38 Chapter 38

After the little remark, the bench players just watched the game and yelled at each other when a nice play was made.

Yup. This is the environment I love.

I just went to the side and did some light warm-ups and stretches to get my blood circulating. I haven't really touched a ball, so my arm flexibility and moves will not be as natural. I can handle it, though.

I lightly jumped up, and barely even reached the rim. Ah, what's the point of having such a blessed height if I can't even dunk it?

I'm definitely going to start incorporating some leg into the workouts. I can't go walking around with chicken legs.

Stretching a little more, I go back to where the bench players are and just start watching and enjoying the game.

A few minutes passed and people were getting subbed now more frequently.

I subbed in after one of the dudes left without playing much. Either he just wasn't feeling it, or he wanted to leave me the spot. Either way, I'm happy he did that.

I raise my hand to high-five him as a usual habit and he awkwardly palms my hand back as I run past him.

It's our inbound pass.

I settle myself on the outside perimeter, seeing as the other two taller and beefier players are inside fighting their own battle.

My defender stays inside the area and leaves me some space to get the ball. Since the others are being marked pretty well, the inbound passer just looks at me and passes it after a little hesitation.

No problem.

I look pretty skinny and my body type still doesn't look the most athletic. If I saw another guy like me, I too would hesitate to pass it to him.

I receive the ball with my hands, and finally, feel the bumpy dot surface of the ball in my hands.

Ah it's been a while, basketball.

My fingers that haven't touched the basketball, ever, feel uncomfortable. Not enough to stop me, though.

My defender moves up a little bit and settles himself in front of me.

I get into a triple threat position and stare at him in the eyes.

I fake a dribble, but he doesn't move. I fake another one once again, with a little more rotation in my torso and he slightly hops back.

Instantly, I move, attacking his inclining right foot.

He adjusts quickly, however, I cross over diagonally to the right.

To the elbows of the free-throw line, I pump-fake and the help from another defender comes in while the other guy trailed behind me.

Two defenders against me.

That's bad positioning from them.

I see the gap in the defense and fake a pass towards the other side of the gap. They move to my feint, and I bounce pass towards the gap where my teammate was just moving into.

He catches the ball and swishes it into the net.

I was pretty much only able to get this because they're not too familiar with my playstyle. It's only the first play and I don't look too much like a basketball player.

I also look pretty skinny and a little lanky, so they didn't expect that much speed from me.

This same play won't ever work on them again, though.

I jog back to our side and slap my hand against my teammate that scored and stay at the perimeter of the three-point line while leaving my bigger teammates in the center.

The opponents set themselves in their position.

From what I've seen is that most of the other team's shots are inside, or close to the paint. Their bench players that came in, are the same as well.

They're really athletic, though, which I'll have to watch out for.

I lightly tread a few centimeters farther inside the three-point line, making sure not to overextend and allow a gap.

Since they're not very good shooters, we can just wait for them to make their own mistakes outside of the perimeter.

The players outside are unable to get it into their center players and keep on passing it to each other trying to look for a gap in the defense.

One of their centers moves up for a screen to let their point guard in, instead.

I'll have to watch out for the pick and roll.

I yell to my teammate that's marking their point guard about the incoming screen.

He dodges the screen and keeps going for the point guard.

Okay, he wasted a little time there and is a little unbalanced. If he gets his ankles broken right here, it won't be my fault.

He stabilizes himself while the point-guard didn't take advantage of the really small gap in our defense, which I was ready to defend, and fakes a pass.

Ah, my teammates are not that solid in the defensive department. I think to myself as two of them immediately react and leave a small opening for the centers.

They all see the blunder and one of them comes in to take an easy quick shot.

I run in from the other side and slap the incoming pass away into the center.

I run to it and recover our offensive momentum.

I dribble the ball while running with practiced ease, yet still slightly struggling with the new feel of the body.

They take a second to recover and I'm already near the other side.

Shoot, I'm still not quick enough though.

One of the really quick defenders catches up to me and watches for my layup while slightly pressuring me.

I drive into the basket and then abruptly take a step-back to the short corner.

I raise my hands with the ball for a pump fake and the defender jumps for it.

Bad move.

If you're defending a shot you should be aiming to make it really uncomfortable for your attacker, and then jump for the ball if you're a hundred percent certain they're shooting.

The defender shoots past me with his hand raised and I hesitate to shoot the ball.

I take it back into my grip.

Whew, if I had shot the ball, that would've ended in the worst brick in history. I still haven't shot the ball at all in this body and the strength from this body differs from my past one so there's no way the ball would've gone in.

Another defender jumps in from the side, at my shot hesitation.

Hah. At least it did do something.

