By: Alvin Fang

It’s June 5th, the start of a National Basketball Tournament, and all of the best players in the world were going to be there. I was nervous, but at the same time excited to play.

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with Ivan, our best player. He has really good handles and shooting.

Our first game was against the Musketeers and they didn’t look that good, so I was pretty confident; however in the first half, they were pulling away, and at halftime, the score was 39 – 50. I thought we had no chance of winning but at the beginning of the 2nd half, my teammate Albert started drawing fouls for free throws and a player on the other team fouled out! We actually won 60 – 52!

Our second game was against Champs. Even though their players were a lot bigger than us they weren’t that good, and during halftime, we were leading 20 – 6. In the second half, they were catching up, but after Gerlad made five contested 3’s we won 40 – 23. We made it to the Semis but our next game was two days away so we could get some rest.

Tomorrow is our third game. To be honest I never thought we would get this far but I guess we could. If we win tomorrow’s game, we will move on to the Finals!

For our third game, we were going up against the Demons and they looked like they were an NBA team. At the beginning of the game, it was going our way and we were winning 16 – 9 but then they got 3 layups and drained a 3 pointer and at half time the score was tied 20 – 20 but after Albert hit a couple of 3’s and some tight defense from James we were winning. Their coach called a timeout and discussed their plans. However, in the 4th quarter, things were looking bad for us. They were winning by 1 and it was their ball with 10 seconds left. I don’t know why but they called a timeout which gave us time to discuss our plan when the game resumed, they dribbled down the court, but I ran in for the steal and got free throws. I made the first one and if I made the second one we would win and I did. We won 61 – 60 and we were going to the Finals!

Today is the finals and we were versing the Mambas, in the first quarter we were already losing 0 – 11 and things didn’t get better in the second quarter as well, at half time the score was 0 – 24 but the coach said that we weren’t going down without a fight so in the third quarter we got some points and played lockdown defense and the score was 30 – 25. Still, then at the end of the quarter, someone on their team tripped Ivan who is our best player, and he couldn’t play anymore! We were dead without Ivan, but our coach said to keep trying the last fifteen seconds we were down 2 and we needed a three or go into OT. When I got the ball, I dribbled to the corner and the clock was ticking 3, 2, 1, I shot it and it hit the rim 5 times, and then it rolled in.

We won! We all celebrated, and I learned something new, there is no “I” in “team” but there is in “win” and that’s what we did!