June 23 - Game 3 - Away vs. Armstrong
Sorry about the long wait, guys. I've been working a lot lately, Phenom's been at camp, and most of all, it hasn't quit raining long enough for us to hold a regulation-length game. But we finally got one today. Yesterday, Team Armstrong's leader, David "The Phantom AKA The X-Factor" Tatham, called us up and told us that they were scheduling a game, rain or shine, at the Sprunica Courts, for the 23rd. So Phenom and I called everybody and we decided to meet there an hour early to run some plays, and then we'd start the game.
Just for a note, Team Armstrong is made up of the stars from the Varsity team for the high school. These guys are crazy good. Well, after we got to the courts, we ran a little bit, and then we got ready. It was time.
The Revolution:
Starting 5:
Ce: Austin "Scarecrow" Martin
PF: Levi "Unstoppable" Law
SF: Tyler "The MaTriX" Margison
SG: Ethan "Phenom" Scott
PG: Zack "Attack" Stant
Bench:
Zach "Birdie" Walker
Miles "Kid Kobe" Lane
Jacob "Like Mike" Percifield
Kenny "Most Known Thug" Baker
Wraythe "Dubz" Parker
Team Armstrong:
Starting 5:
Ce: Wes "Goliath" Fox
PF: Derrick "UB" Eubanks
SF: Kane "King Flash" Crabtree
SG: David "The Phantom AKA The X-Factor" Tatham
PG: Sean "Sticky" Sichting
Bench:
Josh "JO" Owens
Ethan "Underground" Baird
Heath "Human Torch" Bryant
David "D-Mill" Miller
OFFICIALS:
NOTE: We brought ours again, because they're reliable...
Referees:
Kevin Clark (A pledge as ref for the rest of the season)
Chris Rice (A basketball genius, but not really a player, simply a referee)
Scorekeepers:
Danny McMasters
Andrew McMasters
Timekeepers:
Shotclock: Mitch Coleman
Game Time: Nick Coleman
Close-Up on Team Armstrong:
Wes "Goliath" Fox:
Incredibly tall, about 6'7", and quite universal in this league. He inherited his name, Goliath, because of his incredible size, but he fell easily one time when Birdie dunked on him. Pretty much a "Shaq", power dunker and blocker.
Derrick "U-B" Eubanks:
He's a natural swingman, can play from point guard to power forward, but his main spot is power forward in this league. He's about 6'3". His name is simply his name "YOO-banks" becomes "YOOB-ee". An efficient dunker, but mainly a shooter and defensive player.
Kane "King Flash" Crabtree:
Tall for his age (he's a sophomore this coming year), at about 6'2". Tall and lanky, he moves fast, has efficient three-point plays, and bank-shooting abilities like Dwyane "Flash" Wade, but has beautiful dunks, game-saving plays, power, and distanced shooting abilities like LeBron "King" James, as well as the handling skills of both. He earned his name one game when he did a reverse windmill, like King James, and some people started calling him "King Kane", while others thought it clashed too much. Well, two plays later, he pulled off a leaning, fall-over-the-defender lay-up for the three-point play, and people started calling him "The New D-Wade". But someone came up with "King Flash" to make the best of the two, and his name stayed. He's an all-star, and one of the best players on the team.
David "The Phantom AKA The X-Factor" Tatham:
Easily the best player on the team. He's 5'11", and so athletic. He, too, has been compared to D-Wade, as well some other stars (Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, LeBron James). His greatest "hidden" skill is his speed, and his ability to shift in and out of crowds with ease. His quick movements and seemingly-harmless-then-explosive skills have led to his first nickname "The Phantom". His second name came from the same game he received "The Phantom" from. The announcer was watching Tatham and after he started to catch fire, he moved faster, dunked nicer, shot harder, and played better. He was completely focused, in the zone, on fire, whatever you want to call it. The announcer called his focused-in-the-zone transformation "The X-Factor", because it was just out of nowhere and mysterious. So his regular on-ball name is "The Phantom", until he starts to catch fire, then he's "The X-Factor".
Sean "Sticky" Sichting:
Not as great as any of the other starters, but still decent. About 5'7"-5'8", he's a little chubby, but his handling skills are above average. He earned his name from his handle because no matter what he does, the ball stays "stuck" to his hand unless he lets it go on purpose. He's mainly a handler and shooter, but does little-jump one- and two-handers and such.
Josh "J-O" Owens:
An okay point guard at about 6'0". He's usually seen passing alley-oops to Tatham. His nickname is his initials, but it's based off of Jermaine O'Neal's nickname, "J-O". He's a handler, disher, and shooter.
Ethan "Underground" Baird:
He's pretty tall and lanky, too, about 6'1", maybe 6'2". He doesn't talk much on the court, he just plays ball. He got his name when he was playing ball, of course. He was coming up the court, and his teammate had the ball. Well, there were about four or five players beneath the rim, in the paint, and JO had the ball, and he just popped it up toward the rim, and Baird just appeared out of nowhere and slammed it down with impeccable timing. Everyone was like "Where'd he come from??" and JO screamed "Man, he was underground, you missed him!". From then, he was Underground or UG. He's a skillful power dunker (strong windmills, etc.), shooter, has a nice handle, and drops some nice dimes.
Heath "Human Torch" Bryant:
He's only about 5'8", but he's a great baller, and really athletic. His dashing appalachian (nickname) came from several different factors. First off, when he gets hot, he gets hot. He'll rip you open if you piss him off, but it takes a lot to get him pissed. Second off, when he hits fire, he hits fire. He'll dunk wayyy over you, shoot wayyy over you, or just set up a nice dime right past you. And finally, he tends to wear a black beanie with flames on it, so it looks (not really) like he has fire for hair. He's a high-flying dunker, high-flying shooter, and a trippin' handler.