I pass it to my teammate coming in from the right side. Okay, there's a free guy to your left. You just have to fake a shot and then pass it. Easy free layups.

Unfortunately, he jumps up for a layup and the ball gets smacked from his hands.

I mentally sigh and rush to the ball near the right-wing. It's the easy plays that win the game, man.

Being first to the ball, I pick it up and turn around to face the hoop.

My options have slightly reduced. Since I've faked so many shots, my opponents are definitely not going to fall for them this time.

Although I can't shoot, I should surely be able to make a layup, though, right?

I dribble the ball with power and do one of my favorite moves, the in and out to the left back to the right.

Leaving behind a defender who mistakenly hopped to the other side, another one comes in for the help.

The other one falls back.

I bounce the ball hard and jump with one foot towards the left, to the center.

If I go more towards the left, I'll be blocked by the other so I have to control this well.

I raise the ball towards the air, trying to fake a shot. I hop to the right side for a flashy euro step and push the ball with my right hand towards the backboard into the net.

My defender jumps attempting to block it, but since I moved him out of position, he's in no place to block the ball.

Another one jumps from behind me and reaches his hand.

Unless he's a certain superhuman whose name starts with Z and rhymes with Ion and has the last name Williamson, I highly doubt he'll reach that ball in time.

I watch the ball bounce from the backboard into the net.

In accordance with my expectations, he doesn't reach the ball and it scores our team two points.

Whew, that was pretty smooth.

"Sheeeeesh! Charlie!" The guy who told me I'd sub in early yelled from the bench.

I grinned at him while moving back to defend.

"Yessir that's what we like to see," my teammates slapped me a high five.

My defender that I just styled on smiled at me and gave me a high five.

"Aye, you kinda clean bro," he patted my back.

…

I kept on playing and kept passing it to my teammates. They finally understood what I was trying to do, and so did the defenders but whatever they tried countering with, I just patiently negated.

I didn't do anything flashy after the euro-step and just scored the easy layups and gave good defense breaking passes.

My defense was okay, but I began struggling with the defense when my legs started shaking.

I got a painful calf cramp as I jumped for a rebound and dropped onto the floor pretty roughly while holding my spazzing calf with the alien muscles twisting around.

I hate cramps.

It's understandable though, I never really did sports in Pangaea. Not even on Sports Activities Day at school when my coach asked me to.

I've only started to, recently, last week when we played Dodgeball.

I didn't get any cramps from Dodgeball but that's because it isn't as exhausting as basketball.

Not only that, we were fooling around, while here, we're giving our 100%.

It's more fun to play basketball and give your all against the best competition than it is to dust people who aren't even trying.

I'm having lots of fun right now though, ignoring the cramp.

…

On the bench, I stretch my leg while eating a banana that I got from the NutriJuice store.

Apart from the smoothies, they sell some fruits which is cool.

Should've known to get some danged potassium into my system before doing such a strenuous sport.

Watching someone miss an easy layup, I lightly slap my thigh in dismay. I munch the last piece of the banana and throw the peel into the organic bin while doing specific stretches for these types of situations.

There's no way I'm going to stop playing, though. No cramp is stopping me. And it's not like I'll get injured; my great body passive has got that covered.

The game time ends and we all get up for a small in-between break.

After this, we'll be switching teams once again. I hope I get to be on the other team as the guy who tried harassing me.

I'll definitely enjoy giving him the sauce.

His fundamentals are lacking and he just concentrates on flashy moves that are worse than just a simple cross-over.

Even as a teammate, he was talking some slight trash into my ear while we defended and stole my passes which is just mind-boggling.

It's a little frustrating being his teammate since he's literally helping the opposition with his ball hogging and easy turnovers.

Probably everyone hopes to be in the other team but we do them randomly.

I feel my shoulder being slapped.

"Yo, Charlie's your name right?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

They grin at me, "Yeooo you kinda smooth wit' it."

I just laugh and knock the back of my hand with theirs for a lazy fist bump.

"How long you been playing?"

Uh, I could either say 10 years or it's my first day. Eh.

"Been playing a while now. Just heard that there's a basketball court here and I just had to check it out."

"Ayeee, damn. Coulda been hooping with us since last year, man."

"Yeah, everyday since last year we been hooping in this same court man."

"Dang, I missed out on a year of easy games." I joked with some trash talk.

"Mayyneeee, shut up bruh. Don't go around acting like ya legs didn't just give out a few minutes ago."

We laughed.

"What are your names?"

...

[Author Note: Please enjoy!

I'm not sure whether introducing this sport will appeal to many people and if I did a good job narrating it.

Did you guys like it? Please comment your thoughts. Thank you!]