After the first half, we got back on the court to start the second half of the game with more fire than ever before. I saw Wayne come out looking more motivated than ever; it seemed like something had changed in him. Wayne brought the ball down, and Paige came down to defend him, she saw the ball pa.s.s right by her face as it went and landed in the Center's hands.
The Australian Center simply put it up, giving them an easy two points. That pa.s.s was quite incredible. I didn't even see it myself, but I told Paige and the others to stay aware of his pa.s.ses from here on out; otherwise, they might come back to beat us. Paige brought down the ball and pa.s.sed it to me when I asked, but Wayne intercepted the pa.s.s and took it down the lane for an easy layup as they cut our lead down by a few more points.
It seemed like Wayne was in his zone right now and ready to turn this game back around. I smirked when I saw this, and I told Paige to let me bring down the ball. With Wayne guarding me, it was hard to make any sudden moves. I pa.s.sed the ball over to Gonfreak, who started posting up his defender down into the post, just when he was about to do a turnaround jumper, the center came out of nowhere and block the shot as he grabbed the ball from the air and tossed it down the lane where Wayne was already running down as soon as he saw that the shot had gone up.
It seemed like his cherry-picking skills were better than a lot of people that I've ever played against. We used to have a 10-point lead, but now we only had a four-point lead, and it seemed like the Australian team was back in the game as well. Wayne looked at me and laughed; he definitely shouldn't have laughed. I smiled back and shook my head because now I'm going to go off and show him his place.
I brought down the ball, and as soon as I got to the half-court line, I took the shot. Count it.
Wayne was caught off guard and quickly told his Center to rebound it. Their center got ready but noticed that all our players were backing away to play defense. The ball entered the basket, making a splash sound causing the crowd to react. Wayne got serious as he concluded that he couldn't leave me open after that shot. Wayne brought the ball down and made a crazy spinning pa.s.s towards Aldrich, but when Aldrich went to pick up the ball, it changed directions and went into their center's hands as he grabbed it and dunked it, cutting the lead to five.
I was quite impressed by the rotation of that pa.s.s and wondered if he could teach me that skill. But there was a game going on; it's not the time to think about that as Wayne noticed I wasn't paying attention, so he went for the steal and laid it up to make it a three-point game.
It seems like this guy Wayne didn't want to give up and had gone into overdrive as he pushed his abilities to the limit due to the tough game that he was having. I brought down the ball and looked to set up a play, I saw that Khalid had run past his defender, so I lobbed the ball up as Khalid caught it and dunked it hard. Wayne got the ball from the inbound as quickly as he could and threw it as fast as he could to the other side of the Court, his Center was waiting for the ball as he caught it and dunked it behind his back. The play was so great that even our fans started cheering for it, and I honestly was impressed with it and wanted to try it out too.
The last quarter was upon us as the buzzer rang for the end of the third quarter, and surprisingly we were only up by three points as Wayne had gotten serious and had taken his game to another level. It seemed like he could also use GoldenEye, the skill that allows me to see 3 seconds into the future. That's how he was able to steal the ball from Paige several times; I had also tried to use Goldeneye in the game against him. Still, it never worked, so I figured he'd had that ability, which cancels out the same one that I have with him.
Coach Andre decided to let the bench play this last quarter so that they can get some experience on the court, allowing the starters rest while they take on the most crucial part of the game. The starters didn't always have to carry the burden of maintaining the game. So, the coach wanted everybody to be accountable for any wins or losses. The only thing that didn't change was me; I had to stay in the game, which I frowned on. But I knew the coach had an idea of what he was doing since he kept me in the game.
Even Coach Andre l knew that the bench could not be trusted just yet. Just to help them out, he figured I wouldn't be tired since there was not a single sweat on my head. Wayne, on the other hand, was dead tired; he had never experienced such compet.i.tion before, so his coach had to sit him out at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Their coach rested Wayne and planned to play him again with only a few minutes left on the clock. But I had other plans, as soon as Wayne was out of the game, I'll be able to extend the lead, and I didn't waste any time in doing that because I started using [GoldenEyes] and [Time Freeze]. Since Wayne was out, I used my skills to the utmost on their bench, as soon as we pulled the lead to 10 points Wayne came back in the game and with Wayne, the air around the Australian team changed as if they had gotten some secret boost of energy, ready to make a comeback.