David "D-Mill" Miller:
He's about 5'7" or so, not really tall, and can't dunk. His name is obviously his name. He hits beautiful shots from almost half-court, passes like crazy, and does some Pharmacist-like lay-ups. Shooter, handler, passer.
Match-Up of the Game:
Ethan "Phenom" Scott vs. David "The Phantom AKA The X-Factor" Tatham:
Both players are averaging some big numbers, and are the greatest short high-flyers in the league, and know each other personally. The difference between this rivalry and the one between Phenom and Jeremy "J-Beck" Beckham is that J-Beck and Phenom are about equal, whereas Tatham is a lot better of a player than Phenom. Even though Phenom is getting better, we'll have to see what happens in the game.
So now that that's over, let's get started with this crazy game.
Tip-off between Phenom and Goliath. Okay, so who do YOU think won? Goliath tipped it off to Sticky, who approached the goal carefully. I looked out and recognized them running a play that I saw during a Junior Varsity open gym once. The point guard (Sticky) passes it around and they swing to the corner and then pass into the paint for the easy dunk. Well, I was down in the paint at the time, and I saw them running this, and I ran out to the corner, and jumped in front of UB while the ball was coming at him and stole the ball. I sprinted up the court and was being chased by The Phantom and King Flash, while Phenom, Unstoppable, and Zack Attack all sprinted for a potential alley-oop. I pulled the ball behind my back, then brought it back to my front, to confuse King Flash, and then passed it to Zack Attack. ZA stood at the line, undisturbed, and launched a perfect three-point shot, which sank right through the rim. Three-nothing, with just a few seconds done in the first.
In a few plays, we were already trailing by three points, and Armstrong had the ball. The Phantom brought it up and was being guarded hard by Phenom. The Phantom juked hard to the left, then drove to the right, past Phenom, whose ankles were broken, and drove right to the rim for a LeBron-esque tomahawk dunk, pulled wayyy back. He slammed it down like he had a grudge on the rim, and the surrounding crowd cheered gleefully. Sickening.
Well, the game was full of plays like that. On one fast break, King Flash came out of nowhere and did a 360 between-the-left-leg windmill. Yeah, it's a mouthful, but wait 'til I explain it to you. First, you do the 360 jump, then in mid-spin, you put the ball under your left leg. Then, when you get the ball out from under you, you pull the ball around and up and dunk it on the other side, like Vinsanity's 360 windmill. But he did that and the crowd went crazy. Even I was losing my mind. But I wasn't going to let this get me down. Yes, this game was going to be insane, and we were going to fight to stay alive.
So, we brought in all our best three-shooters. Like Mike runnin' the point, Dubz at the shooting spot, Zack Attack playin' swingman, me, The MaTriX, pushing the power forward spot with as much power as I could, and Phenom dominating the post. I shot 4-13, and I was doing horribly. I did dominate the paint, though.
I managed to slam a two-handed tomahawk right down Goliath's throat, but a few minutes later, he practically ate me when he dunked on me. I managed to pull off some nice fast break moves. The first one, I ran up the court, jumped off two feet, and slammed my new, signature two-handed 360 tomahawk dunk. Then, I pulled off a nasty move that I'd only done once before. The other day, while playing a small pick-up game against my brother, Z-Marg AKA The Headbanger, and Zack Attack's brother, G-Unit AKA Cap'N Crunch, we were obviously slaughtering them. But I just spouted "Okay, let's say it's 3-3, next point wins". Well, Headbanger had the ball and went for a lay-up, but it bricked off the rim and reflected off the deformed, inexistent backboard. Well, Zack Attack had grabbed the ball and threw it back to me, taking it out. Well, he approached a bit, then started to run toward the goal. I passed the rock to him, and advanced. He then popped an oop to me and I jumped as high as I could, grabbed the ball, and slammed my elbow into the hoop, finishing with a nasty elbow rim hook. It was crazy.
Well, I did it again, but it was more planned this time. I was guarding Sticky, and Zack Attack was preparing to go up the court. Sticky held the ball low, between his legs, and I kicked it out of his hands, and it rolled behind him. I ran behind him, picked up the ball, and threw it to ZA, who continued running. Sticky, being one who doesn't like being humiliated, chased after ZA and the ball. Well, I followed them up quickly, and when he got to the rim, Zack Attack passed the ball behind him, without looking, into the air. I approached, jumped again, felt a rush of adrenaline, saw Sticky practically under me, grabbed the ball, and slammed my elbow into the rim, and everyone went crazy as my legs fell onto Sticky, as I dunked right on him. It wasn't as great as King Flash's 360 between-the-legs reverse (dubbed "The Flashin' Symbols Dunk"), but it was nice. Everybody started cheering and stuff... Did I mention that all the friends of the the players on Armstrong were there, plus our fans? I'm sayin' tere were TONS of people. The place was packed. It looked like Venice Beach during the summer (which I've seen). There were other kids playin' ball on the other 8-footer and the 10-footer, and then there were people standing around talking and stuff, but this was the hugest freakin' crowd I've ever seen... I guess some of the tourists heard "something about a streetball game goin' down at Sprunica", and even they showed up. My parents were even there, which surprised me a bunch, too, 'cuz they haven't been at any of my others.
We played our starters most of the time, but if we got into some point trouble, we'd pull our three-shooters out and they'd just start jackin' up these crazy three-pointers. Zack Attack got a fast-break pass, and instead of driving in or anything, he caught it near the corner, stalled for less than a second, then faded out of bounds and shot a crazy shooting-the-lights out kind of shot, wayyyy up there, then it went through the hoop. Did you see Dirk Nowitzki in the Three-Point contest last year? Where he shot them HIGH and they kind of fell slowly? That's what it looked like.
The best three-pointer shot, though, was probably where Dubz had the ball, and Underground was playin' him tight. So he got near the top of the key, and jumped to let this shot go, but UG got right on top of him, practically, so Dubz spun, as in 360'd, and threw this crazy hook shot that banked off the backboard and fell through. And, because UG was right on top of him, the refs called it an AND-1 play, and gave us the four-pointer.
