As Shinomiya Duno dunked Sakuragi and smashed the ball into the net, the time on the courtside scoreboard had just reached zero seconds.
The long whistle of the midfield timeout sounded. Sakuragi Hanamichi, who landed at a high speed, could not withstand Shinomiya Nono's huge strength. He stumbled and sat on the floor, looking up at Shinomiya Nono in a daze.
At the same time, the players on the field, after staring at Shinomiya for a while, all looked at the referee on the sidelines.
The referee was also stunned for a moment, and then turned his attention to the referee's seat on the sidelines. I saw a middle-aged man standing on the referee's bench and making a downward gesture to score a goal.
Seeing the signal, the linesman leaned over and pointed with his right hand to indicate that the goal was valid.
The referee ruled that the goal was valid, and cheers suddenly erupted from the slightly silent stands. The Lingnan substitutes on the sidelines cheered and rushed into the court, surrounding Shinomiya Tano in the center.
"Well done, Shinomiya-senpai!"
"The point difference has been reduced to two points, and the disadvantage accumulated in the first half has been wiped out!"
As the score in the first half was fixed at 51:53. The Lingnan players all breathed a sigh of relief. Previously, the score difference was close to ten points, but now the score difference is only two points.
For Lingnan, this is the best result.
"hateful!!!"
"This bastard!"
Unlike Lingnan who was cheerful and relaxed, the players in Xiangbei were all silent at this moment. They were unable to hold on to their advantage in the final stage of the first half. Most Xiangbei players could not accept such a result.
Sakuragi stood up and punched the basketball stand. He cursed angrily and looked at the people in Lingnan who had already walked off the court.
"Well done! Well done!"
"Come on, come on, get off the field and take a rest."
"Well done, Sakuragi, you can definitely stop Shinomiya Tōno next time."
At this moment, Konobu Kigure seemed not to see the faces of the Shohoku players. He walked into the court with applause, came to Sakuragi, patted Sakuragi's back and praised them.
Mumu Gong's words made Sakuragi Hanamichi subconsciously stare at him. After seeing that the person coming was Mumu, the anger on Sakuragi's face disappeared, and he said in a somewhat mindless and distressed way: "Brother Glasses, what are you talking about?" talk?"
"You're too unambitious, aren't you?"
"We were eight points ahead of our opponents at the beginning. Thanks to the unremitting efforts of Stinky Fox, we were only ahead by two points."
"This kind of result is obviously embarrassing! In the second half, I don't know how far the opponent will overtake us."
Sakuragi Hanamichi was full of displeasure and glanced at Rukawa Kaede who was about to walk off the court. Rukawa Kaede obviously heard Sakuragi Hanamichi's words, glanced at Sakuragi coldly, and silently walked off the court.
When Sakuragi Hanamichi saw Rukawa Kaede ignoring him, his anger suddenly surged up again.
"Asshole, how dare you ignore this genius, I must make him look good!"
Seeing Sakuragi Hanamichi getting angry, Konobu Mugure hugged Sakuragi Hanamichi with quick eyes and hands, smiled and comforted: "Sakuragi, don't blame Rukawa Kaede, he played very well."
"Of course, you play very well, and you are the backbone of our Xiangbei inside line."
"With the two of you, we in Xiangbei can enter the second half with a lead."
"Lingnan High School was the national champion last year. No team has ever accomplished such a thing before us."
"You've performed very well, Sa, let's take a good rest first."
"Only when you have recovered your strength can you be able to face the next game!"
Konobu Mumu comforted Sakuragi Hanamichi and pulled Sakuragi towards the rest area on the sidelines.
After receiving such a compliment from Mumu Gongyan, Sakuragi's mood really improved a lot. A bright smile appeared on his face, he grabbed the back of his head with one hand and said with a naive smile: "Really? Is this talent really so important?"
"Hahahaha, Brother Glasses, you are really discerning. You are worthy of being a man with four eyes."
Mumu Gongyan also smiled gently when he heard this, and pulled Sakuragi out of the arena. Not long after the two left the field, Jinguji Budo and others also returned to the rest area. First-year Kiyota Nobunaga, Nango and others were busy passing water and towels to Budo, Mitsui Hisashi and others.
On the other hand, third-year students Konobu Mugure and Chiba Oishi took care of first-year students Sakuragi and Rukawa Kaede, handing them water and towels.
The depression in Sakuragi's heart at this time was completely dissipated amidst Mumu Gongyan's flattering sounds, and he returned to his optimistic character.
And Rukawa Kaede was sitting on the bench, covering his head with a sweat towel, breathing heavily, sweat seeping out from the pores on his skin, his body and legs were all covered in sweat, and his jersey was soaked with sweat.
