Joseph caught the inbound pass and brought the ball up the court. He crossed the half court line and dribbled the ball, taking his time and killing the clock.
The Jesters played fast, it was probably a fast offence with Harley taking the lead. It was a good strategy, but it was too reliant on one single player.
Joseph had no idea what the Jesters' coach was thinking with that strategy.
Harley focused on the ball Joseph was dribbling.
Joseph walked forward, stepping all the way up to the three point line. Harley, in response, stepped back, giving him space.
Joseph looked around, his teammates not moving. They likely expected him to shoot the ball.
Joseph took a deep breath before grabbing the ball with both hands, keeping it at his hip.
He brought the ball up and shot the shot.
The ball flew through the air and hit the backboard to the left of the rim, completely missing.
"Rebound!" (Joseph)
Toby(PF) jumped for the rebound, grabbing it. He faked a shot, Samuel(PF) not falling for the fake.
Joseph ran to the side, Harley not following him.
"Pass it out!" (Joseph)
Joseph was approaching the left side, closer to where Theodore and Ainz were. Toby threw the ball out to Joseph.
Joseph instantly turned to face Theodore, expecting Ainz to help out on defence. Joseph stopped himself from passing, realising that once again, he was wide open.
He hesitated before setting up another shot.
He brought the ball to his hip, concentrating at the rim.
Harley had ran at Joseph when he wasn't looking.
Harley poked the ball out of Joseph's hands when he brought the ball down to shoot the three.
Joseph was too slow to react to the steal.
Harley grabbed the ball and started sprinting towards the rim with no one in front of him.
Joseph started running too.
Joseph took longer strides, managing to somewhat catch up to Harley.
Joseph got close enough to Harley when he was about to go up for a layup. Joseph tried jumping, but he was unable to block the ball.
Joseph landed some distance behind the backboard. He had just sprinted, but it was for nothing.
Harley tapped the ball which had fallen on the ground towards Joseph, a casual smile still on his face.
Joseph grabbed the ball, making sure he was outside the baseline before he threw a long pass down the court.
The Jesters did not expect it, especially Samuel.
Toby was at the free throw line on the other side of the court. Samuel was behind him. Thomas and Crox were closer to the rim, to the right and outside of the paint.
Toby caught the pass, instantly defended by Samuel.
Toby dribbled, pushing his defender backwards in a post move. Samuel was unable to get much of a proper footing, and as a result, got pushed back.
Ainz ran from the corner to help defend. Toby registered the situation and threw the ball to the corner where Theodore had repositioned himself.
Theodore caught the ball, Ainz running back at him to try and block.
Harley stood at the half court.
Theodore went up for the shot, Ainz nowhere close to blocking the shot.
The ball bounced on the rim, barely missing. Crox went up for the ball, grabbing it with one hand out of the air.
Thomas was behind Crox, unable to block him.
Samuel had switched and was in front of Crox, jumping to try and block the put back dunk.
Samuel blocked the shot above the rim, the ball falling in a different direction. Toby grabbed the ball and went up for a lefty finish, the ball bouncing off the backboard and into the hoop.
The Beasts ran back on defence.
Joseph had been on their side of the court the entire time, bent over. He clutched the ends of his shorts as he took deep breaths.
When they scored, Joseph ran up to Harley, once again standing in the passing lane.
Thomas inbounded the ball to Samuel instead.
Harley tried to get himself free. He did a spin, but Joseph hopped backwards, making sure Harley was always in front of him.
Samuel passed the ball to Leonard, who faced up against Darius.
Darius stuck close to Leonard, who did a jab step before driving. Leonard, while driving, had Samuel to his left.
Leonard then did a sudden stop into a jump shot. Darius tried to block him, but Leonard's shot was too high.
The ball flew through the air and hit the front rim. Thomas and Crox fought for the rebound once again. Thomas tapped the ball up, preventing Crox from getting the rebound. When Crox landed, Thomas had already gotten the rebound after jumping the second time.
Crox defended Thomas, who did not look like he wanted to take the shot. Thomas glanced out to the three-point line where Joseph was still hounding Harley.
Thomas leaned back against Crox, but the big man would not budge.
Thomas threw the ball out to Ainz, who was once again cutting to the rim.
Ainz was too far to cover the distance in two strides, instead, he tried dribbling the ball. The ball bounced off his knee and went out of bounds.
