In just a matter of seconds, everything tilted.
Two possessions. Two clean executions. Two baskets that came not from luck, but from intention.
4–0. Buffalo.
The scoreboard barely had time to settle before the noise in the arena shifted—from confident cheers to uneasy murmurs. The Komodo faithful felt it immediately. That uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu.
One of the commentators leaned closer to the mic, voice edged with disbelief.
"We've already seen this before," he said.
"Early in the tune-up… when Buffalo crushed Komodo.
The question now is—
will the same thing happen tonight?"
On the Komodo bench, shoulders stiffened.
On the court, Jimmy clapped his hands hard, demanding the ball. He inbounded quickly, pitching it forward with urgency. The ball sailed to George, who caught it in stride and exploded into a sprint.
George's face hardened.
No hesitation. No hesitation at all.
He drove straight down the lane like a blade cutting through air.
Tony stepped up.
Santino slid in from the side.
Two defenders. No angle.
But George didn't slow.
At the very last second—when Santino's arms rose, when Tony's body squared—George flicked the ball backward without even looking.
A blind, instinctive pass.
Jimmy caught it mid-stride.
The big man rose.
The rim shook.
BOOM.
The crowd roared—not in celebration, but in relief.
First points for Komodo.
And just like that, the game found its pulse.
From that moment on, the floor turned into a battlefield.
Possession after possession, both teams answered each other. Buffalo attacked with discipline. Komodo responded with force. Shots fell. Shots rimmed out. Bodies collided. Voices echoed.
Sixteen minutes of pure tension compressed into moments.
16–14. Buffalo still up by two.
Coach Ed stood, hands on his hips, eyes scanning the court. He didn't smile. He didn't frown.
Then he tapped two shoulders.
"Elias. John Paul."
The words landed heavy.
The referee's whistle cut through the noise.
Substitution.
Victor and Justine jogged off.
And then—
Elias Moreno stepped onto the court.
Beside him, John Paul—young, sharp-eyed, breathing fast.
The arena changed.
The noise didn't explode.
It vanished.
A hush rolled across the stands as if someone had turned the volume knob all the way down.
Fresh legs.
Familiar ghosts.
Komodo inbounded. Jimmy tossed the ball toward George.
And for half a second—just half a second—George didn't see Elias.
That was enough.
Elias stole the pass clean.
No reach. No gamble.
Just timing.
He was already moving when the ball touched his hands, pushing into open court. Two defenders lunged to stop him—
But Elias didn't force it.
He snapped a quick pass to John Paul, who didn't hesitate, didn't think, didn't blink.
Shot up.
Boom.
Three points.
The silence shattered.
Buffalo bench erupted.
Komodo bench stiffened.
Before Komodo could breathe, Buffalo struck again.
Full-court trap.
Jimmy caught the inbound, panicked under pressure, turned to find an outlet—
Too late
.
Five-second violation.
The referee's hand went up.
Buffalo ball.
Elias took the inbound himself, eyes calm, pulse steady. He zipped it to Santino, who drove hard into the lane. The defense collapsed. Santino kicked it out to Tony.
Tony faked the shot.
Jimmy flew.
Tony drove—but Jimmy recovered fast, arms rising again.
At the last second, Tony tossed the ball upward.
Elias was already there.
He caught it in mid-air—
And dunked it with both hands, hard enough to make the rim scream.
The Buffalo bench lost control.
The Komodo crowd groaned.
The game tightened further, possession by possession, breath by breath. Komodo fought back, refusing to fold. Buffalo answered with patience, precision, belief.
When the halftime buzzer finally sounded, the scoreboard glowed:
Buffalo — up by 5.
Not domination.
But command.
On the Komodo bench, Coach Fran sat frozen, hands clasped, eyes locked on the court.
For the first time since taking this job—
He had no words.
Because the Buffalo he once doubted…
Was no longer the Buffalo he remembered.
The five-point lead at halftime told only a fraction of the truth.
