When Akagi Gangan turned to go for the rebound, he realized there was no ball anywhere near the rim.
He hurriedly spun back around.
Flower Monk had leaped into the air. The ball had already left his hand and was flying toward the basket, and Akagi Gangan was too late to jump and block the shot.
The ball flew toward the backboard, struck it, then swished cleanly through the net.
At the same time, the crowd let out a collective gasp.
"Holy crap, that worked?!"
"Is this guy a circus performer or something?"
"No way, that went in?"
Akagi Gangan immediately realized how the shot had gone in.
When Wang Yi had gone under Akagi Gangan's arm to scoop the ball up, he hadn't flicked it toward the basket. Instead, he'd made a hook-shot motion and hooked the ball up into the air.
The ball had risen from behind Akagi Gangan, passed over his head, then dropped back toward Wang Yi's hands.
During that time, Akagi Gangan had turned around to go for the rebound.
By the time he looked at the basket, the ball had already dropped into Wang Yi's hands. It had felt just like a magic trick—the ball had suddenly vanished.
Of course, Wang Yi couldn't simply catch the ball directly at that point. That would have been a violation.
So as the ball came down, Wang Yi jumped up, caught it in midair, and immediately shot.
That made it perfectly legal.
But to Akagi Gangan, the whole thing had looked like a magic trick.
He'd clearly seen Wang Yi release a scoop shot, yet when he turned around, the ball had disappeared.
Then he'd turned back, and there was the ball in Wang Yi's hands, already flying toward the basket.
That was some seriously supernatural nonsense.