Shinomiya Tano ignored Uozumi Jun and Ikegami who were in open positions in the paint, and pulled up to score against the defense of Akagi Takenori and Chiba Daishi. The exaggerated and stretched pull-up action caused cheers from the audience.
Compared to the boring match between Hainan and Buri, Shimotsunayoshi immediately aroused the interest of the audience with just one goal.
"Whether it's hovering in the air or bouncing, this guy is incredibly strong!"
Akagi Takenori silently walked towards the basketball on the ground and prepared to serve the ball to the baseline. He glanced at the Ryonan players who were returning to defense. Akagi felt like a huge rock was pressing down on his heart, making him feel a little breathless. Although it was not the first time he faced the attack of Shinomiya Tano, no matter which time, the pressure brought by Shinomiya Tano was incomparably huge.
In Shohoku's previous games, no opponent had ever given Akagi such a feeling.
"Return one ball!" Miyagi Ryouta received the pass from Akagi Takenori near the baseline. After receiving the basketball, he ran towards the frontcourt with the ball while shouting to the Shohoku players.
According to the arrangement of the coach Anzai for this game, the first half of the game will be led by Mitsui Shou. Jinguji Budo's responsibility in the first half is to assist in the defense of the inside line and conserve enough physical energy.
Xiangbei High School had specially arranged offensive tactics around Mitsui Shou. In view of Mitsui Shou's scoring characteristics of "all-round cannon", continuous pick-and-rolls helped Mitsui Shou get enough shooting space, which was Xiangbei's main offensive style in the first half.
Miyagi Ryouta dribbled into the front court and moved closer to the top of the three-point arc. Mitsui Hisashi and Jinguji Takeshi were positioned at 45 degrees on both sides of the three-point line. Inside, Akagi Takenori and Chiba Daishi moved closer to the free throw line. If they were a few steps closer, they could help Jinguji Takeshi or Mitsui Hisashi on both sides to set up a pick-and-roll.
"You're standing so far away, are you afraid to fight me?!"
Shinomiya Tianye stood on the three-point line, two meters away from Jinguji Budou. He noticed that the positions of Xiangbei were very shallow, and it seemed that they had no intention of cutting into the inside. He was puzzled and tried to speak out.
"Don't be impatient." Wudao smiled, and after Miyagi landed at the designated position, he quickly started, looking like he was going to bypass Shigong Tianye and get into the inside. As soon as Wudao made a move, Shigong Tianye also reacted quickly, sticking to Wudao, and he moved sideways with his back to the basket, obviously, guarding against Jinguji Wudao entering the basket.
However, Wu Dao ran a few steps and quickly ran back, not only away from the basket, but also near the top of the arc. At the same time, Miyagi Ryouta quickly passed the ball to Wu Dao and ran along the three-point line towards the left side of the court where Wu Dao had just vacated. Shigong Tianye followed up a little slower, and he hesitated a little when he had two choices: chasing Wu Dao and defending Miyagi.
After thinking about it, he chose to defend Wudao. As soon as Wudao had the ball, Mitsui Hisashi on the other side also came over and stood firmly behind Shinomiya Tano, setting a pick-and-roll.
"It's this guy!" Shinomiya narrowed his eyes slightly. He had already guessed that Shohoku would focus on Jinguji Budou, so when Mitsui Hisashi came to do the pick-and-roll, Shinomiya showed an expression of "as expected" on his face.
After the pick and roll was formed, Jinguji Budou no longer wasted time and quickly dropped the ball to break through in the direction of Mitsui's pick and roll. Sendoh Akira, who was originally chasing Mitsui, also noticed Budou's advance and decisively gave up chasing Mitsui and went straight to block Budou. Shinomiya Tano, who was picked, also pressed forward from the side and back of Budou.
Sendoh and Shinomiya Tano had perfect understanding of each other, and in an instant, they double-teamed Takeshi from both sides.
"Great defense! Jinguji Budou can't attack with the ball anymore!"
In the rest area of Ryonan, Fujima Kenji was delighted to see Sendoh and Shinomiya Tano about to double-team him. He had watched Shohoku's games and knew Budou's strength, but he also believed that even Jinguji Budou would have no chance of scoring once he was surrounded by Sendoh and Shinomiya Tano.
"Here it comes!" Wudao glanced and noticed Shigong Tianye coming over. Before he could get too close, he quickly stopped the ball and jumped up. But this time, Wudao didn't shoot towards the basket. When he jumped, his body turned diagonally. There, Mitsui Shou stood outside the three-point line and was already in an open position.
