When the starters came off the court during the break between quarters, the others rushed over one by one to high-five or bump chests with them.
They were clearly in high spirits.
That only made the coaches even more puzzled.
"What's going on? They're not down at all. They actually look excited and fired up."
"Wang Yi really is incredible. He took them out under those circumstances, and they're still this fired up. I never would've expected that."
Coach Li was a little jealous. "These guys were never this obedient when they played in my class games. Looks like I'll have to give them a good talking-to when we get back."
Meanwhile, the viewers in the livestream chat finally stopped criticizing Huali.
"They finally turned it around! Yude had been crushing us the whole game. That was so frustrating."
"Huali's finally showing a bit of professionalism. They play basketball professionally, after all. How could they let amateurs push them around?"
"Huh? What happened? I saw Huali down by 18 and stopped watching. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, they were up by 8! Holy crap, I feel like I missed a million dollars' worth of action!"
Over at Yude Middle School,
before head coach Lan Jingshan could say anything, his star player, Shan He, spoke up first.
"Coach, let me start the fourth quarter!"
Lan Jingshan had planned to let Shan He rest for another couple of minutes. He had used up far too much energy today.
But when he saw that the score gap had already reached eight points, he realized that if Shan He rested for two more minutes, the deficit might grow to more than ten.
Yude Middle School wasn't Huali. If they fell behind by more than ten points in the fourth