Rebound: A 2nd Chance

Chapter 196 - Bad Chemistry

Stax took the ball and went out of bounds before inbounding the ball to Monty. With the ball in his hands and a grin on his face he began to make his way up the court.

"Ay clear out! Clear out! Ima dance on this boy." Monty shouted out as soon as he crossed half court.

He clearly didn't think much of Danilo who was standing out on the perimeter to guard him. His teammates didn't say anything after that as they simply cleared out the floor for Monty.

Danilo glared at Monty "You might want to tone it down on the showboating man. That shit didn't work out too good for your other guy."

Monty laughed "Haha! You talking bout SlowMo? You in for a hell of a time if you think I'm on the same level as that loser."

With a quick crossover to the right Monty began to drive in that direction. Danilo saw this and shifted his feet as he began to chase down Monty.

"I got him, I got him!" Danilo shouted as he hurriedly shuffled his feet while keeping his hands up and active.

Monty stopped on a dime, stepped back, head faked, then with a quick crossover he began to drive in the opposite direction.

Danilo unfortunately fell for the head fake so Monty was able to create a few steps of separation between them.

With Danilo a step and a half behind him Monty began to drive toward the paint. 3D was cheating off of his man a bit as his defensive assignment was standing in the corner while he stayed halfway between him and the paint.

As he saw Monty driving into the paint 3D decided to try and contest his shot. 3D's enormous frame dashed toward Monty.

With the ball resting on the palm of his right hand Monty switched things up. As he was in the air he changed his layup attempt into a pass as he tossed the ball to Stax who was now open in the corner.

3D cursed in his head 'Shit!' as he saw Monty kicking the ball out to the corner. Stax was a hundred percent ready as he caught the ball in his shooting pocket.

Without a second of wasted time he went into his shooting motion. With a flick of his wrist the ball went flying.

For a Big Stax had great shooting form. His elbow and forearm were perfectly aligned with the basket, his release was smooth, and the arc on his shot was high.

The ball hit nothing but net as it swished through. Stax held up three fingers on his hand as he fired off an imaginary arrow "My shot wet as hell today!"

Monty and Jigs were high fiving and hyping up their teammate while on the other side Danilo and 3D were exchanging some heated words.

"Yo why the hell didn't you move up sooner?! If you switched on to Monty then I would have switched on to Stax!"

"You got the balls to be yelling at me? Why the fuck did you let him beat you off the dribble like that? If you had stayed in front of your man then I wouldn't have had to leave my guy alone in the corner."

Jason had to resist the urge to face palm as he walked toward the two of them "You guys are in no position to play the blame game because both of you fucked up on that sequence."

Jason pointed at 3D "You should have moved up sooner to try and contain the paint. Danilo was right, if you had moved up sooner then he would have known ahead of time to switch on to Stax.

Danilo has a better chance of closing out on a shooter in the corner than trying to contain a player that already beat him off the dribble."

Just as Danilo was about to thank Jason for backing him up Jason pointed at him "Don't think that this means that you're in the clear Dlo.

You should have called for 3D to step up. As soon as you knew that you got beat and that you wouldn't be able to catch up then you should have called it.

Be more vocal next time. We can't read minds and we haven't played with each other long enough to know each others' tendencies and stuff so you need to communicate better."

Danilo and 3D both looked at each other before turning to Jason. Danilo sighed "You're right Jaya. I'll try to keep that in mind."

3D added "Yeah, my bad." Jason nodded his head after hearing the both of them take a step back and acknowledge their mistakes.

He patted the both of them on their backs "Good. Now let's get back in to the game and teach these guys who they're playing against."

Although their lack of chemistry showed in the beginning with their combined talent on offense and Jason's on the court coaching on the defensive side of the ball they quickly managed to adapt to their new team. 

Even though their offensive system was basic and crude with not that many layers for their plays to develop in to they managed to run it effectively.

This was due to all of their players buying in and playing their roles to their best abilities. With 3D being the main focal point on offense they were easily able to cause problems for Monty and his team.

3D's presence in the paint was enough to force double teams as soon as he got the ball in the post. This breakdown in the defense was more than enough to give Danilo and Jason the room that they needed to operate on offense.

