Not that Bad as we Thought

Victory of  Latimer over  Regis

    Greg "Slam" Harris finally got his first training with his new school basketball team, Latimer. For Greg this first training was the worst he had in his life, the team was completely unorganized and the players were not good at all. There were only two more kids that actually could play basketball fine. "Slam" was quite disappointed with that training and after the training the only thing he thought was how can he develop his basketball game with a team like that: how could he accomplish his dream if he plays for Latimer? He talked with his friend Ice again and told him how bad his new team was and that his first game is tomorrow, and that he hopes to see him on the game. That night Greg couldn't sleep very good, he stayed up just thinking on how can he make that team work...The next day, was the game, Greg was ready for it and was anxiously waiting for it. Once he got to the basketball court, his team was waiting for it and the coach too. The coach of Latimer set up the line-up for the game and the whistle of the first quarter sounded. Unfortunately, Greg was on the bench, his coach even though he knew Greg was his best player he didn't place him on the starting team. Latimer was losing 28-20 until finally the coach said "Slam,get up! You're in." They were in the last ten minutes of the match and were losing by 10 points. Greg needed to do something and he had all his focus in the game, he made perfect plays with Nick and he made many hoops on just 5 minutes. The score was 28-26, Latimer was down by two, the pressure was very high for Greg he needed to do something, he dribbled through the defence and !Slam¡ The game was tied. 30 seconds of the game were left and Greg was on fire, when only ten seconds were left Greg score the last hoop and Latimer won the first game of the season. Greg couldn't believe that he scored ten hoops, the ones that made his team win. After the game he went out with Ice and two friends of him on the car to celebrate the victory. Ice was with his girlfriend on the front seats and Greg was with one friend of Bianca, Ice girlfriend, on the back seats. They were talking until Ice decided to get flirtatious with Bianca and they started kissing in front of Greg. Since Greg was quite a lady-killer he just looked into Bianca's friend eyes and kissed her, being just friends. After the incident with Bianca the next day Greg went to train and Nick challenged him to a one on one. Greg was surprised because he thought that after that match against Regis everybody would believe that he was the best. Greg accepted the challenge and both played a very rigid short match but as every one expected Greg won 5-3. After the game Nick told to Greg that the only reason he made him that challenge was because the coach told him to do it. Once Nick said that to Greg, he stayed thinking of why would the coach have something to do with him.    

Coach talking to players in the game

   In the match there were many important moments and many included Greg talking to his team. But there was one special and important quote that the coach said that made the match turn around. 

”They’re probably going to try to slow down the game and draw fouls. We've got nine minutes to play, that plenty of time. What we need is board control. We can't let them get second and third shots. Let's go get them!"(62) The coach by saying these would make all his team player gain lot of confidence to themselves, I can connect to my one experience this quote when the coach in the middle time tell us this little phrases that make the team players have the goal of winning in their minds. After this talk all the players would play quite better for a time and in my believe this phrase was the one that made them won the match.  

Greg vs Nick in his one on one challenge

    As we know, not only the game is important but all the trainings too. In Latimer training for the match Greg had many talks with the coach and from there a type of rivalry and hatred started between them. But the one that made Greg now that was Nick, what he told was "The reason I played a one to one with you was because the coach, he told me that you had an attitude problem."(88) This quote make us clear why the coach didn't made Greg play the full match, for the coach Greg could be a great player and play very good basketball but he have a bad relationship with the coach. Maybe many people have talked badly about Greg with him and that why he said that Greg have a bad attitude. But in my opinion the coach is just trying to help him, if he gives Greg a lesson then he could change his way of acting and be a better person and a better basketball player.

      In conclusion, the theme of the book is very clear and I can understand the book theme now that in the beginning was confusing. For the next chapters I think that Greg would have many more problems with Mtisha because on how he cheated on her, also he would have problems with the coach and the team, but in school Greg is going to be more popular since he did a great match and made the team won. These chapters I could connect to many own life experiences since I am a soccer player I could connect to the coach talks and the popularity and greetings if you do a good match. These chapters have been very interesting and we can know the main character much better and I hope for the next chapters even more action in Greg games and these thrilling endings in his games.