Basketball miracles

Chapter 194 [Zhan Xiangyang, the Poor Noble Young Master]

It's worth mentioning that Sakuragi Hanamichi has already earned the title of "Rebounding King" in Kanagawa Prefecture. He grabbed a staggering 28 rebounds against Kadono High School, breaking the prefectural tournament's single-game rebounding record.

Kadono's players were terrible at shooting and had poor physical attributes. Sakuragi didn't even have to steal the ball; he easily picked it up under the basket.

Sakuragi also grabbed 22 rebounds against Tsukubu.

On offense, besides attacking the basket and shooting inside the paint, Sakuragi also made two mid-range shots. He had unknowingly become the county's high school basketball star, contributing double-doubles in every game.

In addition, Sakuragi has never been ejected from the game after committing five fouls.

When Xiao Tu was teaching Sakuragi how to defend, he told him not to jump every time, and even more importantly, not to reach out recklessly. As long as he didn't always think about blocking shots and steals, he could control his fouls.

The secret to good defense is to avoid being beaten and to disrupt shots without losing your position. Any player who can do this is a better defender than someone who just reaches out recklessly.

Gambling for steals is the worst approach; the chances of a player successfully stealing the ball are very low, and they are easily outmaneuvered. In a zone defense system, Sakuragi's assigned area is relatively small, greatly reducing the defensive pressure, allowing him to focus on rebounding.

Sakuragi's current weakness is his inability to attack with the ball. The Shohoku team doesn't need him to do that; he can practice that gradually.

After four matches, Shohoku became the most popular team in the prefectural tournament. Everyone knew that Shohoku had an invincible exchange student who played with flashy moves and dribbled past opponents with ease, consistently racking up 30+ assists per game.

Shohoku is still the team with the most dunks, with four players capable of dunking, delivering spectacular performances in every game. This is something other teams simply can't match, including Hainan University Affiliated High School.

Xiao Tu's wins all yielded Iron Chests, along with a few low-level training auras, which were better than nothing.

Before facing Shohoku, the Shohoku players had five days of rest, so they wouldn't be at a disadvantage in terms of physical fitness.

Xiao Tu remembered that in the anime, Shohoku High School and Takezono High School had a practice match, and their opponent was Oda Ryusei, Sakuragi Hanamichi's classmate from junior high school.

This guy is pretty ugly, and his basketball skills are weak too. The fiftieth girl to reject Sakuragi, Yoko, likes Oda-kun; her taste is really questionable.

Coach Anzai hasn't scheduled this practice match, so Sakuragi Hanamichi's chance to show off and humiliate him is gone. He can easily beat Oda on the basketball court with a casual practice session, which is quite ironic.

Oda-kun is only 185cm tall, plays as the starting center, slapped his girlfriend Yoko, and has the goal of "dominating the nation".

In the first match of the quarterfinals, Takeen challenged Hainan and suffered a crushing 78-150 defeat to Hainan's second team, led by Jin Soichiro and Muto Masashi.

Hainan's starting center, Kazuma Takasago, didn't play, clearly not interested in Oda-kun.

Before the match against Shohoku, people overwhelmingly favored Shohoku.

When Xiao Tu arrived at the city stadium, female fans approached him asking for autographs and photos. High school students don't earn money playing basketball, but many people still treat Xiao Tu like a celebrity.

In the locker room, after Xiao Tu finished explaining the tactics, Coach Anzai gave a final summary: "It's about time to go on the field."

"Okay," the players responded in unison.

During the warm-up, Xiao Tu observed his opponent with great interest.

Kenji Fujima, nicknamed "Poor Nobleman," is not a name Xiao Tu made up.

In a parallel world, female manga artist Ai Morinaga first drew a short fan fiction about Kenji Fujima, which became very popular. Then she drew a long-running manga based on this story, titled "Poor Prince".

Therefore, Fujima is essentially the prototype of Yamada Taro.

If his family is really that poor, and he has a bunch of younger brothers and sisters, that would be hilarious.

Shohoku's usual starting lineup is: Xiao Tu, Mitsui Hisashi, Rukawa Kaede, Sakuragi Hanamichi, and Akagi Takenori.

Shohoku consists of four tall players over 190cm, plus point guard Kenji Fujima, who is 178cm tall and weighs 66kg.

Knowing that Shohoku was very strong, Fujima didn't dare to sit on the sidelines and act tough; he went straight in.

Just by looking at the players' physiques, Xiao Tu could understand why Shohoku needed a zone defense. Center Hanagata Toru was 197cm tall and weighed only 83kg, practically a paper doll, looking like Luo Yunxi wearing black-rimmed glasses.

If Shohoku hadn't used their zone defense, Akagi Takenori could have easily scored a lot of points in the low post. Hanagata Toru's one-on-one defense is definitely inferior to Uozumi Jun's, so it's understandable that he was completely outmatched by Sakuragi Hanamichi in rebounding.

Akagi won the jump ball against Hanagata Toru and passed the ball to Xiao Tu.

He won effortlessly, so he wasn't nervous at all today. As Xiao Tu received the ball, he secretly sighed that Hanagata Toru was truly unsuitable for basketball; he only had skill and basketball IQ but no athleticism—his physical attributes were tragically poor. Despite being the same height as Akagi but much lighter, he couldn't jump as high as Akagi.

