Chapter 414 1998 ACC Tournament 2
This was actually the strategy that the Tar Heels team used in most games this season, but as they had won all games this season it showed how good that strategy was.
Even so,
it looked like the Maryland Terrapins players expected the Tar Heels team to do that and they pushed on defense too, so if the Tar Heels players were playing well in that game Jake would have it easier.
Jake advanced to the three-point line and passed the ball to Williams from the right, Williams received the ball and the Maryland Terrapins team's defense soon pressed, so Williams passed the ball to Jake who was in the middle.
Jake was quick and as soon as he got the ball and made a quick pass to Okulaja who received the ball with freedom inside, so Okulaja just advanced and made the layup and made the first 2 points for the Tar Heels team.
The defense of the opposing teams used to ignore Okulaja in attack during the games because Okulaja was one of the players who scored fewer points in the Tar Heels team, so they defended more against Jamison and Carter within the three-point line.
But Jake thought of moving to Okulaja because in the last game Okulaja had a good offensive performance and so Jake felt that he could count on him in the attack and further complicate things for the defense of the Maryland Terrapins team.
After a few minutes of play, Jake could see that the Tar Heels team players were performing well in that game and he was more relieved, so he was more confident of victory even if the opponent performed well.
And this was also happening, the players of the Maryland Terrapins team were playing very well both in attack and defense, it seems that they had made a special strategy to play against the Tar Heels team because the ball did not pass very often near Jake.
As the opponent had no player who was playing so well Jake was on the three-point line without defending against just one player and only defending against who could attempt the shot from outside.
But with the Maryland Terrapins team playing like that Jake knew he wouldn't make as many steals as he did in the last few games and so the Maryland Terrapins team would be able to score more points, of course with the players playing far from where Jake was, their attack options were limited.
In another move, the Maryland Terrapins team made a good attack and the players were far from where Jake was, only one player was in the middle for Jake to defend against him, of course, Williams still defended outside the three-point line and inside the line of three points, the defense of the Tar Heels team was even stronger.
Laron Profit received the ball from the left and advanced after getting rid of Okulaja's defense, he tried a mid-range shot and scored 2 more points for the Maryland Terrapins team, the Maryland Terrapins team players had the quality to make plays like these and manage to make the stitches.
After that move, the Tar Heels team attacked again, Jake advanced until after the middle of the court and passed the ball to Carter from the left, Carter seemed quite excited to have a good performance in that game.
Carter was very upset by the poor performance he had in the last game and knew that maybe he had been left in reserve for longer because Coach Guthridge could be starting to lose confidence in him.
Jake could feel that Carter was thinking like that and he also saw that Carter seemed to be performing well in that game, so he decided that he would make more plays with Carter to make more assists and help his friend gain confidence for the next games.
Carter advanced to the three-point line and passed the ball to Williams who was on the right, unlike Carter, Williams was very confident at this end of the season, in almost every game he had a good performance and knew he was an important player in team now.
Williams passed the ball to Jamison on the left ahead, Jamison tried to make the move getting rid of the defense and failed, so Jamison passed the ball further back to Jake in the middle.
Jake moved forward and made a quick move getting rid of the player who was defending against him, Jake advanced and the Maryland Terrapins team's defense was to try to defend against him, when two players went to defend against him Jake passed the ball to Carter from the left.
Carter received the ball and advanced quickly to make the dunk and get 2 more points for the Tar Heels team, in this game the defense of the Maryland Terrapins team, even though he was strong, had difficulty defending against the Tar Heels team because all the players were having a good time performance.
Jake was a great PG because everyone knew that he could easily score more than 30 points in a game himself, so whenever he got the ball outside the three-point line or within the three-point line the defense of the opposing team had to defend against him.
Most of the time they had to have more than one player defending against him, Ed Cota was as good as Jake in assists, but Cota wasn't good at scoring a lot of points in games, so he didn't attract many players to defend against him and he had more difficult to get assistance.
The two teams continued to play very well, but with Jake organizing great attacks, the Tar Heels team ended the 1st half by winning with a good advantage on the scoreboard, if the game continued like this the Tar Heels team would go to the final of the ACC tournament again.
In this 1st half, Jake played for 20 minutes and made 15 points, 7 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal, Jake took advantage of the good performance of his teammates to make many assists and because of the Maryland Terrapins team avoiding attacking near him, he didn't do many steals.
"Thus ends the 1st half of the game, so far this has been a very exciting game with both teams playing very well and having a game played, the Tar Heels team was winning with a good advantage because with Jake organizing the plays the team Tar Heels does not miss many attacks."
"The Maryland Terrapins team seems to have done something to try to avoid Jake's steals and blocks, they did it well in the 1st half, but because of that the players got more tired and they lost some attacks because the defense of the Tar Heels team has others players besides Jake."
"If the game continues as it is, the Tar Heels team has a good chance of winning that game and they are really the favorites to get the win, with Jake playing well it will be difficult for the Maryland Terrapins team to get a reaction."
"But the Maryland Terrapins team has also played a good game and they have a lot of chances of winning the game and ending the winning streak for the Tar Heels team."
The players of the Tar Heels team were more confident after finishing winning the 1st half well, so they continued to attack since the beginning of the 2nd half, but the Maryland Terrapins team that had to attack started to press on the attack to try to win.
So the two teams started to attack without thinking about defending so well, in other games this could be dangerous for the Tar Heels team, but with the players of the Tar Heels team having a good performance, this made the advantage on the scoreboard not diminish.
In another attacking move by the Tar Heels team Jake advanced until after the middle of the court and passed the ball to Carter on the left, Carter advanced with the ball and passed to Jamison on the left.
Jamison did not try to advance and held the ball until he passed back to Jake, Jake received the ball and soon saw that he had some space, so Jake stepped back and tried the shot from outside to make 3 more points for Team Tar Heels.
He was far from the three-point line when he stepped back and so he tried to shoot from very far from the three-point line and that took his opponent by surprise, so it was difficult to defend against Jake in the games.
When the opponent was very close to him, Jake made a move using speed and advanced to make the layup or dunk, and when the opponent was a little far away he found a way to get the three-point shot.
Even so, the Maryland Terrapins team was really good in that game and even until half of the 2nd half the advantage on the scoreboard did not increase or decrease even the Tar Heels team making many points.
In another play the Maryland Terrapins team managed to make a 2 point play and the Tar Heels team would attack to react, Jake received the ball and advanced and before passing through the middle of the court he passed the ball to Williams on the right.
Williams advanced with the ball and before the three-point line he passed the ball to Okulaja ahead, Okulaja soon received pressure from the Maryland Terrapins team's defense because he was playing so well.
So Okulaja had to pass the ball back to Williams again, this time Williams tried a pass to Jamison further down the left, but Profit from Maryland Terrapins managed to make the steals by intercepting the pass.
Soon Laron Profit and Rodney Elliott used all their speed to try to take advantage of this opportunity to diminish the advantage that the Tar Heels team had on the scoreboard, the two ran very quickly and left all the players of the Tar Heels team behind, only Jake who was further back he was approaching them.
Jake was very fast, but there were two players from the Maryland Terrapins team who were on the attack to make this move, entering within the three-point line of the Tar Heels Profit defense passed the ball to Elliott to score the points.
Elliot saw that Jake was very close to him and so he tried to make a layup to make sure he would make the 2 points, but Jake was waiting for that moment and was quick to jump and block on the basketball backboard just as he saw LeBron James do in several games.