odom and Tim Berners on the opposite side, with a height difference of 30 centimeters between them.
This scene looked indeed bizarre because the ball-handing push was done by Odom...
With Odom’s dribbling skill, the fans couldn’t help but exclaim.
After passing the half-court, Odom passed the ball to Tim Berners, allowing this speed-type point guard, who was less than 180 centimeters tall, to handle the offense.
Zhang Hao originally thought with Marbury and Kobe off the court, their Team B could gain a greater advantage, but Team A took the initiative in the last few minutes of the first half!
Tim Berners repeatedly penetrated the inside line, made drives and passes. Collaboration wasn’t Team A’s strong point; forcing temporary learning would only backfire. Kobe and Marbury experienced the same before. Tim Berners might not have the same talent, perhaps not even the potential to join a professional team, unlike his cousin, who had giant-like stature. But he was smart, and at the high school level, he was not much weaker than others on the court. He observed and understood Garnett’s way of coordinating the defense in this match, then organized the offense with targeted adjustments.
This should have been done by Marbury and Kobe, but they were too anxious, failing to calmly analyze and take advantage of the unfavorable start, resulting in chaotic adjustments, leading to being dominated by Team B.
With Tim Berners handling the ball, Odom assisting, the two shooters scoring from the outside, and Little O’Neal using his height for alley-oops, Team A performed exceptionally well during this period.
Fortunately, while Tim Berners was smart, his abilities were indeed inferior compared to Kobe and Marbury. Garnett and Raheem managed to cope with it.