"Out of bounds, Blue ball." (Referee)
"I admit that you're good." (Joseph)
Joseph walked with Harley back on offence.
"I'm flattered." (Harley)
"But the rest of your team isn't." (Joseph)
Harley shrugged.
"They do what they do. Everyone here has their own specialties, I'm just here to make the most use out of those abilities." (Harley)
Crox started jogging into offence once again. The ball was inbounded by Darius to Theodore.
Harley stood casually, his breath already starting to get heavy.
"Getting tired?" (Joseph)
"Speak for yourself." (Harley)
Joseph was breathing a lot harder than Harley.
Joseph ran out near the half-court line, getting the ball from Theodore. Theodore then ran to the corner.
Joseph held the ball, killing some time off the clock as he did so. He surveyed the court before he started dribbling again.
Joseph made a circle with his thumb and ring finger on his left arm, making eye contact with Crox.
Crox ran out to the perimeter and stood beside Harley, who was unable to get around his screen. Joseph drove right, where Crox had helped screened.
Thomas switched onto Joseph.
After Joseph got past Crox, Crox started running to the rim.
Joseph stopped the threw up a pass, looking like a floater. Crox jumped and grabbed the ball, landing before throwing the ball off the backboard and into the rim, wide open.
Harley was too small to guard that, and Thomas had been close to Joseph, too far away to guard.
Joseph high-fived Crox before running towards Harley.
They weren't out of the game yet, but it was going to be hard if they wanted to come out with a win.
Thomas inbounded the ball to Ainz, who dribbled up the court once again.
Joseph stuck with Harley, but Harley was not running.
Instead, Harley made a 'T' sign, facing his coach.
"Timeout, Purple." (Referee)
Joseph let out a sigh of relief before walking over to the bench.
***
Time: 6:19
Score: 16-17 (Beasts lead by 1)
***
Joseph walked over to the bench and slumped down hard, looking down at the ground, dripping with sweat.
The other guys surrounded him and Dom.
"Harper, get ready to sub in." (Dom)
"Hold on a minute." (Joseph)
Joseph looked up, trying to breathe to the best of his ability.
He took a shaky breath before continuing.
"I'll sub out when Snyder subs out too. I want to be on the court at the same time as him." (Joseph)
"Shut up, you're barely doing anything." (Dom)
Joseph glanced at the score.
"12 to 5 run since I took over, and you're telling me I didn't do anything?" (Joseph)
Joseph got onto his feet, staring his own coach down.
"Sit the hell down, Quinn." (Dom)
"Are you telling me I'm not someone you want out there against their team?" (Joseph)
"I'm telling you that if you keep this up, you're going to collapse." (Dom)
"Like I said, I'll sub out when Snyder subs out." (Joseph)
Dom checked the time, the timeout already about to end. He simply sighed.
"Whatever you want." (Dom)
'BEEEP' (whistle, end of timeout)
Joseph walked back into the court with his teammates, his eyes locked into the only player he was focused on guarding.
Meanwhile, during that timeout, the Jesters were having a conversation of their own.
"Why did you call the timeout?" (Steve)
"You see, I'm not in a great position right now." (Harley)
"Right, that guy's defence is quite annoying." (Ainz)
"I'm gonna need you guys to take over the offence." (Harley)
"Huh?" (Everyone in the Jesters)
Harley smiled to himself, rubbing his chin.
"We'll let them continue their little run of theirs. Judging by that guy's passion, I'm guessing that as long as I'm on the floor, he'll be on it as well." (Harley)
Harley shrugged.
"So I'll stay on the court. You guys run the offence, I'll make it hard on him. He's already tired, there's no way for him to stay that energetic for the whole game." (Harley)
"That's too risky." (Steve)
"Oh, but I don't think that it is. I'll just slowly drain him of his stamina while I remain at full strength. The moment he has to go to the bench, we'll go on a little run ourselves, aight?" (Harley)
"I don't object." (Ainz)
Harley hopped into his feet and glanced at the Jesters bench.
"Coach, please make the adjustments in the rotation as necessary. I'll be playing 9 minutes or so today." (Harley)
"Are you sure?" (Steve)
"Very. And I'll prove to everyone watching that the Jesters aren't a team to mess around with." (Harley)
Harley glanced up someone watching from the second floor, holding a phone to record. He smiled at the camera before walking onto the court.
Timeout over. Jesters ball.