Chapter 201 New Challenges 6
The game continued as usual with the Elite team dominating, Jake was just watching the opposing team more and was not trying to make many moves, yet the Callahan team had their players avoiding him in the attacks.
After all only the average of almost 12 steals per game can make opposing players avoid Jake when attacking, after all, Jake was almost always considered to be the best attacking and defensive player in the championships he played.
The Elite team beat the opposing team by 6 points and Jake had only 4 points in the first period, he also made 4 assists and no steal.
At the beginning of the second period, it was Adam who had the ball, the Callahan team knew they could not avoid Jake and the Elite team in this game and still hope to win, so from the second period they decided to risk and attack more.
As Adam advanced for another Callahan attack, before the middle of the court he passed the ball to Evan who was open from the left, Evan passed David and made the mid-range shot to make 2 more points for Callahan.
Jake caught the ball and went to arrange another attack for the Elite team, before the middle of the court he passed the ball to Harrison on the left, Harrison advanced for a while and passed the ball to Carter who was further on the right.
Carter held the ball and passed it to David who was behind him, David attempted the mid-range shot to make 2 more points for the Elite team.
Adam took the ball and began another attack for his team, he advanced and passed the ball to Jose after passing the middle of the court, Jose advanced and passed the ball to the forward Callahan PF.
The PF held the ball and passed it to Adam who was behind him again, Adam saw that Jake was far away and made the outside shot to score 3 points for the Callahan team.
So Jake received the ball and began another attack for the Elite team, he passed the ball to David more open on the right, David advanced to the three-point line and passed the ball to Mark ahead.
Mark held for a while and passed the ball back to Jake, Jake saw that Adam was coming and tried to pass the ball to Carter, but eventually missed the pass and the ball came out, Jake apologized to his teammates and the game continued.
Adam was happy for this mistake by the Elite team and saw that if they tried they could have a chance to win this game, so he advanced to pass the ball to Evan after passing through the middle of the court.
Evan advanced a little more and then held the ball for a while before moving to his team's Center, and the Center managed to spin on Mark's defense and lay up to score 2 points for Callahan.
Jake advanced for another attacking move and passed the ball to Harrison before the middle of the court, Harrison advanced a little and passed the ball to David, David held and when Evan reached the defense Evan passed to Jake who was free behind.
Jake tried the shot from outside and missed Mark so he did not expect so did not catch the rebound and the Callahan team got another attack.
At the end of the second period of the game, Callahan was the one who beat Elite by 2 points, Jake scored 4 points and 4 assists without getting any steal, so Jake was close to a Double-Double, but it was difficult for him to get a triple-double in this game.
Coach Mike had to put Nathan and Lucas to improve the defense of the Elite team and try to reverse the game again in favor of the Elite team.
But Jake and some more basketball savvy like Coach Bill realized that it was Jake who was doing badly in this game, but since Jake was usually so good, even playing badly he was one of the best on the team.
Jake was missing a lot more mid-range passes and shots from outside the box, not to mention that in defense he could not keep up with the moves to know when to make a steal and even Adam had passed him a few times.
Jake was the same physically as usual and Jake couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, yet Jake knew he wasn't playing as usual but was still playing well so he could just pass the ball more and more carefully and not try so many times the mid-range shot and the outside shot.
In the third period of the game, Jake was passing the ball more and only to the nearest players, Nathan and Lucas were trying to show that they were good and were making more points in his place.
Nathan and Lucas were also able to defend much better than David and Harrison and thus annulled the opposing attack a bit, so the elite team ended the third period winning by 2 points again.
In this third period Jake scored 6 more points and 3 assists, he got a double-double and had already given up trying the triple-double because he had not got any steal in the game.
Still, Jake missed far fewer passes during that time and also missed fewer mid-range shots, so people who thought Jake was playing badly thought they were wrong after this performance.
But Coach Bill knew that Jake was still having a bad game, it looked like Jake had realized that and so was trying to hold on and play more safely, Coach Bill found Jake even more impressive after learning that.
After all, if a 16-year-old player was having a bad game and with a scout-like him in the stands, the player would be even more nervous and play even worse until replaced.
In addition, Coach Bill knew that Jake should be playing badly because he suffered a shock during the week of his home being broken into, yet Jake was trying his best to be a state champion.
In the fourth period of the game Jake still had a regular performance and made 4 points and 4 assists, as in this game, he did not get a triple Double his record was ended with 25 straight games making triple Double.
Most likely this record would never be broken again in high school basketball, just like the 172 points he scored in that state championship.
The Elite team won 6 points more than the Callahan team, only after the game is over that Coach Mike can breathe a sigh of relief.
Coach Bill had to go back to college and found it a pity that Jake had been affected so he couldn't see Jake playing his best in the final game, but what he saw was that Jake knew how to adapt to his situation let him even more excited about Jake's future.
Coach Bill was sure that Jake would soon be back to normal and so the Elite team would win the national championship early next year.
Even if Coach Bill had to talk about some important things with Jake, he would have to wait a few weeks before he could return to Miami and Jake was fine again.
Everyone greeted the Callahan team who had a good game and lost only 6 points from the Elite team that was the national championship champion last year.
Everyone celebrated this state championship a lot more, only Jake couldn't be too happy about this game, something had never happened to him, Jake was worried about not knowing why and would happen again in a more difficult game.
But he couldn't think about that now because his teammates were so happy about this victory and this state champion trophy.
Then everyone was called on to get Jake to lift the state champion trophy, just so Jake can relax a little and everyone celebrated Jake also got that state championship MVP award and was happy.
After that Jake went back to the stands to take Lola away, Lola was very happy with Jake's invitation and accepted, but even though Lola wanted to talk to Jake this time as they drove to her house, she realized that even having beaten Jake was not in a good mood.
So she missed another chance to talk, when they got to Lola's house, Jake got out of the car to take her to the door, so at least Lola took the courage to say a few words.
"Congratulations on winning the state championship and MVP Jake award."
"Thanks, I was glad you came today too."
"I was worried that you couldn't play normally because of what happened this week, I was shocked and worried about what happened to you and your mother Jake."
"Thanks for worrying about me and my mom, I'm glad nothing worse has happened this time either."
"I hope nothing like this happens again, but I was happy to see that what happened didn't affect you in today's game and you could still win as usual."
After that Jake went home and called Eva and told her about the victory, Eva was worried that Jake wouldn't win this time but was relieved to hear that Jake had won.
With that Eva can relax that everything had returned to normal, soon they would have a new home and so everything would be even better and something like that would never happen again.
Jake was no longer happy even after winning today's game, he knew he had played bad today and couldn't understand what was wrong, he felt that it was normal and even the statistics window said he was normal.
Even if they still won today's game and Jake managed to hold back and miss less, Jake knew that this was because his team had played today's game so well, if it was up to him the team would have lost that game.
But against a tougher opponent, the same could not happen again.