With a few seconds left before halftime, King Flash was being guarded by Birdie. He tried to push Birdie to the ground by backing him down, but Birdie pushed back and hit the ball from his hands. Birdie got the ball and started approaching the rim fast, and he was being followed by KF and Phenom. Birdie jumped toward the goal, slowly turning into a reverse, and went like he was about to dunk it. But upon turning and seeing Phenom coming, he slammed the ball off the very back of the rim, on purpose, and it bounced out and kind of high. With a few seconds left, Phenom advanced quickly, jumped toward the rim from just inside the free-throw line, grabbed the ball with his arm fully extended, and slammed it down hard with a vengeance that rang through every single spectator and player around. King Flash tried to throw the inbound pass, but I came up and intercepted it. I jumped high to grab it, and instantly threw it toward the rim, and, luckily, it banked off the backboard and through the net. As I fell to the ground, I pointed out to Phenom, and then I heard the deafening sound of Nick Coleman hitting the air horn to declare half time.
Half-time Scores:
The Revolution: 49
Armstrong: 52
At half time, we all rested, and we were granted an time extension so we could have a crazy dunk contest.
Contenders
The MaTriX
Phenom
King Flash
The Phantom AKA The X-Factor
Judges
Dave "Reign-Man" Nichols
Shawn "Jumpin' Jax" Jackson
Dave "Prince" James
Chris "Cyrux" Rice
Kevin "Da Crazy-1" Clark
Rules
• Two Dunks
• Two Rounds
• At least one dunk per round must involve another person
• Scored out of 5
• Highest Score Per Dunk = 25
• Lowest Score Per Dunk = 5
Round 1
Dunk 1
The MaTriX - I started off with something "basic". I had Zack Attack do a between-the-legs alley-oop and bounce the ball off the left side of the backboard. I came up, grabbed it with my left hand, did a hand-switch windmill to my right hand, and slammed it over my head. Score: 23
King Flash - He, too, started with something easy. He had UB bounce the ball in front of the goal. He ran up, grabbed it and finished a reverse windmill dunk. Score: 20
Phenom - He decided to pull out a better dunk than ours. He started with his tandem dunk, and brought Dubz out onto the court. He decided to do an Andre Iguodala kind of dunk. I've never seen this kind of thing before. Dubz stood in front of the goal and Phenom stood several feet behind the goal. Dubz threw the ball perfectly over the backboard as Phenom approached, and Phenom grabbed it in the air, pumped it to get under the backboard, then slammed it in a reverse on the other side. Score: 25
The X-Factor - I'm saying "The X-Factor" now because he was definitely on fire. I would like to start by saying I've never seen this dunk done in my life, neither in video nor in person. But he did it. X-Factor approached from the left baseline, jumped just outside the paint, and held the ball directly in front of him. In the air, he did a 360... then he spun another 180 and slammed the 540 reverse dunk. It was insane. Score: 25
Dunk 2
The MaTriX - Realizing that I was probably out of this anyway, and I desperately wanted to see an "X-Factor vs. Phenom" showdown at the end, I did a simple dunk. I approached the goal, bounced it off the ground, caught it in the air, and finished with a rim hook. Score: 24
King Flash - He pulled it off this time. Except this time, it was even crazier. I don't know how it could get crazier, but he approached from the right side, jumped, spun, put it through his left leg, then grabbed it with both hands and windmilled it with his right hand, completely reversing the whole thing. It was so insane. Score: 25
Phenom - I've never seen or heard of him doing this before. He must have been practicing it in secret, because I'm sure I would have seen it by now. He approached the goal from the right side, jumped, and did a 360. But at the end, he finished with a rim hook, as well. If you saw the 2004 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, you saw Jason Richardson try something like this. But Phenom actually did it. Score: 25
X-Factor - I think his might have been even crazier. He, too, had UB bounce the ball in front of the goal. But he ran up, jumped, spun, caught the ball above his head in mid-spin, put it between his legs, and ended with a rim hook. It was a bounce-oop 360 between-the-legs rim hook. A huge crowd of people stormed onto the court and started jumping around him. Score: 25
Round 1 Re-Cap
The MaTriX - Between-the-legs-off-the-glass-oop left-to-right windmill slam - Bounce-oop rim hook - 47
King Flash - Bounce-Oop Reveres Windmill - 360 Between-the-legs reverse windmill - 45
Phenom - Over-the-board behind-the-board reverse slam - 360 rim hook - 50
X-Factor - 540º - Bounce-oop 360 between-the-legs rim hook - 50
Round 2
Dunk 1
The X-Factor - Now, it was X-Factor's turn to imitate Iguodala. JO ran up to the goal, bounced it gently off the glass, and X-Factor came up, grabbed it with one hand, put it behind his back, brought it back around, and slammed it with both hands. Score: 25
Phenom - What a classic. He came from the right side, did a "classic" 360 between-the-legs, and slammed it back down hard with BOTH hands. Score: 25
Dunk 2
X-Factor - This would have been the craziest ever. He tried three times, THREE! to pull this dunk off. He approached the goal and put the ball between his legs twice, but got stuck on the rim each time. So, instead, he had JO sit in a chair several feet in front of the goal and hold the ball just above his head. He ran up and did a reverse spin, grabbed the ball under him (it was already there), and tried to slam it in a reverse. Once again, he got caught by the rim. The second, and final time, he approached again, jumped off both feet, caught the ball under him, then floated a bit further toward the rim and slammed it on the side. It was a beautiful dunk... but he had taken so many tries. There was a bunch of discussion between the judges, and finally, they raised the final score, and Chris "Cyrux" Rice did the right thing. The Final Score: 24
Phenom - Phenom had to think of something that would get a perfect score. If he didn't, he would be completely screwed. Phenom had me, Like Mike, Birdie, and Zack Attack crouch down in front of the goal. I sat in the middle, and held the ball. He approached quickly, jumped off both feet in front of us, and I tossed the ball up. He caught it, THEN did a 360 and slammed it over all four of us. Final Score: 25
Cyrux held up a 4 for The Phantom AKA The X-Factor. Phenom ACTUALLY beat X-Factor. It was the craziest. X-Factor didn't even seem angry. He seemed quite ecstatic at Phenom's dunking abilities. They shook hands, exchanged smiles, and conversed about dunking for the remainder of the break. People ACTUALLY started asking for Phenom's and X-Factor's autographs. It was the greatest thing ever.
