Bi bristled. "You mean that those other four are better players than we are?"
"No." Bonfire considered the case judicially. "No, you fellows are better than they are—individually."
"But—"
"Wait a minute, Bi. I think I can make you understand what I mean. Basketball, you see, isn't like football, where the quarter calls a signal that tells some player what to do; nor like baseball, where you field a certain position, or bat yourself on base, or try to bring another fellow home. No, basketball is different, a lot different. When the ball comes to you, maybe you dribble it along and pass it to somebody else, and maybe you try for a basket yourself."
"I don't see—"
"You won the first Elkana game," Bonfire interrupted placidly, "by pure luck. You lost the second because you were outplayed at every turn. You'll lose the third and deciding one, too, if Sheffield starts the same team again, playing the same kind of game."
"But you just said we were better players than Barrett and Kiproy and Collins and Turner."
Bonfire looked him squarely in the face. "Better individually, I said. The trouble with you fellows is that you are too good. You can shoot baskets so accurately that you forget there is more to the game than merely looping the ball for a goal every time you get hold of it. Look here, Bunny, who shot the most baskets in the game we won from Elkana?"
"Sheffield," the patrol leader admitted readily.
"And in the Grant game? And the Deerfield game?"