Kuroko: Mahoraga - Chapter 46: Adaptation? Time to Close the Net! (Patreon)

The first quarter ended without much separating the two teams on the scoreboard.

But everyone on the court knew Masato had the pace firmly under control.

The spectators, on the other hand, saw an intense back-and-forth game.

Even during the break between quarters, the crowd stayed excited.

They wanted the game to resume as soon as possible.

...

On Kawari's bench, the players came off the court.

Other than Masato, all four starters were breathing heavily.

The physicality against Kurosawa was brutal, and their opponents kept sneaking in little dirty tricks.

For the moment, Kawari's players were struggling to deal with it.

Ishida wiped the sweat from his face with a towel, lifted one arm to look at it, and grimaced.

“Damn, these guys are fucking dirty!”

His complaint immediately struck a chord with the others.

“Seriously. They play filthy!”

“A bunch of rats...”

“The ref's blind too. He's missed it several times already. I'm starting to wonder if he's getting paid off!”

Masato neither agreed nor disagreed.

His teammates had never played a game this physical before.

A little complaining was understandable.

But if they wanted to keep going down the path of basketball, this level of contact would eventually become routine.

Sooner or later, they would have to adapt.

“They're definitely not playing clean. Be careful and protect yourselves.”

Masato spoke at just the right moment, pulling everyone out of their complaints.

Coach Nakamura nodded in agreement.

“Masa's right. Protect yourselves.” He looked seriously at the players. “At the same time, learn from their experience.”

Ishida stared at him in disbelief.

“Coach, what exactly are we supposed to learn? Their dirty tricks?”

The rest of the team wore the same expression, as if asking whether Coach Nakamura was joking.

Masaki Nakamura could only look helpless.

It made him realize again just how gentle school basketball usually was.

The break was almost over.

Masato took another sip of water, stood up, and straightened his jersey.

“There are some things you don't have to use,” he said, clearly agreeing with the coach. “But you still need to know how they're done.”

“All right. Get up. Time to go back out there.”

...

The scorer's table signaled the start of the second quarter.

Both teams returned to the court.

The crowd immediately came alive again, clapping and cheering.

By now, everyone knew they could not afford to look away during a game between these two teams.

Otherwise, they might miss something spectacular the very next second.

Kurosawa had possession.

Shoichi Imayoshi brought the ball up, but Masato did not pressure him full court.

He waited in his own half for Kurosawa to come to him.

Masato could tell that his opponents had regrouped.

What followed proved him right.

Under Imayoshi's tactical adjustments, Kurosawa raised the physicality another level.

Whenever they tangled with Masato, the Kurosawa players grimaced and used everything they could think of to slow him down.

Only after that much effort did they finally manage to score.

The price was obvious, though.

They looked as though their bodies were about to fall apart.

The referee had brought the whistle to his mouth several times as well.

Trying to body up Masato was miserable work.

Even after Kurosawa scored, Imayoshi remained serious.

A bad feeling had been sitting in the back of his mind.

Then he glanced toward Makoto Hanamiya and forced himself to settle down.

...

Possession changed, and Masato crossed half court.

This time, however, something caught him by surprise.

The defender in front of him was Makoto Hanamiya.

Masato raised an eyebrow.

Kurosawa had clearly changed its approach.

That only made him more interested.

If they still had something new to show him, even better.

Otherwise, this game would be heading into garbage time very quickly.

As for what exactly Kurosawa had changed, there was only one way to find out.

Test it.

Under Hanamiya's gloomy stare, Masato attacked immediately.

His stripped-down, efficient style cut into Hanamiya like a cold blade.

Hanamiya finally got a taste of what Imayoshi had been dealing with the entire game.

His expression tightened, but he did not panic.

He flashed a hand signal, and Kurosawa's players immediately moved up to form a double-team.

At the same time, the entire team began rotating.

Subtly, every Kurosawa player was shifting around Masato.

Masato frowned.

For a defense to move this freely, they had to be completely unafraid of his passing.

That made him smile.

He wanted to see what this system could really do.

Basketball really was fun.

Masato snapped his wrist and sent the ball out.

Almost at the same moment, a smile appeared on Hanamiya's gloomy face as he flashed another signal.

“Got you!”

The ball cut through the air toward an open teammate.

Just before it arrived...

“SMACK!”

A hand shot into the passing lane and knocked it away.

Shoichi Imayoshi had made the steal.

That genuinely caught Masato by surprise.

Kurosawa had read the passing lane in advance.

Then he suddenly remembered something from the original story.

Makoto Hanamiya had a tactic called the “Spider Web.”

Using his exceptionally high IQ, Hanamiya gathered information until he could read through an opponent's patterns.

From there, he coordinated with his teammates to generate steals.

The tactic required another highly intelligent teammate to work with him.

And Shoichi Imayoshi happened to be a genius too.

The moment they got the steal, all five Kurosawa players broke the other way.

They cut and moved the ball continuously, leaving Kawari's defense scrambling.

The possession ended in a basket.

The transition from defense to offense had been smooth enough to look rehearsed.

Kurosawa's fans and plenty of neutral spectators erupted.

Hanamiya finally stopped holding back and grinned at Masato.

“I've completely adapted to your passing lanes. Get ready to fall into my spider web with the rest of your trash teammates!”

Hanamiya's performance really had given Masato a pleasant surprise.

The purpose of Kurosawa's system was obvious.

They wanted to completely sever the connection between Masato and his teammates.

That would force him to play one-on-one and, eventually, wear him down physically.

There was nothing unusual about the idea.

Previous opponents had all tried some version of the same thing.

The only difference was the method.

Hanamiya's solution was genuinely interesting.

Still, Masato's expression became a little strange.

What was this supposed to be?

Had he just been adapted to?

Was everyone trying to cosplay Mahoraga now?

This was getting ridiculous.

Masato shook his head and pushed the absurd thought away before signaling for the inbound.

He attacked again, this time increasing the pace.

Against Kurosawa's defense, he tore straight through their formation with clean, decisive movements.

Then he drove into the paint and threw down a dunk.

There was nothing Kurosawa could do except hope Masato's stamina started dropping faster.

After that possession, both teams began playing at a higher tempo.

Masato kept Kawari ahead through sheer individual ability.

All the while, [Adaptation] continued eating away at Kurosawa's system.

For a while, the game really did look like a back-and-forth battle.

The crowd was already on fire.

The second quarter unfolded in a blur of intense offense and defense.

Then Kawari got the ball again.

Masato picked apart their sorry excuse for a defense, then passed the ball.

Hanamiya activated his “Spider Web” again.

The gloom on his face gave way to a smirk, as though he had already seen through everything.

Then something happened that he had not calculated.

The passing lane he had predicted was wrong.

Hanamiya's smile froze.

“SMACK!”

The ball found its way into the paint instead.

Ishida caught it and slammed it home.

Hanamiya stared in disbelief.

Masato looked at the confused player in front of him and spoke calmly.

“Time to close the net.”