"Mitsui! Go and defend Mitsui!" Shinomiya Tano noticed Jinguji Takeshi's gaze at the first moment. Before he could jump to intercept, the basketball had already flown out of Takeshi's hands and flew straight towards Mitsui.
Following Shimono's shout, Uekusa, who was originally defending Miyagi, hurriedly ran towards Mitsui Hisashi. At this time, Mitsui Hisashi had already raised the basketball and adjusted his rhythm with one breath.
The basketball flew out of Mitsui's hands and went straight towards the basket.
An open three-pointer with several seconds of adjustment time makes this shot too easy for Mitsui Hisashi.
“Swish!”
With a slight sound, the basketball went into the net. Although Mitsui Shou scored a three-pointer, the numbers on the scoreboard jumped to 3:2, and Xiangbei High School, which lost the opening jump ball, took the lead.
This round of Xiangbei's attack took 15 seconds. The attack speed was not fast, but not too slow either.
In summary, Xiangbei's offense was very methodical, which was very different from Xiangbei's previous games.
"Is Xiangbei High School... starting to show its true strength?!" Hainan, who has played against Xiangbei High School, can clearly feel that today's Xiangbei is different from before.
When Shohoku played against Kainan in the past, they played "superstar basketball". As the name suggests, Shohoku's previous games used Jinguji Budou as the core to tear apart the opponent's defense. Shohoku's Akagi, Chiba, Miyagi and even Mitsui Hisashi were just tools of Jinguji Budou.
But today, Xiangbei's playing style was obviously different from before. Takeshi Jinguji, who was good at holding the ball, passed the ball without any offensive attempt, which was very inconsistent with Takeshi Jinguji's previous game characteristics.
Of course, Ryonan could also see the problems that Hainan could see. Shinomiya Tano and Sendoh looked at each other. Although they didn't say anything, after a brief exchange of glances, they had a tacit understanding in their hearts.
Transition from offense to defense.
With the change of ownership of Qiuquan, the defending side became Xiangbei High School.
Unlike the usual defensive system of returning to the court and playing zone defense, Xiangbei's defense today also had some subtle changes.
Miyagi Ryouta, who should have returned to his position long ago, stayed in the frontcourt and surrounded Uekusa Tomoyuki. The rest of the Shohoku players returned to their own half early and took up defensive positions.
This strange defensive formation surprised everyone in Ryonan, and they didn't understand what Xiangbei was doing.
"Those guys from Xiangbei, they wouldn't be so naive as to think that they can complete the midfield steals by themselves and affect the operation of our Ryonan basketball, right?"
Coach Takeo frowned, not understanding what Shohoku was up to, but precisely because he didn't know what Shohoku was thinking, he became even more wary of it.
On the court, Ryonan's Yuzumi served the ball to Uekusa. Uekusa, who had the ball, did not dare to dribble in the face of Miyagi Ryouta's close defense, and directly threw the ball out to Sendoh who was waiting for the ball.
After two simple passes, Miyagi was left far behind. When Sendoh crossed the half court with the ball, Miyagi was still following Uekusa's side and did not seem to be in a hurry to return to defense.
Sendoh didn't care about Miyagi Ryouta who was slow to return to defense. While he was moving the ball towards the three-point line, he was looking for the position of Shinomiya Tano.
Sendo looked over and saw that Shigong Tianye was facing away from Jinguji Budou, moving slowly and firmly, pushing towards the inside line little by little. Shigong Tianye's strength was much greater than Budou's, but he didn't seem to be in a hurry to push Budou away to receive the ball. Instead, he exerted force slowly, evenly, and continuously.
Shigong Tianye's force pressure is like a professional tug-of-war athlete, not the kind of "one, two, three, one, two, three" kind of force, but a continuous output little by little. Facing such an offensive, Wudao can only put his hands on the opponent's back and try to maintain his position.
But his strength was not as good as that of Shimoya Tanno. With Shimoya Tanno's continued pressure, both of them were approaching the free throw line.
"Hey!" When he reached the designated position, Shimoya suddenly increased his strength output, directly forcing Wudao to retreat half a step, then raised his right hand and asked Sendoh for the ball.
Sendoh, who had the ball, didn't think twice and immediately passed the ball to Shimonoseki.
After receiving the ball, Shigong Tianye tilted his head slightly to look at Jinguji Budou, and then he drove the ball towards Budou's defense. He didn't even think about turning around to avoid Jinguji Budou's defense. Shigong Tianye just used his strength to hit Jinguji Budou.
"Bang!" Shigong Tianye's back hit Wudao's chest hard, and the terrifying force made Jinguji Wudao's breathing stagnate. But just as Shigong Tianye was about to hold the ball and exert force again, a thin figure suddenly jumped out from the side and slapped the basketball in Shigong Tianye's hand.