So, a bit later, the game started back up. I passed the ball in to Zack Attack. He brought it up the court and immediately drained a 3 right overtop JO. Next play, JO brought the ball up, but I came in out of his blind spot, and grabbed the ball from him. I approached the rim quickly, from the left baseline, bounced it off the ground, and finished with a 360. Everybody cheered.
"What now, bitch?!" I screamed at JO. I played him hard. I was practically on top of him. But he managed to throw an alley-oop past me, which was caught by Human Torch, who finished with a reverse slam right on top of Scarecrow. The ball was passed in to Zack Attack, who got to the perimeter, faked a shot, and made a mid-air pass to Unstoppable in the paint. As soon as he caught the ball, Unstoppable posted up, spun, and dunked a powerful slam right on top of Goliath.
"DAYAMN!" People were screaming from the crowd. "He may be Unstoppable, but he's like white child of Amaré!". The trend caught on and everyone started calling him "Amaré Jr." And just like that, a new player was born.... for the most part...
A few plays later, D-Mill brought it up the court, and I guarded him hard. He drew up for a shot, but I jumped higher than him, and slammed the ball from his hand, and sent him falling to the ground. It was a clean cut, and the refs knew it, so D-Mill didn't get the foul. As soon as I touched the ground, I sprinted after the rock. I got it at about half-court and then started charging toward the rim. I saw I had a clear drive, so I bounced the ball off the glass, caught it at my prime height, and slammed both my elbows into the rim, for the double rim hook. It was nasty. After the crowd started reacting, I slid down to my hands, and lifted myself into a Spyda Hang. Then, I started to rock back and forth, before getting just beyond parallel with the rim, and I did a backflip off the rim and landed it, toppling backwards and pointing at the crowd.
Okay, so I'm a bit of a showboater and a crowd-feeder. Whoopdie-shit.
So, just under half the time was up, and I was doing a better job. We were still losing 73-77, but we had possession and could narrow that down to a 1-2 point deficit. The problem was getting the ball to someone that could score. Especially seeing as how everyone was being guarded hard, and Zack Attack was the only one that wasn't being guarded as tightly.
"C'mon, Attack!" I screamed from behind King Flash, "Light it up!!" And then, it were as if you had opened each one of us up and replaced our skills with those of PROFESSIONAL ballers. From almost half-court, he threw the ball between D-Mill's legs with a bit of a backspin, and when D-Mill closed his legs in surprise, the ball spun around the outside, and came bouncing back to Zack Attack. Then, ZA, again, from almost half-court, pulled up for the shot. I flipped. There's no way he's going to make this one! So I started driving toward the rim. The ball flew over all of our heads, and it was as if everything was in slow motion. It was almost completely silent as people watched this damn-near-Hail-Mary shot go up. Then, as if the game had been unpaused, the ball returned to normal speed and sank lightly through the rim. The crowd went crazy.
We were back in this ball game. We trailed by one for a lot of the game, and we were hitting threes, twos... twos, twos, threes. It was insane. I pulled off a 360 in traffic, and slammed it right on top of The Phantom, and Amaré Jr. mashed it down on top of D-Mill a couple times. Phenom laid down a Vince Carter-esque 360 windmill on a fast break, and then later pulled off one of the sickest in-game dunks: a double windmill... He approached on the right side on a fast break, checked the drive security, and the opposition was being screened back at the other side. So he clutched the ball against his chest, then soared into the air, windmilling the ball twice in the air before slamming it behind him.
Then, as if it were the dunk contest again, a few plays later, X-Factor got an open lane and drove into it on the right side, and did a 360º to avoid a defender. But then, he saw that another defender was attempting to hit him immediately afterward, so he spun another 180º and finished the 540º dunk with emphasis, causing the crowd to lose control.
So, we had just a few seconds left in the game. We were definitely losing by two, and I was kicking ass. My stats were 33 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists, 9 blocks, and 4 steals. Well, Phantom decided to put up a mid-lane two-point shot, which I blocked hard, earning my quadruple-double. I grabbed the ball and ran up the court, the time counting down from 7.
Each step I took, I felt the stress building upon me.
Each step I took, I felt the hopes of my crew, my ballin' family, fall onto my shoulders.
Each step I took, I felt the meaning of "clutch shooter" sink deep into my skin.
I didn't want to go to overtime. Overtimes suck, and I just wanted to end this. Being followed heavily by X-Factor, who was known for his fast-break, comin'-outta-nowhere blocks, I decided to fake him out. I dribbled with my right, came up the right side of the court. Then, when he came from the left baseline and approached to steal the ball right from my hands, I put it behind my back, causing him to stumble to his face. Then, with hardly more than a second left, I elevated, released the ball, and let it fly through the air.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
Suddenly, an airhorn, followed by an explosion of thunder, followed by an explosion of screams, disappointed and happy. I fell backwards and landed on my back. Rain started to fall softly onto my face and sweaty body. I heard people screaming everywhere, then, out of nowhere, I felt my players lift me onto their shoulders, and I pointed up to the sky, where the sun was hardly shining through.
We won, 93-92.
There wasn't even a single bit of hatred between our crews. We were cool with each other, and definitely surprised that we made it this far. It was insane.
In the end, we won, Phenom beat The Phantom AKA The X-Factor, and Unstoppable became "Amaré Jr.". It was definitely a good day and a great game.
