Chapter 394 - The Last Major Marathon 8

Jake spoke to Ed Cota because he wanted him to play as he always did and not worry about trying to play as Jake did, in the past Ed Cota was one of the main players with his assists and even though he didn't score much.

So Jake wanted to give confidence that Ed Cota would just play as he normally did and that would make the team more likely to win, and he told Williams to try several three-point plays like he hadn't done in the last few games.

With Jake on the team, Williams was no longer making as many three-point shots and in some games, he had to stay within the three-point line to get Jake more freedom to make the three-point shots.

That's because Jake had a 70 percent higher average on three-point hits and Williams had 40 percent, 40 percent still made him one of the best on the three-point line, but compared to Jake he was actually much lower.

But Jake knew that in that game Williams would be very good at three-point shots and only if he gave Williams the confidence to try that the Tar Heels team could win, for coach Guthridge, Jake just said to make the team train more to not have too many turnovers in that game.

At the end of the 1st half of the game, the Tar Heels team ended the game in a draw, it was the first time that the Tar Heels team did not finish the 1st half by winning, Ed Cota was doing very well with the assists, Jamison and Carter were also fine.

But it was different than when Jake was on the team, Ed Cota had not made any points and had done some turnovers which Jake never did in the games, only that showed the biggest difference between them, not to mention that Ed Cota could not get the steals that Jake could do it.

Williams didn't get much confidence and even though he scored 14 points in the 1st half he was still very shy about what Jake was seeing, even though with the unexpected change between Jake and Ed Cota the Georgia Tech team was having a hard time defending and so Jamison and Carter were getting freedom to make the stitches.

"This 1st half ended in a draw, the Tar Heels team played well, but much less than playing normally when Jake is on the team, we know well that Ed Cota has a different style of play than Jake, but that's why Jake is the main player of the team and takes them to several victories."

"The Tar Heels team is playing very well and Shammond Williams is doing very well in the three-point shots, but Harpring and Maddox from the Georgia Tech team are also doing very well in the three-point shots and so the game ended in a draw."

"Certainly if Jake was in that game the result of the end of that 1st half would have been completely different, we hope that the Tar Heels team will play better in the 2nd half and the Georgia Tech team will not be able to hit the defense, because if they succeed it will be the first defeat of the Tar Heels team in over a year."

Coach Guthridge told Williams just as Jake had told him to try more three-point shots in the 2nd half, and also for players to try to defend better on the three-point line because the Georgia Tech team was managing to score a lot of points in three-point shots.

The Georgia Tech players were confident they would win and the Tar Heels players felt more pressured to win after that 1st half.

At the beginning of the 2nd half, the Tar Heels team started to attack more, trying to press more on the defense outside the three-point line, this gave more opportunities for the Georgia Tech team to make plays within the three-point line.

Fortunately, in that game Carter and Okulaja were well on the defensive within the three-point line, Ed Cota continued making several plays with Jamison and Carter in the attack and Williams followed what Coach Guthridge said and more confidently made more three-point shots.

Even so, the Georgia Tech team was very well in that game, especially in the three-point line with Harpring and Maddox who were doing well in this game as well as Williams and even with the pressure on defense they were able to attack.

This was really an exciting game and Jake was in the hotel very focused on the game cheering for the Tar Heels team, when he saw the failures of his teammates he was even more nervous and if he could he wanted to be on the court.

But even though he had not traveled by plane and had already rested for a few hours Jake was still very tired and was not in his best physical condition, in a few hours he would take the plane back to the United States and it would be more than 16 hours of travel.

Jake hoped he was recovered by the next game that would be 3 days later because he saw how long it took him to regain his ideal physical condition after a long plane ride like this.

Jake wanted the 99 statistic points of luck he had to help the Tar Heels team to win this difficult game, he didn't want the team to lose this game in which he had to lose by something very important which was to win the last of the marathons major and earn the statistic points that would help his career.

With less than 2 minutes left to the end of this game and the Tar Heels team was losing by 5 points, even with the good game of the Tar Heels team and with Williams had 24 points the Georgia Tech team were also playing very well and Harpring and Maddox from Georgia Tech team also had more than 20 points each.

The Tar Heels team started the attack and Ed Cota had the ball to organize the play, he was playing very well in that game, but just as Jake feared he had a lot of turnovers and also scored 2 points only in the whole game which hurt a lot the team.

Ed Cota passed the ball to Carter who left the three-point line while Williams had entered the three-point line, they made this move to get rid of the defense, Carter passed to Okulaja who returned to Ed Cota.

Ed Cota found an opportunity and passed it on to Jamison who was coming from behind the Georgia Tech team defense, Jamison received the ball and made a spin to make a layup and narrow the score difference to just 3 points.

It was just over 1 minute and the Georgia Tech team decided to spend the ball possession time to guarantee the victory, the Tar Heels team players put pressure on the defense and tried to hinder and steal the ball.

But they failed, in the last seconds Matt Harpring passed the ball to Dion Glover who tried to shoot a mid-range shot to make the 2 points and guarantee the victory, but he ended up missing and Jamison caught the rebound.

So the Tar Heels team had more than 40 seconds to make the move and could try a three-point shot to tie the game, and that's exactly what they did, Ed Cota passed the ball to Shammond Williams who even with a close opponent defending still tried the shot from outside and scored 3 points to tie the game.

The Georgia Tech team still had a few seconds to try to win and ended up failing to score and the game went to the extra team, Jake who was at the hotel can breathe easy when he saw that the Tar Heels team got the tie in the end as well as all the fans.

He would have felt very guilty if the Tar Heels team had lost that game just because he was not participating, he knew that the Tar Heels team had the ability to win even without him on the team, but maybe he has played on the team changed that.

"The 2nd half of the game ends with a three-point shot by Shammond Williams who was the best player on the Tar Heels team in that game and they got a draw in the last seconds of the game."

"The Georgia Tech team really played very well in that game and especially on the three-point line, so I think they deserved to win and can still do it after the extra team."

"But the Tar Heels team really has excellent players and with the great game from Jamison and Williams so far, the Tar Heels team still managed to draw and still have a chance of winning and maintaining this sequence of games without losing."

"Now we are going to follow these 5 minutes of overtime to see which team will win this game or if we will have another overtime."

The Georgia Tech players felt sorry for having missed this opportunity to win the game, they knew that the Tar Heels team was a dangerous opponent even without Jake on the team, but they were careless and allowed the tie.

The good thing was that they had gotten used to defending themselves against players from the Tar Heels team, with the two teams tired they could manage to defend better and try to win this overtime.

The Tar Heels team players were under even more pressure after almost losing the game, they had to get that win to prove that they were good players and that the team was good even without Jake on the team.

Williams was tired, but he was also much more confident after that game, coach Guthridge said he trusted him to make more three-point shots and try to bring victory to the Tar Heels team in that overtime.

Ed Cota was also trying to show that he was also an excellent player even though he was much inferior to Jake, for that he had to help the Tar Heels team to achieve victory in that game.