What the scoreboard couldn't show was the shift—the slow, unsettling realization spreading through the Komodo arena that this game was slipping into territory they had sworn would never exist again.
The Buffalo weren't just scoring.
They were controlling.
As the players walked toward their benches after the halftime buzzer, the noise returned—not as cheers, but as layered murmurs. Fans leaned toward each other, brows furrowed, voices low. This wasn't panic yet. It was something worse.
Concern.
On the Buffalo side, there was no wild celebration. No chest-pounding. No shouting. Just quick nods, towels exchanged, hands slapped with purpose. Elias walked calmly, breathing measured, eyes already somewhere else—already in the second half.
John Paul sat beside him, hands trembling slightly, not from fear but from adrenaline. He had hit the shot, felt the moment, tasted the weight of it. Elias leaned in, voice barely above a whisper.
"Stay ready," he said. "They'll come harder."
John Paul nodded. He didn't need convincing.
Across the floor, the Komodo bench looked different.
George stood, hands on his hips, staring at the court like it had betrayed him. Jimmy sat heavily, elbows on knees, chest rising and falling fast. Edmar rubbed his temples, replaying mistakes that hadn't existed in the scouting report.
And Coach Fran—the man who knew Buffalo better than anyone—sat still.
Too still.
His jaw tightened, not in anger, but in disbelief.
This isn't how it's supposed to go, he thought.
He had told them Elias wouldn't start. He had told them Buffalo would crack under pressure. He had told them this was a team still learning how to win.
But the Buffalo on the floor weren't learning anymore.
They were executing.
Then the second quarter replayed itself in fragments inside everyone's head.
It started with Buffalo's confidence—quiet, unshakable. They moved the ball without urgency, trusting spacing, trusting reads. When Komodo tried to speed them up, they slowed it down. When Komodo slowed it down, they attacked early.
That was Elias' fingerprint.
Even when he wasn't touching the ball, the game bent toward him.
On defense, he pointed, talked, slid—always half a step ahead. He didn't chase steals recklessly. He waited. He baited. He let Komodo believe a lane existed, then closed it with surgical timing.
That single interception off George wasn't luck.
Elias had read that pass two possessions earlier.
He's tired. He'll force it again.
And George had.
John Paul's three that followed wasn't just a shot—it was a message.
We are not afraid.
From there, Buffalo tightened the noose.
The full-court trap wasn't aggressive for aggression's sake. It was selective. Calculated. They sprung it only when Komodo's spacing faltered, only when Jimmy hesitated. And when the violation came, it didn't feel like a mistake.
It felt inevitable.
Then came the dunk.
Tony's fake. Jimmy's leap. Elias' timing.
The arena had gone silent in that instant—not because of the dunk itself, but because of what it represented.
Buffalo wasn't surviving Komodo.
They were outthinking them.
By the time halftime arrived, the cracks were visible—small, but dangerous.
George muttered under his breath as he sat down. Edmar snapped a towel harder than necessary. Jimmy avoided eye contact with everyone
.
Coach Fran stood finally, clapping once, sharp and commanding.
"Listen," he said, voice controlled but tight. "This isn't about effort. This is about discipline. We're letting them dictate."
George turned, frustration spilling out. "They're reading everything."
Fran locked eyes with him. "Then change the read."
But the words felt hollow, even to him.
Because deep down, Fran knew the truth.
Buffalo had evolved.
Not just physically.
Mentally.
Inside the Buffalo huddle, Coach Ed didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
"We're not done," he said simply. "They're going to push. They always do. Don't rush it. Trust the work."
Elias spoke next, calm but firm.
"They'll come at us emotionally. Let them. Stay sharp. Stay together."
No speeches.
No drama.
Just trust.
As the teams prepared to return to the court, one thing was clear to anyone who truly understood basketball:
The five-point lead didn't matter.
What mattered was who owned the moment.
And as the second half approached, that answer—quietly, unmistakably—belonged to the Buffalo.
But champions don't surrender easily.
And Komodo, wounded and proud, was about to show just how dangerous desperation could be.