By the way, propz to my homie and one real follower of this blog, Eric AKA The Truth, straight outta the Bronx, NYC, New York. Peace out, guys, and we'll see you our next game... Peace out.
Just for a note, Team Armstrong is made up of the stars from the Varsity team for the high school. These guys are crazy good. Well, after we got to the courts, we ran a little bit, and then we got ready. It was time.
The Revolution:
Starting 5:
Ce: Austin "Scarecrow" Martin
PF: Levi "Unstoppable" Law
SF: Tyler "The MaTriX" Margison
SG: Ethan "Phenom" Scott
PG: Zack "Attack" Stant
Bench:
Zach "Birdie" Walker
Miles "Kid Kobe" Lane
Jacob "Like Mike" Percifield
Kenny "Most Known Thug" Baker
Wraythe "Dubz" Parker
Team Armstrong:
Starting 5:
Ce: Wes "Goliath" Fox
PF: Derrick "UB" Eubanks
SF: Kane "King Flash" Crabtree
SG: David "The Phantom AKA The X-Factor" Tatham
PG: Sean "Sticky" Sichting
Bench:
Josh "JO" Owens
Ethan "Underground" Baird
Heath "Human Torch" Bryant
David "D-Mill" Miller
OFFICIALS:
NOTE: We brought ours again, because they're reliable...
Referees:
Kevin Clark (A pledge as ref for the rest of the season)
Chris Rice (A basketball genius, but not really a player, simply a referee)
Scorekeepers:
Danny McMasters
Andrew McMasters
Timekeepers:
Shotclock: Mitch Coleman
Game Time: Nick Coleman
Close-Up on Team Armstrong:
Wes "Goliath" Fox:
Incredibly tall, about 6'7", and quite universal in this league. He inherited his name, Goliath, because of his incredible size, but he fell easily one time when Birdie dunked on him. Pretty much a "Shaq", power dunker and blocker.
Derrick "U-B" Eubanks:
He's a natural swingman, can play from point guard to power forward, but his main spot is power forward in this league. He's about 6'3". His name is simply his name "YOO-banks" becomes "YOOB-ee". An efficient dunker, but mainly a shooter and defensive player.
Kane "King Flash" Crabtree:
Tall for his age (he's a sophomore this coming year), at about 6'2". Tall and lanky, he moves fast, has efficient three-point plays, and bank-shooting abilities like Dwyane "Flash" Wade, but has beautiful dunks, game-saving plays, power, and distanced shooting abilities like LeBron "King" James, as well as the handling skills of both. He earned his name one game when he did a reverse windmill, like King James, and some people started calling him "King Kane", while others thought it clashed too much. Well, two plays later, he pulled off a leaning, fall-over-the-defender lay-up for the three-point play, and people started calling him "The New D-Wade". But someone came up with "King Flash" to make the best of the two, and his name stayed. He's an all-star, and one of the best players on the team.
David "The Phantom AKA The X-Factor" Tatham:
Easily the best player on the team. He's 5'11", and so athletic. He, too, has been compared to D-Wade, as well some other stars (Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, LeBron James). His greatest "hidden" skill is his speed, and his ability to shift in and out of crowds with ease. His quick movements and seemingly-harmless-then-explosive skills have led to his first nickname "The Phantom". His second name came from the same game he received "The Phantom" from. The announcer was watching Tatham and after he started to catch fire, he moved faster, dunked nicer, shot harder, and played better. He was completely focused, in the zone, on fire, whatever you want to call it. The announcer called his focused-in-the-zone transformation "The X-Factor", because it was just out of nowhere and mysterious. So his regular on-ball name is "The Phantom", until he starts to catch fire, then he's "The X-Factor".
Sean "Sticky" Sichting:
Not as great as any of the other starters, but still decent. About 5'7"-5'8", he's a little chubby, but his handling skills are above average. He earned his name from his handle because no matter what he does, the ball stays "stuck" to his hand unless he lets it go on purpose. He's mainly a handler and shooter, but does little-jump one- and two-handers and such.
Josh "J-O" Owens:
An okay point guard at about 6'0". He's usually seen passing alley-oops to Tatham. His nickname is his initials, but it's based off of Jermaine O'Neal's nickname, "J-O". He's a handler, disher, and shooter.
Ethan "Underground" Baird:
He's pretty tall and lanky, too, about 6'1", maybe 6'2". He doesn't talk much on the court, he just plays ball. He got his name when he was playing ball, of course. He was coming up the court, and his teammate had the ball. Well, there were about four or five players beneath the rim, in the paint, and JO had the ball, and he just popped it up toward the rim, and Baird just appeared out of nowhere and slammed it down with impeccable timing. Everyone was like "Where'd he come from??" and JO screamed "Man, he was underground, you missed him!". From then, he was Underground or UG. He's a skillful power dunker (strong windmills, etc.), shooter, has a nice handle, and drops some nice dimes.
Heath "Human Torch" Bryant:
He's only about 5'8", but he's a great baller, and really athletic. His dashing appalachian (nickname) came from several different factors. First off, when he gets hot, he gets hot. He'll rip you open if you piss him off, but it takes a lot to get him pissed. Second off, when he hits fire, he hits fire. He'll dunk wayyy over you, shoot wayyy over you, or just set up a nice dime right past you. And finally, he tends to wear a black beanie with flames on it, so it looks (not really) like he has fire for hair. He's a high-flying dunker, high-flying shooter, and a trippin' handler.
David "D-Mill" Miller:
He's about 5'7" or so, not really tall, and can't dunk. His name is obviously his name. He hits beautiful shots from almost half-court, passes like crazy, and does some Pharmacist-like lay-ups. Shooter, handler, passer.
