Hasnaen, who had been skeptical of James's whole chill vibe earlier, was starting to get it. "So you're saying… their predictability is actually their weakness?" He asked, a glimmer of understanding finally sparking in his eyes.
"Exactly!" James affirmed, snapping his fingers with a satisfying pop for emphasis. "They're pying textbook basketball, textbook Motijheel basketball. It's effective, yeah, but it's also… readable. Like, we've seen this movie before. We just need to change the script. Or even better, rewrite the whole darn book." He was getting into this metaphor thing, and honestly, he was kind of enjoying it.
Adnan, who had been unusually quiet and probably just processing the sheer level of basketball disaster unfolding, suddenly spoke up. "And you're the author of this new chapter, right, James?" He said it with a hint of wry amusement, but also, James could detect, a tiny flicker of hope. Hope, the rarest and most precious commodity on the Banani High bench right now.
James grinned, a confident, almost mischievous grin that said, "Oh, you have no idea what's coming." "Let's just say I have a few… plot twists in mind." He gnced towards Kiyoshi on the court, saw the strain etched on his captain’s face, the sheer desperation in his eyes. Yeah, it was time. Time for the plot to thicken.
Time for the game to take a hard left turn. Time for James to enter the chat, and maybe, just maybe, save the day.
He stood up from the bench, stretching casually, like he was just about to grab a snack from the vending machine, not about to walk onto a basketball court and try to reverse a double-digit deficit.
But inside, his competitive fire was raging, stoked by the challenge, the sheer audacity of Motijheel's dominance, and maybe just a little bit by the dramatic potential of the situation. He was ready. Beyond ready.
He was practically vibrating with eagerness to rewrite the narrative of this game, to turn Motijheel's smug start into a cautionary tale they'd be telling for years to come. He turned to Tahera, who was pacing back and forth near the timeout marker, looking like she was about to spontaneously combust from stress.
"Manager Tahera," James said, his voice calm and clear, cutting through the nervous energy on the bench like a perfectly timed joke in a tense situation. "I think it's time for a new character to enter the story." He winked, a spark of pyful confidence in his eye, because even in the face of basketball annihition, a little bit of showmanship never hurt anyone. "And I believe I know just the guy."
Tahera smiled and said, "Please wait three more minutes. It’s we already discuss before, I guess we should stick to the pn and keep our nerve intact.”
James nodded, "Fine by me."
Okay, so imagine a tidal wave, but instead of water, it's just a whole lot of green jerseys crashing down on you. That was basically the first quarter. Motijheel? More like Moti-dominate-jeel, am I right? Green was everywhere.
Like, if you blinked, you'd probably see green spots for the next five minutes. In the middle of this green tsunami, there was this one lone white jersey, looking seriously outnumbered. That was Robi.
