Note: you might be wondering there the hell I disappeared to. The answer is, I borked my sleeping schedules and slept a lot. Not abandoning this story quite yet! ;)
Kakashi stepped up his game. Sakura was knocked off her feet in an instant. As soon as she hit the ground, she sank through it. Sasuke moved into close range and gave the signal to one of the clones, ready for the next jutsu. He was going to be low on chakra, but if all went well… he wouldn't need it.
On the edge of their clearing, Naruto executed his own step of the plan. A hundred clones popped into existence in the middle of the smoke. Kakashi wasn't supposed to move, so quite literally he ended up buried by them. Just for a few seconds. That moment, he saw what they were doing. It was idiotically straight-forward, with the signature style of his team.
He was yanked into the ground with more strength than any of his students should have, and then immediately immobilised by Sasuke, who was henged as a clone. Sakura emerged from the ground with a bell in her hand, swimming out of the earth in one of the few spots not covered by Naruto clones.
Their plan was simple, but their objective hadn't necessarily been to beat him. No, Kakashi's message had been that they should prove they were ready for the exams, distract him for long enough to land a hit on him, show him what they were capable of together - and their teamwork was flawless.
Naruto had been able to dispatch the shadow clone sent to fight him. Sasuke was never seen until it was too late. Through the entire fight, the only real person he saw and fought was Sakura herself. And despite being the one directly in line of fight, she didn't have a single scratch on her.
Her teammates had closed in the gaps in Sakura's fighting. Clones that popped out of nowhere to block attacks for her, kunai that Sasuke flung at him before he could land a strike. She merely held her bell blankly. Exhausted, Sasuke recovered his breath for a good nineteen seconds, and then took it from her hand and gave it to Kakashi. They had protected her perfectly, and still managed to execute a plan as crazy as this one.
They proved their point, and he passed them.