Match-Up of the Game:
Ethan "Phenom" Scott vs. David "The Phantom AKA The X-Factor" Tatham:
Both players are averaging some big numbers, and are the greatest short high-flyers in the league, and know each other personally. The difference between this rivalry and the one between Phenom and Jeremy "J-Beck" Beckham is that J-Beck and Phenom are about equal, whereas Tatham is a lot better of a player than Phenom. Even though Phenom is getting better, we'll have to see what happens in the game.
So now that that's over, let's get started with this crazy game.
Tip-off between Phenom and Goliath. Okay, so who do YOU think won? Goliath tipped it off to Sticky, who approached the goal carefully. I looked out and recognized them running a play that I saw during a Junior Varsity open gym once. The point guard (Sticky) passes it around and they swing to the corner and then pass into the paint for the easy dunk. Well, I was down in the paint at the time, and I saw them running this, and I ran out to the corner, and jumped in front of UB while the ball was coming at him and stole the ball. I sprinted up the court and was being chased by The Phantom and King Flash, while Phenom, Unstoppable, and Zack Attack all sprinted for a potential alley-oop. I pulled the ball behind my back, then brought it back to my front, to confuse King Flash, and then passed it to Zack Attack. ZA stood at the line, undisturbed, and launched a perfect three-point shot, which sank right through the rim. Three-nothing, with just a few seconds done in the first.
In a few plays, we were already trailing by three points, and Armstrong had the ball. The Phantom brought it up and was being guarded hard by Phenom. The Phantom juked hard to the left, then drove to the right, past Phenom, whose ankles were broken, and drove right to the rim for a LeBron-esque tomahawk dunk, pulled wayyy back. He slammed it down like he had a grudge on the rim, and the surrounding crowd cheered gleefully. Sickening.
Well, the game was full of plays like that. On one fast break, King Flash came out of nowhere and did a 360 between-the-left-leg windmill. Yeah, it's a mouthful, but wait 'til I explain it to you. First, you do the 360 jump, then in mid-spin, you put the ball under your left leg. Then, when you get the ball out from under you, you pull the ball around and up and dunk it on the other side, like Vinsanity's 360 windmill. But he did that and the crowd went crazy. Even I was losing my mind. But I wasn't going to let this get me down. Yes, this game was going to be insane, and we were going to fight to stay alive.
So, we brought in all our best three-shooters. Like Mike runnin' the point, Dubz at the shooting spot, Zack Attack playin' swingman, me, The MaTriX, pushing the power forward spot with as much power as I could, and Phenom dominating the post. I shot 4-13, and I was doing horribly. I did dominate the paint, though.
I managed to slam a two-handed tomahawk right down Goliath's throat, but a few minutes later, he practically ate me when he dunked on me. I managed to pull off some nice fast break moves. The first one, I ran up the court, jumped off two feet, and slammed my new, signature two-handed 360 tomahawk dunk. Then, I pulled off a nasty move that I'd only done once before. The other day, while playing a small pick-up game against my brother, Z-Marg AKA The Headbanger, and Zack Attack's brother, G-Unit AKA Cap'N Crunch, we were obviously slaughtering them. But I just spouted "Okay, let's say it's 3-3, next point wins". Well, Headbanger had the ball and went for a lay-up, but it bricked off the rim and reflected off the deformed, inexistent backboard. Well, Zack Attack had grabbed the ball and threw it back to me, taking it out. Well, he approached a bit, then started to run toward the goal. I passed the rock to him, and advanced. He then popped an oop to me and I jumped as high as I could, grabbed the ball, and slammed my elbow into the hoop, finishing with a nasty elbow rim hook. It was crazy.
Well, I did it again, but it was more planned this time. I was guarding Sticky, and Zack Attack was preparing to go up the court. Sticky held the ball low, between his legs, and I kicked it out of his hands, and it rolled behind him. I ran behind him, picked up the ball, and threw it to ZA, who continued running. Sticky, being one who doesn't like being humiliated, chased after ZA and the ball. Well, I followed them up quickly, and when he got to the rim, Zack Attack passed the ball behind him, without looking, into the air. I approached, jumped again, felt a rush of adrenaline, saw Sticky practically under me, grabbed the ball, and slammed my elbow into the rim, and everyone went crazy as my legs fell onto Sticky, as I dunked right on him. It wasn't as great as King Flash's 360 between-the-legs reverse (dubbed "The Flashin' Symbols Dunk"), but it was nice. Everybody started cheering and stuff... Did I mention that all the friends of the the players on Armstrong were there, plus our fans? I'm sayin' tere were TONS of people. The place was packed. It looked like Venice Beach during the summer (which I've seen). There were other kids playin' ball on the other 8-footer and the 10-footer, and then there were people standing around talking and stuff, but this was the hugest freakin' crowd I've ever seen... I guess some of the tourists heard "something about a streetball game goin' down at Sprunica", and even they showed up. My parents were even there, which surprised me a bunch, too, 'cuz they haven't been at any of my others.
We played our starters most of the time, but if we got into some point trouble, we'd pull our three-shooters out and they'd just start jackin' up these crazy three-pointers. Zack Attack got a fast-break pass, and instead of driving in or anything, he caught it near the corner, stalled for less than a second, then faded out of bounds and shot a crazy shooting-the-lights out kind of shot, wayyyy up there, then it went through the hoop. Did you see Dirk Nowitzki in the Three-Point contest last year? Where he shot them HIGH and they kind of fell slowly? That's what it looked like.
The best three-pointer shot, though, was probably where Dubz had the ball, and Underground was playin' him tight. So he got near the top of the key, and jumped to let this shot go, but UG got right on top of him, practically, so Dubz spun, as in 360'd, and threw this crazy hook shot that banked off the backboard and fell through. And, because UG was right on top of him, the refs called it an AND-1 play, and gave us the four-pointer.
