บท 51: Chilling With The Crew

When we got there, there was a group of middle-aged men shooting around in the game of 33. When they saw us approach, one of the guys asked us if we wanted to run a game, which we quickly agreed. I didn't want to scare them off in this game, so I decided to take it easy and have the others go at it, and I'll take one or two shots here and there. They got the ball first as they won the jump ball.We were running a full-court game while one of them was a ref for us. We were going to play NBA rules which surprised us because normally people don't like to stop and go with the rules in an unofficial game, but these guys seem like they knew what they were doing, maybe they play for a team back in their days. The game started with their point guard just running by everybody in my team and laid it up. He was quite fast for a semi-tall guy standing at 5'9.They told us that we were going to play till the timer ran out, they set the timer for 30 minutes which I didn't mind. They got the first two points. Shawn brought the ball as he was running the point, he passed it to John then John passed it to me, and I passed it to Brione. Brione passed it back to me because he saw that I was a little open, so I took the shot to give us three points. The point guard on the team yelled at the guy covering me because he had given me some space to shoot it.The guy got mad and told him to screw off, which caused me to laugh because they were already fighting, and the game just began instead of working as a team. That was the mistake I assumed they always talk to each other like that; it was nothing new. The point guard brought down the ball once again he blew past Shawn and was just about laying it up when Brione got there blocking his way. As soon as he saw Brione, he smiled.Brione wondered what had happened, but before he knew it, somebody was flying up behind him as the point guard tossed up to his center, and he caught it and dunked it on Brione. Brione was pissed that he had gone to help Shawn, and he got dunked on; because of this, Shawn apologized and told him that he would try to play better defense. Shawn was taken by surprise due to that point guards' first step, which was lethal to anybody playing defense on him.The game continued as Shawn brought down the ball again this time he tried to muscle his way down in the post to get revenge but the other team's center had come up from behind him when he was not looking and stole the ball before we could warn him. The center passed it to the shooting guard, who was already running down as soon as he saw that the center had gone around.The shooting guard stopped at the three-point line and shot the ball and made it. I was surprised by the display on how organized they were playing; it was quite refreshing to see that they were working as a team. I called a timeout which the guys quickly said that that's not allowed, but then I was like hey do you guys want a good game or an easy game. The guys just laughed and let us have a second.I told my guys to calm down and try to work as a team these guys seem like they've to fight each other, but they're deceiving us. After that talk, the guys calmed down and noticed that they were playing like a team. I told them it's okay and that we haven't played with each other in a while. WE got back in the game as Shawn was calm this time, and he passed it to Steven.Steven was posting as he pretended like he was going to shoot the ball getting his defender to jump up as he went around him and was just about to lay it up when he saw the center coming up for the block while he was in the air, so he brought the ball back down while still in the air and tossed it over to John. The latter was open for an easy point.The old heads were surprised by the teamwork that we displayed and remembered that time out had helped us. The game continued as we continued to play, there were 10 minutes left of the game, and the score was tied. The old heads had been surprised that we were keeping up, and it was all thanks to our teamwork and me keeping it quiet close whenever they started pulling away I will take a few shots to catch us up.After a while, they started seeing that I was the main guy of the team and started to double-team me, which was a mistake because I could easily pass the ball, which I did. John was wide-open when he took the shot, but he missed it, but Brione was able to rebound it and quickly lay It up, giving us a two-point lead. The point guard brought their ball down once again; this guy has been given us hell due to his speed and techniques.He was like an Energizer Bunny, always hopping around getting steals and was very active. He passed it to his center, who was also given as hell because he was taller than everybody on our team, so he was easily able to dunk it over John, who was covering him. John was getting quite annoyed from getting dunked on all over the place and told me to stop playing around and start playing seriously.I could only shrug as I told him not to worry, we're going to win this game. When the old heads heard this, all they did was laugh because they thought that they were taking it easy on us, so in the final 5 minutes, they were up by three points, that's when they started to take it seriously. They started feeding the ball to the Center more due to the height advantage, but then I would time freeze and steal the ball from him, causing them to be surprised as I passed it down to John, who was running down the lane.They didn't even see when he had gotten to the half-court as he was dunking the ball. They got mad about this and started playing hard. It would seem like the game had just gotten started as they were trying to keep us from scoring any more three-pointers, but they accidentally fouled me while I was shooting from the 3-point line giving me a 4-point play. I made the bucket surprising them as they finally realize that I had not missed a single shot during the game.That's when they started to look at me seriously and asked me who I was and I told them that I just play for the basketball team on Paint Branch High School and they should come to see my game sometimes which they understood that I was in the team now, but my shot still shouldn't be at 100% which they were confused about. The game continued with us in the lead as it slowly expanded. When there were two minutes left, I went off and heated up, Shawn gave me the ball every time as I was crossing them up and putting up points fast.The whole team was on me as they knew that I wasn't going to pass the ball, all five of their players had started to cover me as I blew past them, and I went in for the dunk. At this point, they were disheartened and had given up as the time was running out with one minute left. Shawn had passed me the ball as I decided to do my famous shot from the other side of the Court.They were surprised that I had shot it as soon as I had received the ball from the other side of the Court. When it went in, they were beyond shocked as they all fell to the ground and told the guy that was running the timer just to end it because this game was a losing game from the beginning and that I was toying with them. They decided not to run another game with us. They thanked us for the good game and told me that they would come and see some of my games, which I said that's fine. I can't wait to see them out there.The game ended, and we went to get cleaned up and grab some lunch because we were starving. We went to a restaurant nearby to eat; everybody was surprised when I had only ordered vegetables. They asked me didn't I needed meat to gain muscles, but I told them that meat slows you down, and it affects your bloodstream. It's honestly quite not healthy for your body; they asked me to give them the details later as we ate and enjoyed the good quality time together.After eating, we went to walk it off the food at the mall as we hung out and met some ladies out there. We chatted with them and did a little shopping after the ladies decided that we were cool and wanted to hang out with us some more so we took them to the movies, and some of the guys had linked up with them, but I had to go, so I said my goodbyes and headed home. Isabella was waiting for me because she hadn't seen me all day, she was mad that I had not hung with her, but I explained to her what had happened and told her about my day calming her down as I went to tuck her in bed since it was getting late. The day was quite enjoyable as I lay back and thought of how much fun I had until I fell asleep.