NBA: This flower path is a bit strong.

"Beep!" The timeout ends and players from both teams come on the court.

When Kogure Mitsunobu returned to the court, he was surprised to find that the player who replaced No. 8 Uekusa of the Ryonan team was No. 14, a tall stranger who seemed to be a freshman!

"he is?"

"Oda? Is it really you, Oda?"

"Haha, Hanamichi, long time no see! Thanks to you, I got to Ryonan! I really didn't expect that you, Rukawa and I would compete in the same game again! The difference is that this time you and Rukawa are teammates, haha, it's really interesting."

"Let me make it clear in advance! I won't let you win. You Xiangbei team should be prepared for defeat in advance."

Hanamichi also smiled and replied:

"What nonsense are you talking about? I'm a genius. It's you, Ryonan, who should be prepared for defeat!"

After saying this, Hanamichi didn't give Oda Ryumasa a chance to refute and ran towards his own penalty area.

At this time, there were only 5 minutes left in the game, and the score was 38:39. The home team was in front and the away team was behind, with the Xiangbei team leading by one point.

Next, the Ryonan team started a complete one-on-one man-to-man strategy:

Sendoh controls the ball, Ikegami defends Kogure Konobu's outside shot! Konoha defends Yasuda, Oda Ryumasa defends Kadota (Emperor), and Uozumi defends Akagi.

The changes after Oda came on the court were visible to the naked eye. On the defensive end, he effectively restricted the performance of Shohoku's sophomore Kakuta (The Great Emperor), and assisted captain Uozumi in blocking Hanamichi, limiting his secondary rebounding ability by squeezing Hanamichi's space under the basket.

The most terrifying thing was on the offensive end, as Kakuda was unable to stop Oda Ryumasa's breakthroughs and shots.

Faced with Hanamichi's occasional backup defense, Oda, who had been secretly observing the game for most of the game off the court, was well prepared. He was basically able to pass the ball under Hanamichi's backup defense, either to the unattended captain Uozumi, or with the support of his own genius Sendoh.

Even so, Oda was blocked once by Hanamichi and was interfered several times.

Because there were no specific personnel adjustments on the Xiangbei team and Coach Anxi did not make tactical adjustments through timeouts, the Xiangbei team gradually fell into a disadvantage.

But Hanamichi and Rukawa still did not give up. Instead, they fought the most physically demanding battle against the Ryonan team.

It needs to be said that the hallmark of a star player is this: even when the game is over, he will fight to the very last minute and lead his demoralized teammates to launch charge after charge.

This momentum ignited Akagi Takenori who was sitting on the sidelines. He stood up, walked to Coach Anzai and applied to play again!

Akagi's movement attracted the attention of everyone on the field. The players on the Ryonan team were also slightly stunned, then returned to normal and focused their attention on the game on the field.

But at this moment, Rukawa took advantage of the distraction of the Ryonan players and quickly broke through. He came to the basket and pulled up to avoid Yuzumi's block. He made a successful layup and recovered 2 points for the team.

After scoring, Rukawa quickly returned to defense, as if he was not disturbed by off-court factors at all.

Kakuta, Yasuda and others from the Shohoku team were happily looking at Akagi off the court, waiting for Coach Anzai to issue the order for substitutions.

Seeing this, Hanamichi didn't care about the hierarchy and shouted:

"What are you doing? Pay attention. You are the ones playing on the field right now. Giving up the game means the game will end early!"

This roar, like a morning bell, woke up Kakuta, Yasuda and the others. The two quickly returned to defense. Even Mugure, the vice-captain of the team and a good guy, was afraid that Hanamichi's behavior would cause dissatisfaction to the two, and laughed and said:

"Hanamichi is right. We can't let Akagi laugh at us. Let's fight together from now on!"

What Mu Mu didn't say was:

"This should have been my responsibility as the vice-captain. I didn't expect that Hanamichi would remind me of this! I am really derelict in my duty as the vice-captain."

Coach Tian Gang of the Ryonan basketball team frowned when he saw this. He was not worried at all that Coach Anxi would send Akagi at this time, but if they met Xiangbei in the county competition, then...