"Miyagi Ryouta?! When did this guy come over here?!"
The basketball flew out of Shinomiya's hand, and Miyagi, who rushed over, grabbed the basketball and started to counterattack with the ball. Miyagi approached, and Shinomiya didn't notice the opponent's existence at all, until the basketball was intercepted, he belatedly looked at the position where Uekusa Tomoyuki was on the court.
"I see! So this is what Xiangbei is planning!"
Shigong Tianye suddenly exerted force with both feet, like a flying cannonball, chasing after Miyagi. He already understood why Xiangbei arranged for Miyagi not to return to the court to defend immediately.
Shohoku's goal is to keep Miyagi out of the sight of everyone in Ryonan so that Miyagi can get a certain amount of free time on the court.
Think about it, when you are attacking, would you pay special attention to the defensive player who you have already shaken off during the serving phase
Although Shimono's basketball vision is very good, he is not good enough to pay attention to whether there is anyone approaching his half of the court when attacking.
Xiangbei stole the ball and broke through quickly. Miyagi dribbled the ball for only a few meters before he heard the sound of "whoosh" breaking the wind behind him. Without any hesitation, Miyagi passed the ball directly to Mitsui who was already running towards the front court.
Mitsui received the ball and quickly crossed the Ryonan half, and behind him, Sendoh followed closely. Sendoh's pursuit speed was very fast, and it was certain that when Mitsui entered the Ryonan inside line with the ball, Sendoh would definitely be able to give Mitsui a head-on blow.
"Is it too late?!" Mitsui accelerated, tilted his head slightly to glance at Sendoh's position, and suddenly stopped for the ball near the Ryonan three-point line. With a side step, he instantly widened the distance between him and Sendoh, and then quickly made a lob shot.
It took only a second for Mitsui Hisashi to stop the ball and shoot. Not only was his shooting speed extremely fast, but his choice of attack also surprised Sendoh and Shinomiya Tano who were defending him.
Fast break, one-on-one in the frontcourt, the offensive player is closer to the basket.
Under such conditions, it is unlikely that anyone would choose to use the quick stop side step three-pointer as the final means of attack, because such an attack is unreasonable. Mitsui Shou took advantage of this unreasonableness and let him shoot without the interference of Sendoh.
Because when Mitsui Shou shot, Sendoh didn't stop. Even though Sendoh had such a wild style of play, he couldn't have thought that Mitsui Shou would actually shoot a three-pointer in this situation.
Bad shot selection, loneliness, arrogance, stupidity, these thoughts just came to Sendo's mind, and then they were shattered by the crisp sound of the net.
"It went in...it actually went in?!" Sendoh turned his head to look at the basket, and happened to see the basketball falling from the net. For a moment, Sendoh opened his mouth slightly in surprise.
"How is this possible?!" Shigong Tianye and Ikegami and others came late to chase and defend. When they saw Mitsui Shou score a three-pointer on a fast break, Shigong Tianye exclaimed in disbelief. For an offensive man like him who was terrible at shooting three-pointers, Mitsui Shou's goal was too unreal.
Even Jinguji Takeshi, who was thinking about assisting Mitsui in the attack, was a little stunned at this time. Even as a teammate, Takeshi had never thought that Mitsui would play like this.
This... is really... too wasteful!
"Easy!" Mitsui Shou exclaimed happily with a bright smile on his face.
After listening to Mitsui Shou's somewhat arrogant celebration, Wu Dao finally covered his head, smiled and shook his head.
I don’t know when it started, but Takeshi naively thought that he was the strongest scorer of Xiangbei High School. He seemed to have forgotten that Mitsui Hisashi was the absolute core of Takeishi back then.
Although Mitsui Shou had fewer shots in the games after Budo joined Shohoku, don't forget that Mitsui Shou was the sole core of the team back then and almost broke through Shoyo's top ace.
Mitsui's scoring ability has never been inferior to anyone.
6:2, Shohoku was leading by four points. Ryonan clearly won the jump ball, but was still 4 points behind Shohoku.
The attacking power displayed by Mitsui Shou also made Shinomiya Tano, Sendoh and others feel depressed. This second-year captain of Xiangbei seems to be very difficult to deal with. His difficulty may not be much less than Jinguji Budou.
"Uekusa, remind me of Miyagi's location."
In the transition from offense to defense, Shinomiya Tano gave some instructions to Uekusa Tomoyuki before running to the front court, and then jogged towards the front court with a serious expression.
Less than a minute into the game, the score difference was 4 points. As Ryonan's trump card, Shinomiya Tano had to step up at this time to help the team stabilize the situation.
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