Domoto Goro stood beside the bench, his fingers unconsciously clenched tight, his palms already soaked with sweat. His brows were twisted into a dead knot, and his expression was as grim as a sky thick with storm clouds.
At that moment, he was filled with confusion and anxiety, to the point that he did not even know what to do.
Everything had happened far too suddenly.
At the start of the first half, the two sides had still been trading blows, the score remaining close. Even when Kanagawa pulled ten points ahead, he had believed that with the abilities of Sawakita Eiji and the others, Akita would eventually have a chance to claw its way back.
But he had never expected that in just a few minutes, the situation would collapse completely. The gap widened like floodwaters bursting through a breached dam, and the first half ended with them trailing by a miserable twenty points.
In a high-intensity basketball game, especially against an opponent as fired up as Kanagawa, the second half was practically an impossible climb. Forget tying the score—even holding their ground and preventing the other side from widening the gap further would require twice the effort, and a miracle.
Domoto Goro knew very well that this was no longer Chi Tong's problem alone. He had once believed that as long as he devised the right tactics, contained Chi Tong, the core of the team, and cut off his connection with his teammates, Akita could seize control of the game.
But now, that idea seemed far too naive.
Chi Tong's strength had long surpassed his expectations. Ordinary methods simply could not contain him.
What drove him even deeper into despair was that Kanagawa's other players had also improved by leaps and bounds. Kanagawa was no longer the team