The Final Shot

Chapter 17: Knock, knock! Who's There? The Playoffs!

After a few more months had passed, the Braves had accumulated more wins than losses and ended the season with a 45-25 record. They were fifth in their conference and tenth in the league overall. It was a good record, but the Braves were still unhappy about it since they felt that if not for injuries, their team could have had a much better record. Most of the team was fully recovered except for Michael (Who the doctor said could play in a week) and Abel Adalar, who was a second unit player. The team had a secret weapon in the playoffs, though. Akira was still only playing 3 to 5 minutes a game in the last stretch of the regular season but the Braves had given him so much training that Coach felt like Akira could play about 10 minutes a game (Akira joked that he was now the 10 minute Superman). Since the league gave everyone a one week break before the playoffs began, Coach Auerbach allowed everyone to have two days off before they would start practicing and studying their opponent, the Gators. Everyone spent their two days differently. Michael started practicing the shooting motion while dribbling a bit. Michael knew that he had not played in a long time, and wanted to start practicing so that he would not be a burden to the team when he returned. King slept for two days straight. King had been missing out on sleep since the regular season began as he was always in the gym shooting baskets and rebounding even at midnight though Coach Auerbach tried to stop him. Coach Auerbach was happy that he was sleeping although Coach did have some words to say.

"Kid, 48 hours straight won't help you. 8 hours a day will. But, at least you're sleeping."

Jake kept practicing buzzer beaters, hoping not to miss it during a crucial moment. Carl went back to the street courts that he was so used to, practicing his threes while joining in on some pickup games to ensure that he could play better defense. Akira went to play video games, saying that his rating in Fortnight had dropped and that he needed to work very hard to get his ranking back up. According to Akira, playing games helped relax him. Even Coach Auerbach used his break to do something. Coach Auerbach decided to report to the dean about their moderate success and the dean was pretty pleased that the school would have some revenue from the audience members for the playoffs. Coach also mentioned that some of their players were All-Stars and were performing very well.

"Well, well, well. If the precious All-Stars make the NBA, we'll finally have some notable alumni other than Tim Barnwell, the author. Anyways, good luck, Auerbach! Adding 10K to your pay if you win the chip!" the dean said at the end of Coach Auerbach's report.

This gave Coach the incentive that he needed to start his infamous "Satan's Training" as soon as the break was over.