With a few seconds left before halftime, King Flash was being guarded by Birdie. He tried to push Birdie to the ground by backing him down, but Birdie pushed back and hit the ball from his hands. Birdie got the ball and started approaching the rim fast, and he was being followed by KF and Phenom. Birdie jumped toward the goal, slowly turning into a reverse, and went like he was about to dunk it. But upon turning and seeing Phenom coming, he slammed the ball off the very back of the rim, on purpose, and it bounced out and kind of high. With a few seconds left, Phenom advanced quickly, jumped toward the rim from just inside the free-throw line, grabbed the ball with his arm fully extended, and slammed it down hard with a vengeance that rang through every single spectator and player around. King Flash tried to throw the inbound pass, but I came up and intercepted it. I jumped high to grab it, and instantly threw it toward the rim, and, luckily, it banked off the backboard and through the net. As I fell to the ground, I pointed out to Phenom, and then I heard the deafening sound of Nick Coleman hitting the air horn to declare half time.
Half-time Scores:
The Revolution: 49
Armstrong: 52
At half time, we all rested, and we were granted an time extension so we could have a crazy dunk contest.
Contenders
The MaTriX
Phenom
King Flash
The Phantom AKA The X-Factor
Judges
Dave "Reign-Man" Nichols
Shawn "Jumpin' Jax" Jackson
Dave "Prince" James
Chris "Cyrux" Rice
Kevin "Da Crazy-1" Clark
Rules
• Two Dunks
• Two Rounds
• At least one dunk per round must involve another person
• Scored out of 5
• Highest Score Per Dunk = 25
• Lowest Score Per Dunk = 5
Round 1
Dunk 1
The MaTriX - I started off with something "basic". I had Zack Attack do a between-the-legs alley-oop and bounce the ball off the left side of the backboard. I came up, grabbed it with my left hand, did a hand-switch windmill to my right hand, and slammed it over my head. Score: 23
King Flash - He, too, started with something easy. He had UB bounce the ball in front of the goal. He ran up, grabbed it and finished a reverse windmill dunk. Score: 20
Phenom - He decided to pull out a better dunk than ours. He started with his tandem dunk, and brought Dubz out onto the court. He decided to do an Andre Iguodala kind of dunk. I've never seen this kind of thing before. Dubz stood in front of the goal and Phenom stood several feet behind the goal. Dubz threw the ball perfectly over the backboard as Phenom approached, and Phenom grabbed it in the air, pumped it to get under the backboard, then slammed it in a reverse on the other side. Score: 25
The X-Factor - I'm saying "The X-Factor" now because he was definitely on fire. I would like to start by saying I've never seen this dunk done in my life, neither in video nor in person. But he did it. X-Factor approached from the left baseline, jumped just outside the paint, and held the ball directly in front of him. In the air, he did a 360... then he spun another 180 and slammed the 540 reverse dunk. It was insane. Score: 25
Dunk 2
The MaTriX - Realizing that I was probably out of this anyway, and I desperately wanted to see an "X-Factor vs. Phenom" showdown at the end, I did a simple dunk. I approached the goal, bounced it off the ground, caught it in the air, and finished with a rim hook. Score: 24
King Flash - He pulled it off this time. Except this time, it was even crazier. I don't know how it could get crazier, but he approached from the right side, jumped, spun, put it through his left leg, then grabbed it with both hands and windmilled it with his right hand, completely reversing the whole thing. It was so insane. Score: 25
Phenom - I've never seen or heard of him doing this before. He must have been practicing it in secret, because I'm sure I would have seen it by now. He approached the goal from the right side, jumped, and did a 360. But at the end, he finished with a rim hook, as well. If you saw the 2004 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, you saw Jason Richardson try something like this. But Phenom actually did it. Score: 25
X-Factor - I think his might have been even crazier. He, too, had UB bounce the ball in front of the goal. But he ran up, jumped, spun, caught the ball above his head in mid-spin, put it between his legs, and ended with a rim hook. It was a bounce-oop 360 between-the-legs rim hook. A huge crowd of people stormed onto the court and started jumping around him. Score: 25
Round 1 Re-Cap
The MaTriX - Between-the-legs-off-the-glass-oop left-to-right windmill slam - Bounce-oop rim hook - 47
King Flash - Bounce-Oop Reveres Windmill - 360 Between-the-legs reverse windmill - 45
Phenom - Over-the-board behind-the-board reverse slam - 360 rim hook - 50
X-Factor - 540º - Bounce-oop 360 between-the-legs rim hook - 50
Round 2
Dunk 1
The X-Factor - Now, it was X-Factor's turn to imitate Iguodala. JO ran up to the goal, bounced it gently off the glass, and X-Factor came up, grabbed it with one hand, put it behind his back, brought it back around, and slammed it with both hands. Score: 25
Phenom - What a classic. He came from the right side, did a "classic" 360 between-the-legs, and slammed it back down hard with BOTH hands. Score: 25
Dunk 2
X-Factor - This would have been the craziest ever. He tried three times, THREE! to pull this dunk off. He approached the goal and put the ball between his legs twice, but got stuck on the rim each time. So, instead, he had JO sit in a chair several feet in front of the goal and hold the ball just above his head. He ran up and did a reverse spin, grabbed the ball under him (it was already there), and tried to slam it in a reverse. Once again, he got caught by the rim. The second, and final time, he approached again, jumped off both feet, caught the ball under him, then floated a bit further toward the rim and slammed it on the side. It was a beautiful dunk... but he had taken so many tries. There was a bunch of discussion between the judges, and finally, they raised the final score, and Chris "Cyrux" Rice did the right thing. The Final Score: 24
Phenom - Phenom had to think of something that would get a perfect score. If he didn't, he would be completely screwed. Phenom had me, Like Mike, Birdie, and Zack Attack crouch down in front of the goal. I sat in the middle, and held the ball. He approached quickly, jumped off both feet in front of us, and I tossed the ball up. He caught it, THEN did a 360 and slammed it over all four of us. Final Score: 25
Cyrux held up a 4 for The Phantom AKA The X-Factor. Phenom ACTUALLY beat X-Factor. It was the craziest. X-Factor didn't even seem angry. He seemed quite ecstatic at Phenom's dunking abilities. They shook hands, exchanged smiles, and conversed about dunking for the remainder of the break. People ACTUALLY started asking for Phenom's and X-Factor's autographs. It was the greatest thing ever.
