Tokiwadai vs. Aiwa, Part 2

Both teams were ready for the tip-off. Aone and Aiwa's center were in the middle waiting for the referee to throw up the game ball.

The referee walked on the court with the ball in his hand, looked at both the teams, and signaled them to be ready.

Both centers bent their knees and got ready for the jump. The players around them got ready to catch the ball.

The referee threw the ball up, and the centers took to the air. Aone had it all taller height, greater jump, and better timing.

Aone swatted the ball straight to Yuki, who moved forward to the basket, the shooting guard of Aiwa was positioned near the basket for defense stopped Yuki.

Yuki waited till all the players in position and then started Tokiwadai's first attack.

He passed the ball to Kaitani, who moved forward but passed the ball behind to Shun.

Shun smiled as he got the ball and thought.

Shun: 'Let's start with a bang.'

Shun threw the ball to the basket, but everybody could see that it was going to miss.

Aiwa's center, who was guarding Aone, was looking at the ball ready for the rebound after it bounced off the rim or the backboard. He felt Aone move and looked at Aone to see him jump.

Aiwa's center: 'Why is he jumping this early?'

Outside the three-point arc, Hanamiya narrowed his eyes as he saw Aone jump.

Aone caught the ball mid-air and directly dunked it into the basket.

Hanamiya: "An alley-oop."

Shun grinned at the successful alley-oop. It should have been extremely difficult for Aone to do an alley-oop even with his height, but because of Shun's pass placement, they were able to pull it off.

The ball was with Hanamiya, he passed the ball to the shooting guard, and he took a shot from the three-point line.

The shot missed, below the rim, four players were ready for the rebound. Aone got ready for the jump, but as he got ready, he felt pressure on his foot.

He looked down to see that his guard, Aiwa's power forward, was stepping on his feet. Aone missed the timing to jump, and between Yuki and Aiwa's center, Aiwa's center won the rebound battle.

The ball was passed to Aiwa's small forward, who took a shot from mid-range. Kaitani contested the shot, but came up short and Aiwa scored their first points.

Aone looked at Mibuchi and signaled to his feet. Mibuchi understood what his silent teammate was saying.

Mibuchi: 'Shun was right. The Aiwa team is playing dirty.'

Mibuchi relayed the message to all the other members about the dirty play.

The game went on with Aiwa resorting to dirty tactics.

They weren't directly hurting the members but moves like illegal screens, stepping on feet, grabbing clothes just enough to restrict movements, faking hits by barely stopping inches away from the face were used continuously.

Aiwa members had clearly trained to hide their dirty plays from the referee as he didn't call a foul even once.

The play was rough, but it wasn't enough to completely stop Tokiwadai, all Aiwa was able to do was slow them down.

This went until the first half of the first quarter. This was when the incident happened.

Yuki, who was under the rim for a rebound, got hit. Just as Yuki was about to jump for the rebound, Aiwa's power forward elbowed Yuki in the chest.

Aiwa's center grabbed the ball and put it in the basket.

Yuki grabbed his chest and stood there, coughing.

Shun, who looked at that immediately called for a timeout and ran towards Yuki, to see if he was alright.

Shun: "Yuki, are you alright?!"

The coach and the rest of the team caught up to Shun.

Yuki stopped coughing and nodded slightly.

Yuki: "I am alright, don't worry. It doesn't hurt. I was just surprised."

But, Kaitani wasn't having any of it and moved towards Aiwa's power forward.

Kaitani: "Bullshit, they are playing dirty. I will go and get in one or two punches of my own."

Aone had to stop Katani physically from assaulting Aiwa's power forward.

The coach had missed the foul play, but he trusted his players wholeheartedly, so he went to discuss this with the referee.

The result was as Shun predicted. Aiwa's power forward denied all accusations. With no visual witness from the referee, Aiwa was not penalized with a foul.

Shun knew this was the time to put in some measures.

Shun called the team for a huddle and gave out some instructions. He looked at all of the team and said.

