167 Dunking King

The match had officially become a dunking contest, as we kept going back and forth with our dunks. It was quite fun and entertaining, Manuel would cross up Khalid, and get into the paint. Aldrich would show up trying to defend or block Manuel, but as soon as they both would jump up high. Manuel would keep going up higher than Aldrich as he would bring his arm back down and dunk it on Aldrich every time. After a while, Aldrich just felt like he should move out of the way whenever Manuel came down to paint. 

When Aldrich started moving out the way, I didn't blame him for it because I wouldn't want to get dunked on several times either. By the time we had gotten to the 3rd quarter, Manuel was pretty much spent as his coach brought him back in to sit on the bench. After that one 3-pointer I shot at the beginning of the game, I didn't shoot another one as I kept either laying it up with my acrobatics ability or dunking it to match Manuel's fire so when I saw that Manuel was tired and went on the bench I decided to do the same. 

We were only up by one point anyway, so I asked the coach to bring in the bench and give the starters a rest because they were all so tired. We watched as the bench team played for a whole quarter. Manuel's side had taken the lead and were winning by 5 points by the fourth quarter. When starters started coming back in the game, it was going to be the last run we couldn't afford to lose because one loss would eliminate us from the playoffs.  

Manuel was going hard, and this time I was defending him as I told Khalid to take a break. Kahlid went to guard the shooting guard feeling relieved that he didn't have to deal with Manuel anymore. Manuel tried to drive it in and dunk on me, but I used time freeze and plucked the ball away from his hand, which shocked him completely because not a lot of teams could do that to him in his rookie year. Yes, maybe he was getting plucked a lot, but now in his sophomore year, rarely did he get plucked, so when he got plucked three times in a row, he knew something was up. 

Manuel started to tuck in the ball like a football whenever he went in just to protect it from being stolen again. I decided not to use the time freeze for him anymore since we had caught up and were now winning by 2 points. On one of the plays Manuel had tucked in and dipped his shoulders in which hit my arm as it flung back, he jumped up in the air with speed and dunked it so hard a crack happened on the backboard as if it was getting ready to shatter. 

I'm sure Manuel would get tired soon, he did play almost three-quarters, so I knew he was reaching his limit, but that didn't seem to be the case as he kept running full speed and kept dunking it on us. Manuel was going up for the dunk I had plucked it out of his hands because I wasn't trying to get dunked on, as soon as I stole the ball from Manuel, I shot the ball from across the basketball court and made it. 

At that point, did Manuel realize that all his crazy plays he was doing were just funny business to me. Manuel knew that if I were able to hit shots like that, I'd be ready to hit them up close too, and that's when he finally calmed down and looked at me as the fire in his eyes had burned out. I could tell that he had given up, I've seen that look several times in games as I had crushed one opponent after another. 

Manuel looked at me and said," good game, hopefully, I'll either see you next year or in the NBA one day." I nodded at him as he went to sit on the bench. His coach was yelling at him, asking him why he gave up all of a sudden, but he was just quietly sitting there watching us play. I decided to head off and hop on the bench, too, as I let the rest of the guys play. Paige was still in the game, so I was not too worried, and we were up by five points, so there was no way they were going to give up that late in one minute. 

Paige was able to score a few more buckets before the buzzer sounded, making us the winners. Manuel came to greet me after the game, "Even though I know dunking is not your thing, you were still a good sport as you traded buckets with me. Around the league, there are good players out there that I'm not able to beat like China and the Marines, but your team, oh, let me not forget the Russians and their center killed me in our first game this year. I had improved but still wasn't enough to beat those old heads, but either way, congratulations, and I hope you win the whole thing because I'm tired of the same people being at the top". 

I thank them for the excellent game as I had learned a lot of new dunks during that time and was able to even try out some of my personal favorites like the Vince Carter dunk with his elbow and his arm inside the hoop, that was quite fun as I was able to experience what he had gone through when he did that dunk. Frankly speaking, it kind of hurt my arm while I was doing it so I can imagine the pain he was going through, but it didn't matter as the fire you gain from using that dunk immuned the pain.