Chapter 414 - 1998 ACC Tournament 2 (1/2)

This was actually the strategy that the Tar Heels team used in most games this season, but as they had won all games this season it showed how good that strategy was.

Even so,

it looked like the Maryland Terrapins players expected the Tar Heels team to do that and they pushed on defense too, so if the Tar Heels players were playing well in that game Jake would have it easier.

Jake advanced to the three-point line and passed the ball to Williams from the right, Williams received the ball and the Maryland Terrapins team's defense soon pressed, so Williams passed the ball to Jake who was in the middle.

Jake was quick and as soon as he got the ball and made a quick pass to Okulaja who received the ball with freedom inside, so Okulaja just advanced and made the layup and made the first 2 points for the Tar Heels team.

The defense of the opposing teams used to ignore Okulaja in attack during the games because Okulaja was one of the players who scored fewer points in the Tar Heels team, so they defended more against Jamison and Carter within the three-point line.

But Jake thought of moving to Okulaja because in the last game Okulaja had a good offensive performance and so Jake felt that he could count on him in the attack and further complicate things for the defense of the Maryland Terrapins team.

After a few minutes of play, Jake could see that the Tar Heels team players were performing well in that game and he was more relieved, so he was more confident of victory even if the opponent performed well.

And this was also happening, the players of the Maryland Terrapins team were playing very well both in attack and defense, it seems that they had made a special strategy to play against the Tar Heels team because the ball did not pass very often near Jake.

As the opponent had no player who was playing so well Jake was on the three-point line without defending against just one player and only defending against who could attempt the shot from outside.

But with the Maryland Terrapins team playing like that Jake knew he wouldn't make as many steals as he did in the last few games and so the Maryland Terrapins team would be able to score more points, of course with the players playing far from where Jake was, their attack options were limited.

In another move, the Maryland Terrapins team made a good attack and the players were far from where Jake was, only one player was in the middle for Jake to defend against him, of course, Williams still defended outside the three-point line and inside the line of three points, the defense of the Tar Heels team was even stronger.

Laron Profit received the ball from the left and advanced after getting rid of Okulaja's defense, he tried a mid-range shot and scored 2 more points for the Maryland Terrapins team, the Maryland Terrapins team players had the quality to make plays like these and manage to make the stitches.

After that move, the Tar Heels team attacked again, Jake advanced until after the middle of the court and passed the ball to Carter from the left, Carter seemed quite excited to have a good performance in that game.

Carter was very upset by the poor performance he had in the last game and knew that maybe he had been left in reserve for longer because Coach Guthridge could be starting to lose confidence in him.

Jake could feel that Carter was thinking like that and he also saw that Carter seemed to be performing well in that game, so he decided that he would make more plays with Carter to make more assists and help his friend gain confidence for the next games.

Carter advanced to the three-point line and passed the ball to Williams who was on the right, unlike Carter, Williams was very confident at this end of the season, in almost every game he had a good performance and knew he was an important player in team now.

Williams passed the ball to Jamison on the left ahead, Jamison tried to make the move getting rid of the defense and failed, so Jamison passed the ball further back to Jake in the middle.

Jake moved forward and made a quick move getting rid of the player who was defending against him, Jake advanced and the Maryland Terrapins team's defense was to try to defend against him, when two players went to defend against him Jake passed the ball to Carter from the left.

Carter received the ball and advanced quickly to make the dunk and get 2 more points for the Tar Heels team, in this game the defense of the Maryland Terrapins team, even though he was strong, had difficulty defending against the Tar Heels team because all the players were having a good time performance.

Jake was a great PG because everyone knew that he could easily score more than 30 points in a game himself, so whenever he got the ball outside the three-point line or within the three-point line the defense of the opposing team had to defend against him.