In the game against Lingnan High School, Rukawa Kaede's physical energy consumption was very high. He was originally a point guard, and he frequently held the ball to attack by himself during the game, so his physical energy consumption was much higher than that of other players.
After the Xiangbei players returned to the rest area, coach Anzai did not lead the players back to the rest area, but directly asked the players to rest in the rest area beside the field.
As for Lingnan, coach Tian Gang also chose the same approach as coach Anxi.
Going back and forth between the lounge and the court will make the players slack. If they are facing a weak team with a huge difference in strength, this is not a problem, but if they are facing a strong team that is evenly matched, it is necessary to keep the players on track. A certain tension.
"Martial Arts, how are we going to fight in the second half?"
Sitting on the bench, Mitsui Hisashi glanced at the scoreboard on the sidelines, turned his head and asked Jinguji Martial Arts next to him.
At this moment, he did not choose to ask Coach Anxi how to play in the second half. Instead, he asked about martial arts. Hisashi Mitsui knows very well that no matter what coach Anzai plans, how Shohoku plays in the second half depends on the decision of Jinguji Martial Arts.
In Shohoku, Jinguji Martial Arts was enough to influence all of Coach Anzai’s decisions.
Although Coach Anxi will not completely let the team play pure superstar basketball like Coach Lu, Coach Anxi's arrangements will definitely comply with martial arts ideas to the greatest extent.
"How to fight?"
"My idea is to start with defense."
"In the last few minutes of the first half, our defense in Xiangbei had a big problem."
"Sakuragi and I switched our defensive positions, essentially to limit Shinomiya's performance."
"But in the last few goals, our defensive strategy was not implemented thoroughly enough."
"And he was intercepted and blocked in the frontcourt. This kind of mistake is too fatal."
"Fortunately, we have some lead. If we didn't, we would have fallen behind right now."
"So, I want to start with defense."
While Jinguji Budo was speaking, he glanced at Rukawa Kaede who was sitting not far away. Then he expressed his thoughts to Mitsui Shou. Wu Dao did not control his volume when he said these words, and the surrounding players could hear him.
The substitutes all nodded when they heard this, feeling that Wu Dao's words made sense.
But Mitsui Shou heard a different flavor from Budao's words. Although Budo deliberately avoided talking about Rukawa Kaede's handling of the basketball in the final few attacks, Mitsui Hisashi can still hear that Budo points to Rukawa Kaede.
Shohoku was intercepted and blocked at the critical moment in the final stage. Part of the reason for this was Rukawa Kaede's ball selection.
If he can pass it to Mitsui Hisashi and Jinguji Budo, regardless of whether the attack will be successful or not, at least this kind of mistake will not happen.
"Should we start with defense first? Then we have to keep the pace down."
"We need enough time to make adjustments."
Although Mitsui Hisashi heard the implication of martial arts, he did not directly bring these matters to the table. Mitsui Hisashi could understand the meaning of martial arts. In order to protect Rukawa Kaede's self-esteem, the two of them had a tacit understanding at this moment.
"What about the attack?"
"Brother Martial Arts, how should we fight on the offensive end?"
There is a tacit understanding between Jinguji Martial Arts and Hisashi Mitsui, but it does not mean that everyone has this tacit understanding.
Sakuragi Hanamichi is the kind of person who doesn't "play by the looks of others". After hearing Budo's defensive plan, he directly asked how to attack.
Compared to how to defend, Sakuragi Hanamichi obviously wanted to know how to attack.
"."
Sure enough, after Sakuragi asked this, both Budao and Mitsui Shou fell silent. Today's Shohoku is a little different from before. As a point guard, Rukawa Kaede has his own ideas, and many times the established tactics may not work.
Instead of playing "chaotic" tactics, it would be much better not to formulate tactics from the beginning and let the players play freely.
Martial Arts thought so, so he did not answer Sakuragi's question immediately.
But at this moment, Coach Anzai, who had been sitting on his seat, suddenly stood up, walked to Rukawa Kaede and Budo, the starting players, coughed lightly, and said:
"In the second half of the game, we used Kaede Rukawa as the core of our offense and spread our offense!"
"Nango-san comes on as a substitute for Sakuragi-san. On the offensive end, he is responsible for the power forward position. On the defensive end, he swaps with Budo to defend Shinomiya Tanano from the outside."
"Budou, Mitsui, Akagi, and Nango, the four of you, attack around Rukawa-san!"
Coach Anxi's decision shocked all the players. All the players looked at Coach Anxi with surprise in their eyes.