Although nowhere near the same level of talent or ability their offense somewhat resembled the Laker's Triangle offense back when they had Shaq and Kobe.

3D anchored their post presence just like how Shaq used to while Danilo played the strong side wing position in a similar manner to Kobe.

Meanwhile Jason focused on playing good defense and taking his shots within the flow of the offense. He played the Ron Harper / Derick Fisher role.

Although Kyle and Alex played the weak side of the court they were still involved in the offense as they would occasionally set off ball screens for cross court cuts or cut to the paint/ pop out to the perimeter.

On the other side of the court things seemed to be getting worse and worse for the Texas team as the game went on.

The Texas team's offense seemed to be iso heavy as they focused on Monty to run their offense. Stylistically they resembled the Houston Rocket's back when they had James Harden. 

Everyone would stand around and watch Monty dribble the ball as he tried to collapse the defense. He would either dribble out on the perimeter and try to drive to the basket or he would take a step back three pointer.

Although he was able to make a fair number of those threes Jason and his team were more than happy to give those types of shots to them.

This type of offense didn't just lead to a lot of bad shots. Even in the rare occurrences where Monty was able to break down the defense and get to the basket there were times where his teammates missed their open shots.

Monty drove to the basket forcing Alex to collapse into the paint in order to try and contain him. He saw this and kicked the ball out to Mojo who was standing out on the perimeter.

Mojo caught the ball and took the three pointer but unfortunately for him the ball hit the side of the rim.

Monty called for a timeout as he stormed toward Mojo "What the hell was that bruh? This the third god damn brick you tossed up tonight!"

Mojo glared at Monty "How the hell you expect me to be in rhythm to make shots when ninety percent of the time you got me just standing out on the perimeter with my thumb up my ass? 

You dribblin the air outta the damn ball man! Can't nobody get in rhythm when we just standing around doing jack shit!"

Monty got all up in Mojo's face as he started poking him in the chest "How bout you just do what the fuck I tell you?

I didn't ask you for your useless ass opinion. I asked you to make a wide open three! If you can't even do that then I don't know how the hell you managed to get an invite to this training camp!"

Eventually they had to wrap up their talk and get back in to the game. But it looked like their little conversation didn't fix much as their teamwork got even worse after that.

After two ten minute halves and twenty total minutes of playing Jason and his team won the game with a convincing score of 46 to 32.

3D was their leading scorer as he clocked in a total of 20 points and 12 rebounds. Danilo was the second leading scorer with 14 points.

In contrast to those two Jason's 8 points and 5 assist might not seem all that impressive. But for anyone that watched the game they would tell you that his presence made a huge impact on the team.

Jason had a smug smile on his face, or at least what he thought was a smug smile, as he made his way towards Monty.

He stuck his hand out "That was a good game man. You showed some real nice moves out there." Monty looked at Jason's outstretched hand before slapping it away.

"Man get that bullshit outta my face bruh. You think you hot shit just cause you got the pillsbury doughboy posting up for you?

If it wasn't for that fat fuck then you woulda gotten smoked son." Jason just shrugged his shoulders "Damn bro.

You sound mad salty right now. This shit was supposed to be just for fun. There's literally no reason for you to act like you got a stick up your ass."

Jason turned around as he got ready to walk back towards Kyle and the other guys. But he was stopped by Monty who reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

"Where the hell you think you goin?" Jason turned around and stared Monty right in his eyes "Who the hell you think you grabbing?"

Monty let out a chilly laugh "Hahaha the Chinese kid thinks he tough just cause can hoop a little. You outta watch your mouth shrimp or the grown folk gon have to educate your ass."

Jason moved his arm up as he pushed aside Monty's hand "The only grown thing about you is that you a grown piece of shit Monty.

Now back the fuck off before you make me kick your ass off the court the same way I did it on the court."

Stax and Jig both moved to Monty's side after seeing how things went down. This caused Kyle and the rest of the guys to move up closer to Jason.

Just as the tension was about to reach its peak the doors to the gym swung open as Jason and Kyle heard a familiar voice.

"And the MC finally makes his timely appearance! Huh? I thought you guys were playing ball?"