So, a bit later, the game started back up. I passed the ball in to Zack Attack. He brought it up the court and immediately drained a 3 right overtop JO. Next play, JO brought the ball up, but I came in out of his blind spot, and grabbed the ball from him. I approached the rim quickly, from the left baseline, bounced it off the ground, and finished with a 360. Everybody cheered.
"What now, bitch?!" I screamed at JO. I played him hard. I was practically on top of him. But he managed to throw an alley-oop past me, which was caught by Human Torch, who finished with a reverse slam right on top of Scarecrow. The ball was passed in to Zack Attack, who got to the perimeter, faked a shot, and made a mid-air pass to Unstoppable in the paint. As soon as he caught the ball, Unstoppable posted up, spun, and dunked a powerful slam right on top of Goliath.
"DAYAMN!" People were screaming from the crowd. "He may be Unstoppable, but he's like white child of Amaré!". The trend caught on and everyone started calling him "Amaré Jr." And just like that, a new player was born.... for the most part...
A few plays later, D-Mill brought it up the court, and I guarded him hard. He drew up for a shot, but I jumped higher than him, and slammed the ball from his hand, and sent him falling to the ground. It was a clean cut, and the refs knew it, so D-Mill didn't get the foul. As soon as I touched the ground, I sprinted after the rock. I got it at about half-court and then started charging toward the rim. I saw I had a clear drive, so I bounced the ball off the glass, caught it at my prime height, and slammed both my elbows into the rim, for the double rim hook. It was nasty. After the crowd started reacting, I slid down to my hands, and lifted myself into a Spyda Hang. Then, I started to rock back and forth, before getting just beyond parallel with the rim, and I did a backflip off the rim and landed it, toppling backwards and pointing at the crowd.
Okay, so I'm a bit of a showboater and a crowd-feeder. Whoopdie-shit.
So, just under half the time was up, and I was doing a better job. We were still losing 73-77, but we had possession and could narrow that down to a 1-2 point deficit. The problem was getting the ball to someone that could score. Especially seeing as how everyone was being guarded hard, and Zack Attack was the only one that wasn't being guarded as tightly.
"C'mon, Attack!" I screamed from behind King Flash, "Light it up!!" And then, it were as if you had opened each one of us up and replaced our skills with those of PROFESSIONAL ballers. From almost half-court, he threw the ball between D-Mill's legs with a bit of a backspin, and when D-Mill closed his legs in surprise, the ball spun around the outside, and came bouncing back to Zack Attack. Then, ZA, again, from almost half-court, pulled up for the shot. I flipped. There's no way he's going to make this one! So I started driving toward the rim. The ball flew over all of our heads, and it was as if everything was in slow motion. It was almost completely silent as people watched this damn-near-Hail-Mary shot go up. Then, as if the game had been unpaused, the ball returned to normal speed and sank lightly through the rim. The crowd went crazy.
We were back in this ball game. We trailed by one for a lot of the game, and we were hitting threes, twos... twos, twos, threes. It was insane. I pulled off a 360 in traffic, and slammed it right on top of The Phantom, and Amaré Jr. mashed it down on top of D-Mill a couple times. Phenom laid down a Vince Carter-esque 360 windmill on a fast break, and then later pulled off one of the sickest in-game dunks: a double windmill... He approached on the right side on a fast break, checked the drive security, and the opposition was being screened back at the other side. So he clutched the ball against his chest, then soared into the air, windmilling the ball twice in the air before slamming it behind him.
Then, as if it were the dunk contest again, a few plays later, X-Factor got an open lane and drove into it on the right side, and did a 360º to avoid a defender. But then, he saw that another defender was attempting to hit him immediately afterward, so he spun another 180º and finished the 540º dunk with emphasis, causing the crowd to lose control.
So, we had just a few seconds left in the game. We were definitely losing by two, and I was kicking ass. My stats were 33 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists, 9 blocks, and 4 steals. Well, Phantom decided to put up a mid-lane two-point shot, which I blocked hard, earning my quadruple-double. I grabbed the ball and ran up the court, the time counting down from 7.
Each step I took, I felt the stress building upon me.
Each step I took, I felt the hopes of my crew, my ballin' family, fall onto my shoulders.
Each step I took, I felt the meaning of "clutch shooter" sink deep into my skin.
I didn't want to go to overtime. Overtimes suck, and I just wanted to end this. Being followed heavily by X-Factor, who was known for his fast-break, comin'-outta-nowhere blocks, I decided to fake him out. I dribbled with my right, came up the right side of the court. Then, when he came from the left baseline and approached to steal the ball right from my hands, I put it behind my back, causing him to stumble to his face. Then, with hardly more than a second left, I elevated, released the ball, and let it fly through the air.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
Suddenly, an airhorn, followed by an explosion of thunder, followed by an explosion of screams, disappointed and happy. I fell backwards and landed on my back. Rain started to fall softly onto my face and sweaty body. I heard people screaming everywhere, then, out of nowhere, I felt my players lift me onto their shoulders, and I pointed up to the sky, where the sun was hardly shining through.
We won, 93-92.
There wasn't even a single bit of hatred between our crews. We were cool with each other, and definitely surprised that we made it this far. It was insane.
In the end, we won, Phenom beat The Phantom AKA The X-Factor, and Unstoppable became "Amaré Jr.". It was definitely a good day and a great game.
By the way, propz to my homie and one real follower of this blog, Eric AKA The Truth, straight outta the Bronx, NYC, New York. Peace out, guys, and we'll see you our next game... Peace out.
posted by .maTrix at
12:48 AM
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