Chapter Ninety-Six: This Is What You Taught Me

“Giannis is calling for it himself. Does he want the iso?”

“It looks that way. As the leader of this team, he has to do something for his teammates!” The commentator at the sideline was practically spraying spit. “John Henson was just posterized by Michael Wu, and Giannis is not going to take that lying down!”

“This game is getting better and better. Everyone wants to know what happens next!”

“Everybody knows something is bound to happen between Michael and Giannis, but this is all happening far too soon!”

The two commentators felt their adrenaline surging as the Greek Freak advanced the ball step by step, and the atmosphere in the arena rose steadily to a boiling point.

“Michael Wu, you will pay for what you just did.”

One step beyond the three-point line, Giannis dribbled slowly, staring at Wu Rui, who was guarding him in front of him. “I’ll show you what real talent looks like!”

“Then please shoot it right here.”

Giannis’s taut, ready-to-bolt posture stood in stark contrast to Wu Rui’s ease. As he spoke, Wu Rui even took a step back inside the arc. “Come on, Giannis. Let me see that talent of yours with my own eyes.”

Wu Rui’s retreating defense had already been seen when he handled Harrison Barnes, and now that he brought it back to the court, the home fans in the stands erupted in cheers.

“Michael is again just daring his man to shoot, but from that spot, even if Giannis were some divine weapon from the heavens, he still couldn’t launch it!”

“Ha ha ha, I can already imagine what Michael is about to say to Giannis. He’s definitely mocking him for not daring to shoot from there!”

Even Giannis felt deeply uncomfortable with Wu Rui’s sudden retreat, but he truly did not have the ability to shoot from there.

Lowering his center of gravity, Antetokounmpo was not about to be as stubborn as Harrison Barnes. “You still need a few more years at home before your trash talk is any good!”

“And after I blow by you, I’ll send you back to your grandma’s house with a dunk.”

With that, Giannis stepped out decisively, clearly intent on muscling Wu Rui back while using his long legs to get past him, before finishing with a soaring slam.

But the moment he took his first step, he realized something was wrong, because Wu Rui had not pressured him closely at all. Antetokounmpo’s powerful first step suddenly looked completely unnecessary.

“Are you dancing, Giannis?” Seeing his opponent’s usual trick fall flat, Wu Rui could not help laughing. “I never knew your talent points were invested in dancing!”

“WTF!”

Giannis was made thoroughly uncomfortable by Wu Rui’s barrage of words and his defensive choice, and this possession would have to be reworked from scratch. Glancing at his teammates’ movement, he decided to feed Jabari Parker inside.

Looking at Wu Rui in front of him, Giannis chose to loft the ball into the paint. The basketball arced high into the air, and in the next second he realized something was wrong.

In front of him, the smile on Wu Rui’s face had not even faded when the corners of his mouth lifted again. Then, driving upward with both legs, he launched himself into the air and caught the hanging pass with both hands.

“Steal! Michael has picked Giannis’s pass clean!”

“My God, Giannis is not short, and that lob of his is the kind most people couldn’t even touch, let alone disrupt!”

The commentator at the sideline stared in disbelief. “Michael is not done yet! He’s dribbling—he’s sprinting!”

The instant after Wu Rui stole the ball, he slammed it forward in front of himself, took one giant stride, shook off Antetokounmpo, then gathered it and raced into the frontcourt, already inside the free-throw line after just two long steps.

Then, like a mighty roc spreading its powerful wings, Wu Rui soared and hammered it home with one hand.

“DUNK!”

“Come on, man! I’m seeing traces of Cleveland here in Orlando!”

“You mean LeBron James? Don’t talk nonsense. This is Michael Wu!”

Wu Rui’s thunderous tomahawk slam instantly ignited the Amway Center. From the moment Wu Rui picked Giannis’s pocket, everyone knew Orlando’s No. 0 was going to make another statement, but no one expected it to be with such a terrifying dunk.

“To be honest, this play resembles Giannis’s opening possession a little.” The commentator sucked in a cold breath. “But Michael is a Chinese player, and I’m not saying that to look down on them.”

“I mean, this is the first time I’ve seen a Chinese player produce this kind of display on an NBA court!”

Wu Rui also heard the fans in the stands roaring with excitement. Truth be told, this move was one he had only just learned off the court, and the one who had shown it to him was none other than the very man he had just stripped—Giannis Antetokounmpo.

“Thanks, man.” Meeting Antetokounmpo’s eyes as he hurried back on defense, Wu Rui shrugged. “You’re the one who taught me this move.”

Bang.

Watching Wu Rui stroll away so casually, Antetokounmpo had never felt such fury.

That anger, once converted on offense, made him press directly into Wu Rui’s body and seek out contact. He knew shooting was not his strength, so only by crushing his opponent with sheer physical force could he make the other man feel profound despair.

“How does it feel to get bulldozed, kid?” As he shoved Wu Rui sideways toward the paint, Giannis said, “People can imitate my dunk, but that kind of power? You’ll never have it in your life!”

“Maybe I’ll have it in the next second.”

Wu Rui let out a cold laugh, then drove hard through his legs. A force from the ground up surged through his entire body; this was the first time since his transmigration that he had let this body’s full strength pour out completely.

That move also froze the grin on Antetokounmpo’s face. The Greek prodigy felt as if Wu Rui were challenging him head-on, and that the other man was even harder than he was.

“Giannis!”

At almost the same time, Dellavedova, with the ball in his hands, had already passed it toward Antetokounmpo. But startled by Wu Rui’s astonishing strength, Giannis reacted a fraction too late, and the ball flew straight out of bounds.

“A passing turnover by the Milwaukee Bucks!” the commentator said, flipping open the stat sheet. “Counting the earlier possession when Giannis was stripped by Michael, that’s only their second turnover of the first quarter!”

“And both of those turnovers are directly tied to Giannis!” the other commentator paused. “Or rather, both of them are inseparably connected to Michael Wu!”

Giannis’s struggles on offense made the closing stretch of the Bucks’ first quarter extremely painful. Wu Rui even found an opening to step out and launch a mid-range jumper, but it was a little short.

Biyombo, however, secured the offensive rebound, and on the final possession of the quarter, Fournier buried a two-pointer at the buzzer.

At the end of the first, the team that had once been ahead had become the one trailing.