Xiao Tu dribbled once and made a one-handed bounce pass that passed through two players to the left. Rukawa Kaede cut inside without the ball, using his speed to get past the 191cm tall and 84kg Nagano Mitsuru, caught the ball, took three steps, and dunked with one hand! 2-0.

The most important element of Shohoku's tactical system is off-ball movement; players can easily score by running out of position.

When Xiangyang attacked, Xiao Tu defended Fujima one-on-one on the outside while the others moved into a zone defense.

The BOX-1 tactic is a tactical term in basketball that uses a "one-on-four zone" defensive formation, where one player closely guards the opponent's key scorer throughout the game, while the other four players form a zone defense covering the paint and mid-range areas.

In the manga, Shohoku defended like this, and as a result, Mitsui Hisashi completely overwhelmed Hasegawa Kazushi. If Shohoku does this, it will be even harder for Shohoku to break through their zone defense.

Fujima is a great player who combines driving, passing, and shooting. Today, Xiao Tu was guarding him closely, and he had a hard time protecting the ball and couldn't break through.

After Fujima passed the ball, only Hanagata Toru among Shohoku's four tall players had shooting range. Hanagata Toru's fadeaway jump shot from outside the paint was interfered with by two players and missed. Sakuragi Hanamichi grabbed the rebound and passed it to Mitsui Hisashi, who then passed it to Xiao Tu, who was open on a fast break.

Fujima was in Shohoku's restricted area at that moment, completely missing Xiao Tu. Instead of guarding his own man, he gambled on a steal under the basket after Sakuragi grabbed the rebound.

Xiao Tu felt this was a toxic act.

If Fujima does this, do you think he can succeed in stealing something even once out of ten attempts?

If he fails to get the ball, the person he's responsible for defending will be open.

Xiao Tu easily outpaced the big man who was returning to defense with his speed and slammed the ball down with one hand! 4-0.

The audience roared "Sho!" and gave them a warm round of applause. Shohoku seemed no different from the other weak teams they'd faced before, and their dunking extravaganza began again.

Xiao Tu then made consecutive breakthroughs, drawing defenders and passing the ball to Mitsui Shigenori, who hit a three-pointer.

Judging solely from his catch-and-shoot ability, Mitsui Hisashi is at an NBA level. He's unlikely to become a professional player, but it's possible he could be a college scholarship student.

The weakness of Shohoku's four tall players' defensive system is obvious: they can't expand their defensive area and can only stay near the paint. Once the opponent creates an opening on the perimeter, Shohoku's big men have no way to rotate and defend.

Therefore, Xiao Tu felt that Xiangyang had no chance of defeating Hainan, since Hainan had two reliable three-point shooters.

After being down 15-0 at the start of the game, Fujima, as the team's core player, was the first to show signs of panic on the field.

Shohoku had a lot of dunks every game, and Fujima firmly believed that they had to tighten their defense, but they couldn't stop them at all.

Fujima knew very well that the opponent's key player, Xiao Tu, hadn't even exerted his full strength yet. In fact, Xiao Tu's one-on-one opportunities on the perimeter were a chance, and Fujima couldn't stop his breakthroughs.

As Xiao Tu defended, he gave Fujima a slight smile, having already assessed the man's level. Fujima's technique was decent, but his physical attributes were average, and his mental fortitude was lacking.

This guy is clearly overrated; his actual strength is inferior to that of second-year student Sendoh Akira and first-year student Rukawa Kaede.

In the manga, Fujima claims to be competing with Maki Shinichi for the best player in the prefecture, but he loses repeatedly and is not even in the same league.

In the storyline, Fujima's strength is somewhat lacking, as can be seen from the match against Shohoku.

Fujima didn't play in the first half, and Hanagata Toru used his inside playmaking style to suppress Akagi, leaving Shohoku trailing by 9 points. In the second half, Fujima came back in, but he couldn't gain much of an advantage against Miyagi Ryota, scoring few points himself and failing to inspire his teammates in organizing the offense.

Fujima showed signs of panic at crucial moments, even having his three-point attempt blocked head-on by the 168cm tall Miyagi Ryota. In the final two minutes, with Sakuragi fouling out and Mitsui leaving the court exhausted, Fujima's team failed to score a single point.

Xiao Tu felt that if Maki Shinichi led Shohoku in the last two minutes, he would definitely be able to score easily against Miyagi Ryota, attracting double teams and assisting his teammates.

After Sakuragi left the court, Shohoku's advantage in the paint became too great. How the 180cm tall Kakuta managed to shut down the 193cm tall Takano in the manga remains a mystery.

Looking at Xiangyang's tactical arrangements, Xiao Tu felt that Fujima wasn't a good coach either. He actually chose to defend Xiao Tu himself and didn't arrange for his teammates to double-team him at the start of the game.

With your small frame, trying to defend me one-on-one would just be asking for trouble.

Is it confidence, or foolishness?
You've been tortured by Maki Shinichi four times already, don't you understand that your physical condition is inadequate?

(End of this chapter)