The finals in my first varsity basketball season had finally come, and I was excited because I was playing one of the greatest players that played the game in the future, Lebron James and his high school team. This was also his final game in high school, so I was pretty pumped that I got to face off against him this early.
I knew this was going to be a challenging match; I went to say hi to LeBron, and surprisingly he was pretty nice and was very humble and even suggested that we hang out during the off-season. We exchanged numbers, shocking me that he even knew about me. He told me good luck with the game and that I shouldn't cry if I lose, which caused me to laugh and thought in my head that I'm going to go all out on this guy. just a reminder of my team:
Point Guard Starter: Iso
Bench: One
Shooting Guard Starter: Eazy
Bench: Two
Small Forward Starter: Breeze
Bench: Three
Power Forward Starter: Flex
Bench Four
Center Starter: Momba
Bench: five
The game started, and Momba won the jump ball and passed it to Iso to arrange the team for the attack. I decided to sit out the first quarter just to see how things would play out and had the shooting guard from the bench play for me. I watch as Flex received the ball and tried to run it into the post to do a dunk, but LeBron came out of nowhere and blocked this attempt receiving the ball and running full speed ahead, and he laid up to get the first points.I was amazed by his Athletics, his speed and strength even in the high school were quite impressive. Flex was very intimidated by LeBron because the whole High School world knew about him and he knew that he wasn't his match, so Iso wasn't going to give him the ball anymore and decided to take charge and try to rush a point to catch up to them.Iso did a step back and shoot the mid-range to tie the game up. This game was huge and was being played at a big gym at the University of Maryland, where it was being televised. The crowd was huge, and the place was full of cheers nonstop every time they scored. By the time the quarter had ended, we were down by 13 points with LeBron leading the way with his 15 points.I decided to come into the next quarter which surprised him, he came up to me and said "oh you're not scared anymore to come up and play" I laughed and said," I was just checking out his game, and I'm impressed, but now he's about to get taken down." The game started back up again after the break.LeBron passed the ball to his PG, and when he got down, he passed it back to LeBron. Nobody could check Lebron, so I had Momba switch to cover him this quarter to see if he could stop him. LeBron steamrolled his way into the paint, but Momba was waiting right there for him, as soon as LeBron seems like he was about to dunk on Momba, Momba, who was much higher up, took up all the space in the air and was ready to block him.LeBron readjusted his position in the air and brought it back down make it Mamba miss the block, and he brought the ball right back up into the basket, making the point. That move was smooth like a baby's bottom; I remembered why he was the greatest in my past life; he was quite unstoppable in the paint. I took the ball down as soon as I got to the three-point line. I shot the ball, not caring about the person that was guarding me and made it.This caused Lebron to raise an eyebrow because the defense was quite good, but I still managed to make it, so then he asked to switch as he started to cover me. LeBron's team's point guard brought down the ball once again, and just as he was about to pass it to LeBron, I used time freeze to freeze the ball in place and to pluck it Midway through the pass and ran down the court LeBron looked back and saw me halfway across the court and gave up on chasing me down.I stopped at the three-point line and shot the ball breaking the lead; now, we were only down by 9 points. This time LeBron decided to bring down the ball, and Momba was still guarding LeBron, so LeBron took advantage of Momba's slow large figure and crossed him up and sped past him and went in for the dunk which got the crowd all wild up.All I can do is laugh at his critics; the game continues to go back and forth until the end of the second quarter we had caught up and were only down by 3 points. LeBron was telling his teammates not to give up and was inspiring them to hustle more, which was signs of a good leader. He wasn't yelling at them just because they gave up the lead, but he was telling them not to give up and to try harder with a calm tone.The third quarter started as LeBron brought down the ball once again, he got up to the three-point line and just shot the ball and made it there getting a six-point lead. He looked at me and winked at me and said'' that was for you "I laughed and said I got something even better for you, so I brought so the ball down while LeBron was waiting for me at the three-point line giving me hand signs to approach.I slowly walked up to the half-court line and shot the ball surprising him, when he looked back and saw that I made it, he was even more shocked and started clapping his hands for me, this caused me to start laughing. I felt like this was quite a fun game because this guy was great to play along with. I tried not to use my time to freeze too much just to enjoy the game some more and see more of his moves that way; I can learn some things from him.After the third quarter, it was a tie game, and we were at our very last quarter. This quarter would determine who was the best high school team in the United States, and it all came down to LeBron and me continuing to play. LeBron was doing flashy dunks and impossible layups and got a couple and ones because Momba was having a hard time guarding him.