"If Akagi plays at this time, then we won't have any advantage against Xiangbei. It seems that we should let him come back to strengthen the outside attack firepower of our Ryonan team!"

Sure enough, in response to Akagi's request, Coach Anxi simply asked:

"Akagi-san, you sit down and observe carefully. If...if you can't figure out the reason for Yuzumi-san's change, then I think you won't be Yuzumi-san's opponent even if you go on the field now!"

This sentence shocked Akagi. Although his performance in the first half was indeed not as good as Uozumi's, he did not think that his personal strength would lose to the No. 4 big man who was shut out by him last year.

But Coach Anzai told him bluntly that if he didn't understand Yuzumi's changes as soon as possible, he would be left far behind by Yuzumi Jun!

So Akagi had no choice but to continue sitting in the rest area, staring at Yuzumi's every move!

The game passed minute by minute, and even with the desperate efforts of Hanamichi and Rukawa, the Shohoku team was unable to narrow the score gap.

When they get the score back to 4 points, the Ryonan team will widen the gap to 6 points.

Neither side could defend against the other, so they took turns advancing.

"Beep! The game is over, the score is 64:60, the Ryonan basketball team wins! The players from both teams shake hands and greet each other."

At this time, Hanamichi had just completed a layup against Yuzumi, but unfortunately these 2 points did not count!

There was a cheer from the Ryonan team's bench, while the Shohoku team fell into silence!

Akagi Haruko looked at the tall man on the bench, covered her face and sighed softly:

"elder brother!"

The Sakuragi Army was filled with regret:

"How could this happen? It was just a little bit off."

Mito Yohei said worriedly: "Hanamichi..."

But Hanamichi knew very well that Sendoh in the original game did not fully exert his strength, and Uozumi's performance in the original game was even worse than Akagi's. Even so, Ryonan still won by a narrow 2 points in the end.

What's more, now Sendoh is in full swing as a point guard; Uozumi has also awakened the "side dish philosophy" and suppressed Akagi in the first half; with the addition of Oda Ryumasa, there are strong players such as Ikegami, Yuuki, and Uekusa.

It can be said that Ryonan’s strength at this time is no less than its strength when it faced Hainan, and it is even better.

Facing such an above-average Ryonan team, Shohoku only lost by 4 points in the end, thanks to Rukawa's physical improvement and the addition of the enhanced version of Hanamichi, which was already very good. What's more, Akagi basically did not play after being injured in the second half.

……

Just like that, Hanamichi and Rukawa lost their first official match in high school by 4 points due to the "conspiracy" of the two coaches!

It was time for both sides to say goodbye.

Yuzumi and Akagi shook hands and said:

"Akagi, we didn't win this time. The next time will be the county tournament. Don't lose to other teams before you meet us, Ryonan!"

Akagi lost the battle but not the person, and replied with a firm attitude:

"Humph! I should be the one saying this."

Sendoh's handshake with Rukawa was also slapped by him, and Hanamichi did not retaliate by squeezing Sendoh's palm until it was swollen like in the original work, but shook hands with Sendoh formally and said:

"Thank you so much this time, Sendo-san!"

"(Sakuragi) Hanamichi, you are really surprising."

As for Coach Tian Gang and Coach Anxi, they were both satisfied with the results and were chatting warmly with each other, but no one knew what they were talking about!

Then, with Coach Anxi's "Oh-ho-ho-ho" laughter, the Xiangbei basketball team embarked on the return journey.

That night, some of the main players of the Xiangbei basketball team were completely sleepless.

Akagi kept thinking over and over what exactly was the "change of Yuzumi" that Coach Anzai mentioned?

Kogure Mitsunobu was regretting the result of the game, after all, he was so close to winning.

Even with Akagi out of the game, they only lost to Ryonan by 4 points! Compared to last year's one-sided massacre, it's much better. It seems that Xiangbei is really stronger!

Rukawa Kaede... um... sleeps harder than anyone else!

Hanamichi stared at his basketball data panel (intermediate) all night...