Survival Of The Fittest

Two sets of instincts competed for the controls behind Heather's eyes: with a large opponent dashing right towards her, one wanted her fists up and guarding her core, the other wanted an arm out to block shots with another low to play the ball as it was dribbled. Both wanted her up on her toes, coiled and poised to match movements in kind. The mental re-routing required to remind herself that she was balling, not boxing, set Heather back a few fractions of a second, enough to let Manuel wrong-foot her where normally she'd have no trouble floating like a proverbial butterfly.

Her only consolation was in ironically not being quite on the ball enough to overcommit to the wrong direction either. Heather corrected as quickly as she could, lunging back into Manuel's path; her leading arm outstretched with a view to interfering in his aim.

Immediate backtracking on number 5's part occurred as Heather got in his way. Skid on pivot foot, quarter spin, side, side, side. Reestablish the neutral and readapt; preferably in the span of seconds. Think quick. Vamos, vamos. He'd kicked off a lot of rust just then— Heather wouldn't be hesitating again. War on equal grounds, warranting the big guns. For number 5, that meant forcing something to give. Every wall had a nook you could push and push and then shatter.

Center body, ball rolling on the palm, dribble inverse 'tween the legs— in, out, between, beyond. Schmooving and in her face, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Twinkle toes. Either she made for a grab or an opening would present itself. Either way, Mañana would come and breeze through. A point guard's job is ball control, and he was getting that paper.

Too slow. And of course, Manuel wasn’t stupid enough to try for a snap shot with her Get Down Mister President-ing into the most likely path, he wasn’t the one scraping off the rust.

Nope, Manuel backed up and reestablished the initiative, putting Heather back into the position of having to read signals for which her instincts had atrophied. Where his body was going, the way his muscles clenched and twitched, those were easy, but what it meant for tactics one, two, three steps further on? That was the tough part,

So in he came again, getting in close, inside her guard. Were this a fight, it might be to Heather’s advantage, negating the taller boy’s reach and turning it against him. But on the court, it just meant less line of sight to read, fewer split-seconds to react based on those reads. Soon enough, the latitude to back up ran short, and Heather was faced with a choice between seizing the initiative herself, or letting Manuel dictate the flow all the way up to and through the hoop.

Heather Klein was never one to let things slide when direct action was on the table. She lunged for the ball.