Sakuragi Hanamichi jumped up from the seat, walked around behind Coach Anzai, thrust Coach Anzai's chin with his hand, and howled in disbelief:
"Dad, are you confused?! You actually let the stinky fox take the lead?!"
"Can he get there? He can't fight!"
"What's even more ridiculous is that you actually substituted this genius? If I'm not on the court, won't we, Xiangbei, definitely lose?"
"Dad, don't you know the importance of this talent to us in Xiangbei?"
Sakuragi Hanamichi howled while tugging at Coach Anzai's chin.
Mitsui Hisashi couldn't stand it, so he stood up and grabbed Sakuragi's ear, pulled him away, and hit him mercilessly: "Fart, we in Xiangbei can still win without you!"
"Idiot, let go of Coach Anxi quickly."
Coach Anzai ignored Sakuragi's noise. After laughing a few times, he squatted down in front of Rukawa Kaede and asked with a smile:
"Rukawa-san, do you have confidence in yourself?"
Coach Anzai looked at Rukawa Kaede in front of him and pushed up his glasses. Under the lenses, a pair of deep eyes stared at Rukawa Kaede, waiting for Rukawa Kaede's answer.
At this time, the other Shohoku team members all around also looked at Rukawa Kaede and quietly held their breath.
"I have!" A cold and definite answer popped out of Rukawa Kaede's mouth. Hearing this, Coach Anxi nodded, then stood up, returned to his seat and sat down, picking up the teacup. Take a sip of tea.
When Mitsui Hisashi saw this scene, he glanced at Coach Anzai and Rukawa Kaede in surprise, and then turned to look at Jinguji Martial Arts.
Mitsui Hisashi originally thought that Jinguji Budo, who had "fallen out of favor", would be angry and unwilling to accept it. Unexpectedly, Jinguji Martial Arts remained calm after being deprived of his main attacking position, showing no other emotions at all.
Sakuragi Hanamichi's struggle also weakened. He looked at Coach Anzai blankly. He did not expect that Coach Anzai would really give the main attack task to Rukawa Kaede, and he was a little dazed for a moment.
"Hey, Budo." Mitsui Shou wanted to say some words of comfort, but unexpectedly Budao smiled at him and didn't take this matter to heart at all.
"Just follow Coach Anxi's instructions and play."
Budo didn't wait for Mitsui Shou to speak, so he took the lead and said it with a calm expression.
The surrounding Shohoku players also looked at each other, but Mitsui Hisashi was the first to react. He took a deep look at Rukawa Kaede and sighed lightly. Then he walked to Rukawa Kaede's side and said earnestly:
"Rukawa Kaede, those players from Lingnan High School are not as simple as you think."
"You must be careful when handling the ball. In front of Shinomiya Tōno and Sendō, you must never attack forcefully. You must learn to take advantage of your teammates' movements."
"Use your own advantages reasonably. If there is a mismatch opportunity, you must misplace the attack. The target is Fujima. If it is other players, you must give yourself some buffer space."
"Bu Dao and I will support you behind you. If you want to pass the ball, the two of us will definitely find ways to appear by your side."
"Be careful!"
Mitsui Hisashi repeatedly told Rukawa Kaede that he had already understood what Coach Anzai meant and understood Coach Anzai's intention for such an arrangement.
Coach Anzai most likely used the help of Lingnan High School to make young Rukawa Kaede realize what it means to "act according to one's ability." In the first half, Rukawa Kaede played fairly smoothly. This smoothness nourished Rukawa Kaede's ambition.
But Mitsui Hisashi knew very well that Rukawa Kaede's current strength could not support his ambitions.
At least, in front of Lingnan High School, Rukawa Kaede would never be able to play like before.
You'll hit a wall!
But obviously, relying on persuasion is unlikely to be useful. Only by making Rukawa Kaede clearly realize his own shortcomings can it be possible for him to return to his earlier more "reasonable" style of play.
After the offensive and defensive plan for Shohoku was finalized, the rest area became quiet. Nango Koichiro was holding a ball and doing a simple warm-up on the sidelines. And his actions also attracted the attention of everyone in Lingnan.
Realizing that the first-year student from Shohoku was ready to play, everyone in Lingnan was also curious about why Sakuragi Hanamichi was substituted. In the eyes of everyone in Lingnan, Sakuragi Hanamichi played pretty well in the first half, with a few rebounds and defense. He did a great job and shouldn't have been substituted.
But they obviously couldn't get the answer to this question.
After watching for a while, everyone in Lingnan also chatted and rested by themselves, discussing how to play the second half.
The intermission time passed quietly in this quiet and tense atmosphere.
(End of chapter)
