Chapter 88 An Animated Party 3
As he spent the end of the year with his mother staring at the snow through the hotel window, Jake could not help but think again about how different it was to take a trip alone and go on a trip together.
He could enjoy much more of the places he visited last time and also leave some of the script planned to visit places he had no desire to visit before.
Although Jake returned almost three years ago in the past thanks to fate and knowing that this was not a dream and what was really happening, he could not help but be nostalgic and comparing the two lives on commemorative days like this.
On days like this Jake was afraid to even sleep at the end of the night and wake up alone and without his mother, without his legs and discover that all this was a dream.
Jake had this fear because he lived over 40 years used to a life where things never worked out that way for long when things started to get good bad things happened.
Even though he had to accept this new reality and stop always waiting when something bad would happen, he hoped it would never happen, that he could always see his mother every day with a smile on his face.
The other day in the morning he continued his trip to the last stop Paris, they would visit as many places as they could and spend Jake's birthday here.
They visited many places on this trip through Paris such as the beautiful Basílica du Sacré-Coeu, Paris Museum Louvre which is the most important museum in the world, Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral and also, of course, the Eiffel Tower.
So in this beautiful place Jake completed his thirteenth birthday, it was the second time he was that age, but this time everything seemed more special and different.
It was strange what he was feeling, maybe just people who had a second chance as he might know what that feeling was, after all to Jake everything he was living now, being with his mother again was a kind of miracle.
So after celebrating a lot with their mother on the day of their birthday, they spent a few more days in France and then bid farewell to their second wonderful trip and voted home full of beautiful memories.
The second half would already start and Jake also had the national championship to worry about now, that would be his most memorable memory of all Middle School if he could win that national championship.
Jake even thought it funny how he thought at the outset that he did not think it would be worth playing at his school team and that the school championships would be very easy to beat, he just decided to join the basketball team to have experiences in playing with teammates of team that was something that Jake could not learn alone.
But now a few years later here he was so excited about the possibility of winning a school league, that was the beauty of life, just living things you can know if it is important or not, so you should not judge others just by looking out.
After his relaxing holiday trip, Jake was excited to start the national championship, but not all his team was so, coach Mike who was the person who had the biggest responsibility with the school to bring over this trophy to school was too anxious
He can bring together four of Jake's teammates who were in town during the holidays and also wanted to train more to be able to improve even a little for the start of the national championship games.
And after almost a month of training, he had a slight improvement that increased their confidence a bit, yet everyone was stressed with the national championship that would start shortly.
When Jake returned to train with the team after the start of classes for the next few weeks that would be the first game, the whole team could relax more of their tension when they saw that their captain was so calm and confident for the games.
Coach Mike also calmed down and internally praised Jake's confidence in his teammates, everyone in this team recognized Jake as the natural leader of the team after just over 6 months together, this was not something that could be achieved to be a certain charisma.
After a few weeks the first game of the Elite team had arrived Jake was not anxious and was even calm, he had confidence that with his team now they could win a different result from last year.
The national championship had a format different from the regional and state championships, in the beginning, they had 64 teams and not only 32 as in the other 2, but for the teams that participated did not have such a big difference, they would only play 6 games instead of 5 games as in the other championships.
The first opponent of Jake's team was the Bats, all players who could enter the national championship are strong unless they could have a player like Jake was last year, so when a player stood out in a strong team it was good to have to Watch out for him.
The Bats team had three players that Jake's team had to be careful of, Center Joe, PF Paul, and SF Ramiro, that meant that the Bats team for this year was strong, yet Jake felt that this team was weaker than the Eagles the former Carter team last year.
So he was confident that his team could win this year, Carter also thought probably the same, the other three were still nervous.
The game began and Mark got the first possession of the ball for the Elite team, Jake who received the ball started the attack and soon saw the opposing PG coming to score him from the start, so Jake used a path behind Mark and thus opened distance from his defender to advance calmly into the attack.
When he reached the three-point line Jake saw that all his teammates were well marked, so he thought it would be time to show the result of his training with his team collapses and made some signs for his teammates to change positions.
All Jake's opponents so far were already prepared to move in with Elite team players when Jake did the signs, but what Jake and his teammates had done so far was not just changing positions with only signs.
All Jake's teammates quickly moved into their new position without the Bats players being able to react, so Jake handed the ball to Harrison to make the first two points of the team in that national championship.
The strongest point of the Elite team's strategies was not to change positions without communicating on the court, but rather the speed that players could change their positions, after all, Jake gave a different signal for each one, so a player did not have to wait for the other shifted to move and all moved at the same time.
So the opponents would not have time to react and move together in defense, nor the zone marking could solve this, it was a shame that Jake could not have done this before with his teammates because everyone needs to move quickly and at the same time after that, the signals were meant to work.
So the Bats 'defense was caught off guard and they could not react, the Bats' team PG started their first bout after that move, unlike the Bats team, the Elite team waited to tighten the defense near the three-point line.
So PG waited a bit and passed the ball to SF Ramiro who received the ball with a little space and made the 2-point shot to equalize the game.
Harrison apologized with his teammates because he was distracted in the defense and let the opponent score the points.
Jake started the attack and adjusted the pace to attack faster, this time in the attack the opponents seemed to be waiting for the Elite team positions change, but Jake only gave the pass normally to Carter who did the layup and 2 more points.
A skilled PG should also have several different ways to attack and thus catch the opponent off guard, and in this part, Jake stood out if the opponent tried to guess his thoughts when he realized the pass or the shot would have already been made.
For this and other reasons, the fans might not agree that Jake deserved to always be the MVP, at least the best PG he always was.
The Bats soon started a new attack, the Elite team still gave the same space until the opponents reached the 3-point line, the opponent's PG passed the ball to Joe to make 2 more points,, but when Joe tried to do the layup for marks the 2 points Mark tried to give a Block and ended up making the foul.
Despite not being able to make the block served to leave the team of Bats apprehensive and show that the defense of the Elite team was not dead.