Long Shot (10 page)

Pedro knew what everybody else on their team knew: that the Warriors were 4-0, that they still hadn’t lost as a group because they’d been undefeated champions of the league as fifth-graders, and that their backcourt of Kyle Sullivan and Nate Clark was already lighting up their league, same as last year.

Neither one of them was a pure point guard. Neither was a pure shooting guard. They could both pass, they could both put the ball on the floor, and they could both fill it up from the outside if they got even a sliver of daylight so small it was like it was trying to sneak through your blinds.

The Knights’ guards were going to have to “man up” today—it was probably Coach Cory’s favorite expression in the world—or the Warriors’ two-year run as the best would continue.

“What we have here, gentlemen,” Coach Cory said, “is an early-season contest with
serious
playoff implications.”

Joe had mentioned once to Pedro that he sometimes thought that Coach Cory was like somebody from a foreign country who’d learned how to speak English watching
SportsCenter
on ESPN.

“To be the best,” Coach Cory said in the locker room right before they went out the door, “you’ve got to beat the best.”

Pedro was where he usually was at the start of the game—the far end of the Knights’ bench.

Yet one thing was clear from the opening tip: Dave DeLuca had no chance against Nate Clark. Or Kyle Sullivan, when Coach switched Dave over to him. It was actually even worse with Kyle. When Dave backed off, Kyle hit from the perimeter. When Dave tried to crowd him, Kyle got to the basket so easily it was like he was wearing one of those E-ZPass gadgets that got you right through tollbooths.

Kyle was scoring at will. And frustrating Dave so much that he got two early fouls. Even as Pedro was kneeling next to Coach Cory, with Coach trying to get Dave out of there and get Pedro into the game, Dave managed to commit his third foul.

Coach Cory pushed Pedro toward the scorers’ table, saying, “I don’t care what you give me on offense today. But I want you to man up on
that
young man right now.”

Meaning Kyle.

“Done,” Pedro said.

“You know how we change games on this team, right?” Coach Cory said.

Pedro turned and nodded as the scorer blew the horn, sending him into the game. “One stop at a time,” Pedro said to his coach.

Pedro immediately stole the ball from Kyle the first time he was on him, flicking his hand out as Kyle tried to use the same crossover move he’d been punishing Dave with, slapping the ball away, beating Kyle to it, then lofting a pass toward the Knights’ basket almost in the same motion.

For a moment it might have looked like a pass to no one. Except that Pedro knew better. Pedro had heard Joe say “hey” even before Pedro had control of the ball, and Pedro knew that meant one thing: He had taken off like a wide receiver on a fly pattern.

So as the ball came down near their free throw line at the other end of the court, there was Joe coming hard from the right, ahead of the field, collecting the ball in stride, taking one dribble, and laying the ball in.

One stop, two easy points, just like that.

First stop of the day,
Pedro told himself,
but not my last
.

Because nobody was stopping him today.

He was so locked in on Kyle Sullivan he nearly followed him to the Warriors locker room at halftime. By then the Knights were ahead by a basket.

When they came back out on the floor, Coach Cory told Pedro he was starting the second half with the first unit.

“You know I always ride with the hot man on offense,” Coach said. “Well, today I’m doing the same thing on defense.”

Kyle would get loose sometimes in the third quarter, but it would take a screen to do it, sometimes more than one screen on the same play. And even then, Pedro was able to get around the screens and stay with his man, reading what he was doing like he was a book he’d read already.

Pedro knew when to give him room and when to get up on him. It was why what was usually the Warriors’ one-two punch had become one guy: Nate Clark.

Nate was single-handedly keeping the game close, working mostly against Jeff, sometimes against Bobby, and sometimes against Clarence. When Nate made his last three shots of the third quarter and his first two in the fourth, