eurekapd Chapter 135: Nine Games Left
Chapter 135: Nine Games Left
The day after they toppled the Bullets, just past one in the afternoon, Ryan walked into the Roarers’ practice facility.
No practice the day after a game—just film. He’d changed and was heading for the screening room when he caught the sound of a ball pounding the floor on the far court. Steady. Rhythmic. One bounce, then another.
He cut over to look.
Omar.
Alone under the far basket, shooting threes, his tank top soaked through and clinging to his back. Every release came with a tight, clipped exhale. Make, chase the ball down, back to the arc, shoot again. Mechanical. Stubborn.
A few months back, while Malik was nursing a strained hamstring, the kid had even started a handful of games—rattled an opposing big or two along the way. But the moment Malik came back, Omar got buried on the bench again, right back to a guy who only surfaced in garbage time. A little while ago, against the Crows, with Malik resting, he’d finally gotten another crack at it—ten points, five boards, and the first three-pointer of his career. But last night, in a knife fight like the Bullets game, he hadn’t gotten a single minute. Nailed to the bench from tip to buzzer.
Maybe that was why he was out here now, grinding alone like this.
Ryan didn’t break the silence. He just leaned against the doorframe and watched for a while.
It was only when the clock on the wall told him time was running short that he spoke up.
"Alright. That’s enough." He tipped his chin at Omar. "Go grab a shower, get changed. We’re starting."
Omar snapped out of it, swiped a sloppy hand across the sweat on his face, and cracked a grin. "Oh—yeah, on my way."
The screening room filled up bit by bit.
Ryan found a seat. Kamara dropped down next to him and shoved a cup of coffee into his hands.
"Want it? Wakes you up."
"I’m good." Ryan waved it off.
"That steal last night." Kamara still hadn’t come down off it. He leaned in, dropping his voice. "I’ve watched it ten times, easy. How’d you know the ball would come loose on that spin?"
"Gambled," Ryan said with a small smile. "Just guessed right."
"Guessed?" Kamara clicked his tongue. "Your hit rate on ’guessing’ is better than mine on actually doing the math. There’s no justice."
They were still shooting the breeze when Crawford walked in at the door. He raised a hand and pressed it down, and the room went quiet.
The lights dimmed. The projector flickered on.
But no game footage came up first. What appeared instead was a table.
The Western Conference standings.
Rank
Team
Record
1
Vega Tigers
50–17
2
San Merico Paladins
49–18
3
Nova City Starships
44–23
4
Emerald Bay Lumina
39–28
5
Hervi Mistfoxes
36–31
6
Ceris Shadows
34–33
7
Koreya Flameguardians
32–35
8
Iron City Roarers
30–37
9
Zerith City Domes
25–42
10
Noze Boulders
17–50
A small stir went through the room.
Eighth. Everybody knew that part. But hardly anyone sat there checking the standings every single day—and seeing the whole West laid out, their own name stuck on that eighth line, stirred up something hard to name.
Crawford tapped his laser pointer on the eighth row.
"That’s where we stand. Eighth. Nine games to go."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the room.
"I won’t dance around it—barring some kind of disaster these last nine games, we’re going to the playoffs this year."
The room went still for half a beat, then broke. Somebody hissed a low yesss. Somebody else made a fist. Kamara straight-up slapped his own thigh. Eighth was no news—but those words, going to the playoffs, landing that flat and plain out of the old man’s mouth, carried a different kind of weight. This team hadn’t tasted it in seven years. Brent and a few of the younger guys couldn’t keep the grins off their faces.
Crawford didn’t let the spark burn too long. He slid the dot up to the top.
"Playoffs. Eight versus one." He paused. "Way the standings sit right now, that’s the Tigers. But there’s nine games left—who the hell knows who ends up first? Paladins are right on their heels, one game back. Bad luck, even the Starships could sneak up there. So who we draw in round one? Nobody can call it yet."
He lifted the dot to the seventh line.
"So—do we go chasing it? Try to climb a rung, grab seventh?"
Darius folded his arms and shrugged. "Coach—Tigers, Paladins, Starships. Is there any difference?"
His meaning was right out in the open: they’re all monsters anyway. Take your pick.
A couple of guys chuckled in agreement.
Kamara, though, turned his head toward Ryan and drawled, "No difference to us." He paused. "Difference to Ryan, though. LaVonte torched him."
Ryan’s head whipped around. He cocked a hand back like he was about to smack the back of Kamara’s skull. "The hell you just say?"
Kamara ducked sideways, grinning like an idiot, and Ryan kicked at the leg of his chair. They jostled in their seats for a second, and a few guys around them bit back laughs—nobody quite let one out. That nine-point night was, after all, a sore spot Ryan still carried.
Crawford cleared his throat at the front.
They straightened up.
The old man didn’t linger on it either. He clapped his hands once.
"Alright. Let me make it plain—we’re not going out of our way to pick an opponent."
Heads came up.
"Burning our legs out chasing seventh—worth it? Then what do we play the postseason on?" Crawford shook his head. "Not worth it. These last nine games, we play them how we play them. Rest who needs resting. Cap the minutes that need capping. One goal—get everybody healthy and into the playoffs in one piece."
He glanced at Malik and Gibson in the corner.
"Same as before. You two—thirty minutes, hard cap."
The two veterans nodded. No argument.
"Tomorrow we’ve got the Brontic Bay Krakens." Crawford’s tone went easy. "Bottom of the East. One of the weakest teams in the league this season. Malik, Gibson—you’re both sitting tomorrow. Don’t suit up."
Against a team like the Krakens, there really was no sense burning the old legs.
"Up front, Omar takes the five. Sloan at the four."
In the corner, Omar’s body went almost imperceptibly tight. He didn’t look up, didn’t make a sound—but Ryan caught the hand gripping his own knee, the knuckles gone a little pale. Brent and Jalen flicked him a quiet glance—something passing between the young guys without a word. A few more minutes, even against a bottom-feeder, was a lifeline to them.
It just wasn’t the kind of thing anyone let show on his face.
"Ryan, you start." Crawford’s eyes settled on him last. "You don’t sit."
Ryan nodded.
He didn’t need it spelled out. To qualify for Rookie of the Year you had to play at least half the season’s games—and he’d come into the league late. He couldn’t afford to miss a single one. These last nine, he had to be on the floor for all of them.
With the assignments done, Crawford pulled up the Krakens film.
The lights still down, the screen began rolling the Krakens’ offensive sets.
Ryan sat back in his chair, watching with half an eye.
It wasn’t arrogance. For one thing, he’d already faced the Krakens twice this season—won both. Whatever notes there were to take, he’d taken them the first two times around. He knew exactly what those players ran; no need to write it all down a third time. For another—honestly—the guys on that screen just weren’t on his level anymore.
He couldn’t even put names to them. Two games against them and not one had stuck in his memory. All role-player filler—average shooters, average handles, average defenders, thrown together into a team sitting dead last in the East.
Out of pure habit, Ryan flicked a glance at the system.
[WESTBROOK SYNC RATE: 88.5%]
The number had crept up another fraction.
Westbrook at 88.5 percent. Then he looked back at the men on the screen.
Not the same world.
He pulled his eyes away, closed them, and rested for a bit. His notebook lay open on his lap, not a single word on it.
Beside him, though, Omar sat bolt upright.
He was locked on the screen, barely daring to blink, his pen flying across the page. Whenever something didn’t make sense, he raised his hand and asked Crawford. "Coach, on this pick-and-roll—does their five pop out or roll to the rim?" "This number seven, is he heavy to his right hand?"
One question after another.
Crawford didn’t get impatient. He answered every one. Which guy liked to gather to his left, which one was a half-step slow on the baseline help—he laid it all out for Omar.
Tomorrow was Omar’s start. Even against a bottom-feeder, this was a chance he’d bought with three months of grinding through empty, late-night gyms. He didn’t want to blow it.
That focus of his, somehow, pulled Sloan in too. Sloan had been slouched and loose, but when he caught how hard Omar was going at it, he blinked, then quietly fished out a pen and started taking notes himself.
Two young guys, one asking, one writing, heads bent together, studying a last-place Eastern team like they were prepping for the Finals.
Ryan opened his eyes, caught the sight of it, and felt the corner of his mouth move.
He didn’t say anything.
He just thought of himself, three months ago.
The guy who’d woken up in an alley knowing nothing about this world. From one pickup game to a contract to the 88.5 percent he was now—honestly, the whole road had been almost unreal. The system, the talent, the luck: every one of them had been on his side.
These two kids in front of him didn’t have a system.
All they had was that pen, and one unwatched late night after another.
Whether they’d ever get seen, nobody could promise. But at least tonight, they were still writing.
That night, Ryan was in no hurry to sleep. He opened his tablet and pulled up the league’s site.
The schedule came up. Nine games left, laid out clean on the screen:
Game
Date
Opponent
H/A
68
Apr 1, Tue
Brontic Bay Krakens
Home
69
Apr 3, Thu
Drayport Talons
Home
70
Apr 5, Sat
Hervi Mistfoxes
Away
71
Apr 8, Tue
San Merico Paladins
Home
72
Apr 10, Thu
Zerith City Domes
Home
73
Apr 13, Sun
Koreya Flameguardians
Away
74
Apr 15, Tue
Ceris Shadows
Away
75
Apr 18, Fri
Vellix City Phantoms
Home
76
Apr 20, Sun
Vega Tigers
Away
Ryan’s eyes drifted slowly down the screen.
Five home, four away. A road stretch buried in the middle—Mistfoxes, then Flameguardians, then Shadows. All of them mid-tier-and-up Western teams. No nights to take your legs off the gas.
Second to last, on the road against the Vega Tigers. The corner of Ryan’s mouth twitched on its own. Frye, that guy—he’d made a promise on his own floor last time. Next time, we run it back on our court. April twentieth. Looked like it was time to settle that.
But what actually stopped his eyes was another name.
San Merico Paladins.
April eighth. Home. The fourth—and final—time they’d meet this season.
Ryan sank back into the couch, fingers drumming absently on the edge of the tablet.
The fourth game against them. The first three—road, home, road—they’d lost all of them.
The first two had been uglier—blown out by 46 on the road, then 33 at home. The third, the one he’d actually played in, 93 to 124, a "mere" 31-point gap—somehow the closest of the three.
And that night, he’d scored nine.
It was the most miserable game he’d played since landing in this world. Every drive choked off, every shot contested, not one clean look at the basket all night. LaVonte Jackson had turned him invisible in front of a packed arena. When it ended, Ryan had sat a long while in the visitors’ locker room, listening to the home crowd roaring through the wall.
Back then he’d already made a name for himself—but a name was all it was. Sync rate barely past sixty, he’d been hyped to the rafters and then erased on the floor anyway.
And now?
Ryan stared at the name. No heat in his chest, nothing you could call a grudge. LaVonte wasn’t some villain—just a top-tier player who let his game do the talking and couldn’t be bothered to make nice with anybody. That night, he’d won clean. Not a single cheap trick.
It was just... there was one thing Ryan wanted to know.
How far had he actually come since that night?
Far enough to stand on the same floor as that man and go at it, straight up, hand to hand?
April eighth. Home. The last time this season.
He wanted the answer.
Ryan set the tablet down on the coffee table, tipped his head back into the couch, and closed his eyes.
Outside the window, Iron City’s night lights ran on, quiet.
Nine games left.
One of them, with a name waiting to give him his answer.