Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Experience at Xiangbei

Chapter 33: The only offense you practice is the pull-up jump shot!

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“Nice moves, but not too aggressive.”

"Even for me now, it's not difficult to get past this kind of defense."

In front of Jinguji Takeshi, there was a distance of about 1.5 meters between Rukawa and Takeshi, with arms outstretched, alert and focused. Seeing Rukawa's serious face, Takeshi couldn't help but smile.

Sure enough, playing ball is more fun only with an opponent.

Wudao leaned forward slightly, as if he was ready to break through. Rukawa saw this and his muscles tensed instantly. Rukawa did not see Wudao make any unnecessary movements. He just leaned forward and got closer and closer to him. Wudao now looked like a sculpture that was about to fall. Rukawa could not see that Wudao had any obvious tendency to break through.

"Step!" However, just when Wudao leaned forward at an angle of nearly 30 degrees, Wudao, who had not made any other moves, suddenly stepped out with his left foot. At the same time, Wudao quickly dropped the ball. Rukawa, who was already alert, subconsciously moved his body to his right, blocking Wudao's breakthrough route on the left.

In Rukawa's opinion, the martial arts that suddenly stepped out with his left foot must be a breakthrough towards his right side.

However, in the next second after Rukawa made his move, Wudao's left foot served as the axis foot, and his right foot quickly passed Rukawa. Wudao instantly took the basketball and crossed his defense line from Rukawa's right side.

“So fast!”

Wudao is very tall, and his stride is very big. His breakthrough was very fast in Rukawa's eyes. Wudao's figure flashed before Rukawa's eyes, but for some reason, Wudao, who quickly passed Rukawa, not only did not speed up, but his movement speed slowed down a little.

This strange rhythm also gave Rukawa enough time to catch up. When Wudao was approaching the three-point line, Rukawa came to Wudao's side, stretched out his arms to block Wudao's sight, and at the same time pressed his body towards Wudao, trying to compress Wudao's dribbling space.

But in front of Rukawa, Wudao's strength was enough. Wudao bent his left hand in front of his body, directly blocked Rukawa's pressure with his forearm, and chased Rukawa towards the inside. Rukawa could only be forced to retreat towards the inside. In terms of strength, he was no match for Wudao who had increased his speed.

Rukawa, who was at a disadvantage, realized that he would be completely out of position if he continued like this, so he took the initiative to adjust his defensive stance, changing from the crab step in the defensive state to a direct chase, just hoping to stop Wudao when he was making a layup. At the same time, Rukawa also secretly opened up some distance to leave himself enough space to jump.

However, just when Rukawa was concentrating on guarding against Wudao's layup, Wudao, who was holding the ball, suddenly stepped on the ground with both feet outside the paint area, slightly bent his knees, braked his offensive steps, and then quickly passed the ball, and under Rukawa's astonished gaze, he made a quick stop and jump shot.

The connection between Wudao's sudden stop and shooting is a little stiff, but Wudao's shooting action is quite standard, and the wrist pressing action is also quite gentle. In Rukawa's opinion, there is a different kind of beauty.

The basketball quickly passed over Rukawa's head and flew towards the basket.

"Dang~" The basketball thrown by Jinguji Budou did not follow the trajectory he expected, but hit the edge of the rim and bounced out.

"What a pity. If it was a standing jump shot, this ball should have gone in. The feeling when shooting was pretty good."

Although Wu Dao felt a little disappointed when he missed the basketball shot, he was not frustrated. The missed jump shot was actually within his expectations.

Although he also did some shooting exercises during this period, his shooting accuracy was not very high, and the pull-up jump shot is not just about having shooting ability. The most important thing is to adapt to the rhythm of transition between movement and stillness.

"Didn't make the shot?"

"He clearly had a better option just now, why did he shoot from that position? If he went inside and made a layup, it would be difficult for me to stop him with his height."

Seeing that Wudao's shot missed, Rukawa was puzzled after a brief moment of shock. Wudao's shooting was not outstanding, which Rukawa could see. He didn't understand why Wudao used such a finishing method when he obviously had a better choice.

"I can see that you are very confident in your shot, but if you let me do it just because I am an elementary school student, there is no need to continue this game."

"If you don't want to fight me, you can refuse. There's no need to humiliate me in this way."

Rukawa Kaede looked at Jinguji Budo, frowned slightly, and said with some dissatisfaction.

"?"

"What makes you think so?"

Seeing Rukawa Kaede looking unhappy, Wudao asked in confusion.

"If you had gone directly inside just now, I might not have been able to stop you with your height. Why did you shoot?"

"And your shooting..."

Rukawa didn't finish his words, but Wudao understood what he meant. Didn't he feel humiliated because Rukawa's shooting was so bad

Wu Dao was a little surprised and helpless when he heard this.

The way this ball was played was so bad that even elementary school students would look down on it.

"That's not my intention. It was just practice."

“Shooting is the offensive means I desperately need at this stage.”

As Wudao was speaking, he walked past Rukawa and headed towards the basket. After picking up the basketball, he walked to a distance of about one or two meters inside the three-point line in the 0-degree direction, stopped, adjusted his rhythm, and shot.

The basketball's flight path deviated and the ball hit the edge of the rim and flew out.

"Shooting?"

Rukawa looked at Wu Dao in confusion. His face was full of doubts. Rukawa's main scoring method now was layups. As for shooting, it was not the main scoring method at his age. Rukawa could shoot, but relatively speaking, he had invested the least training time in this area.

"From the look on your face, it seems like you don't quite understand."

"But that's true. After all, you are an elementary school student. Usually, each team only scores 20 to 30 points in your games. The time is short and the pace is fast. The main way to score is layups."

"It's normal that shooting, a low-return, high-risk scoring method, is used less frequently."

"But it's different when I get to junior high school. Even at this stage, shooting is much more important than layups."

"Shooting is the best way to highlight my physical advantages. Whether it is my height or my wingspan, it can be perfectly reflected through shooting."

"I need to practice layups, but until I get stronger, they don't need to be my main scoring method."

For some reason, Wudao was not on guard in front of Rukawa Kaede, and revealed some of his plans for future training to Rukawa Kaede without reservation.

"Come to think of it, you should be one of the tallest people in the elementary school basketball team, right?"

“The advantage of body shape is quite obvious.”

"How about shooting?"

As Wudao spoke, he trotted over to pick up the basketball and threw it towards Rukawa.

"It's OK." Rukawa Kaede whispered, and then threw the ball out. Although he said it beautifully, the basketball hit the backboard directly, bounced to the edge of the frame and fell into Wudao's hands.

"... .." Rukawa raised his eyebrows when he saw this scene, lowered his head slightly, and looked a little shy.

Wudao stood where he was, caught the falling basketball, was slightly stunned, and then burst into laughter.

"Ha ha ha ha!"

"You are such an interesting guy!"

"Forget about watching bullfighting. It's boring to practice basketball alone. Let's practice shooting together."

"It would be more efficient to have someone pick up the ball during training."

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