Shun: "They will be hitting, so maintain some distance. They only attack when we make contact.

Keep the ball moving around, and keep a lookout for screens. This way, they won't get time to move in close for a hit."

Shun looked at Kaitani and Mibuchi.

Shun: "We will be making more shoots from the outside and mid-range, so please be prepared for getting more passes."

Shun moved his sight towards Yuki and Aone.

Shun: "Rebounding will be difficult with Aiwa trying to hit you while you have the eye on the ball, so please be more lenient on physical contact, and I want both of you to focus more on setting up screens as we will be scoring from shooting."

Shun straightened his back and declared.

Shun: "From now on, I will be moving into the post more, so don't worry about our inside game. I will take care of it."

The look in Shun's eyes reminded them of the time when Shun scored seventy-seven points in the finals against Teiko.

All of them nodded and moved back to their positions. Shun stopped Kaitani and asked.

Shun: "Kaitani, have you heard the saying, eye for an eye makes the world go blind. If I say it to you, how will you respond?"

Kaitani looked into Shun's eyes and said.

Kaitani: "I will say I don't care about the world."

Both Kaitani and Shun smiled, and Shun said.

Shun: "Good. We both will be marking Hanamiya from now on. Only we both can do this, Yuki and Aone-san are both too serious, and this type of play is not in Mibuchi-san's lane.

We won't be hurting Hanamiya, but play as rough as you can with him."

Kaitani nodded his head with a feral grin on his face.

Kaitani: "Good. I would have done that even if you didn't say it."

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The game resumed with the ball with Shun.

He jogged to the half-court line and then walked to the three-point line, giving plenty of time to Aiwa members to get into position.

Shun dribbled the ball a little harder and sped up instantly. Aiwa's shooting guard, who was his mark, wasn't able to react when Shun got past him with pure speed.

Aiwa's small forward set up an illegal screen to stop Shun, but a simple spin move, and he was left standing by Shun. [1]

The last defender was Aiwa's center. Shun jumped up, ball in one hand.

Aiwa's center jumped up as well with his hands up, but he couldn't figure out how Shun was going to attack.

Aiwa's center: 'A layup, or maybe a floater, or is he going to change it into a pass.'

But then something clicked in his mind, and Aiwa's center knew exactly how he was going to score.

Aiwa's center: "No way."

Shun, who had jumped, had his hands above the height of the rim, and with the ball in his hand, Shun slammed the ball into the basket in a spectacular dunk.

Aiwa's center, who was in the way, got pushed back and fell backward to the ground.

Aiwa's center had been posterized by Shun. [2]

Shun held on to the rim for a second and then got down, leaving the basket groaning.

When he got down, Shun stared down at Aiwa's center, who had fallen on the ground.

Aiwa's center felt small in front of Shun, who looked down at him.

The rest of the players in the gym had turned silent as they looked at Shun's figure as he looked down at Aiwa's fallen center.

After some seconds passed as one of Tokiwadai's bench members got out of the trance, got up, and cheered loudly. What followed was an explosion of noise from Tokiwadai's bench as they cheered loudly for Shun.

Member One: "Did you see that! He sent the center tumbling to the ground!"

Members Two: "That was amazing how can he reach so up with his height."

All the team members on the court smiled at Shun, and Kaitani broadly grinned as he looked at Shun.

Kaitani: "That's how you do it, in Tokiwadai!"

[A/N: I have updated everybody's height in the Aux chapter, so look there for the current heights.]

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

[

A/N [1] - A LEGAL SCREEN is when you block a player by standing in their path, but you have to stand in their path and have to be stationary before they are within a step or two from you. If you suddenly appear in their path without giving the player a valid chance to dodge the screen you will be setting up an ILLEGAL SCREEN.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

A/N [2] - Posterized is North American slang derived from an action in the game of basketball, in which the offensive player "dunks" over a defending player in a play that is spectacular and athletic enough to warrant reproduction in a printed poster.

]