Salman, officially in full-blown panic mode and feeling the pressure cooker vibes, just panicked and chucked a pass towards Anderson on the wing. "Anderson! Take the shot!" he yelled, more out of desperation than strategy. Emphasis on "chucked," because it was rushed, weak, and about as accurate as throwing darts in the dark.

  And James? Remember, he was on the opposite side of the court, still supposedly wrestling with the triple-team circus. But somehow, impossibly, he knew. It was like he had a sixth sense, or maybe he'd hacked the Matrix.

  He moved faster than humanly possible, a blur of motion, broke free from those guys like they were training dummies made of straw, and bam! Intercepted that garbage pass before Anderson even knew what was happening. Steal. Turnover. Another dagger straight to Motijheel’s already ftlining morale.

  From the Motijheel bench, Lut just slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. "This is… this is just… unfair," he mumbled, voice muffled. All his usual snark and sarcasm? Completely MIA. Vanished into thin air.

  Repced by pure, unadulterated, soul-crushing helplessness. "It’s like we’re pying against… against a cheat code," he finished, finally looking up at Coach Rahman with wide, pleading eyes. "Coach, seriously, is this even allowed?" And honestly, everyone in the gym, even the Banani fans, kinda knew exactly what he meant. It felt rigged, like they were trapped in a video game where the other team had god-mode permanently activated. "Maybe we should file a protest?" someone joked weakly from the Motijheel bench, but nobody was really ughing.

  Anderson just stood there, frozen mid-stride, eyes glued to James. His earlier swagger, the cocky grin? An ancient memory. Gone. Vaporized by the sheer force of James's impossible pys.

  His face was bnk, like someone had hit the reset button on his entire personality. "I don’t… I don’t understand," he mumbled, voice ft, robotic. He kept repeating it, over and over, like it was some kind of broken record stuck on the same depressing groove. "I just don’t understand." It wasn't even an excuse anymore; it was his new mantra, his personal anthem of utter, bewildered defeat. "Dude looks like he's seen a ghost," a Banani fan chuckled.

  Then Nikhil, Mr. Grumpy Power Forward, the king of negativity, actually cracked a tiny, almost sad smile. "Maybe we should just… forfeit?" he suggested, his voice surprisingly serious. You could tell he was half joking, trying to inject some dark humor into the abyss, but also, maybe fully serious, genuinely considering the option.

  "Save ourselves the public humiliation? Think of our social media rep!" Honestly, forfeiting was starting to sound like the most strategically sound move on the table. At least they could walk away with some shred of dignity, instead of getting completely annihited in front of their entire school. "Nah, we can't forfeit," another Motijheel pyer sighed. "Coach would actually murder us."

  But Coach Rahman? Nope. Absolutely not. Despite the growing tidal wave of doom threatening to drown them all, he remained stoic. Giving up? Deleting that word from the team's vocabury, effective immediately.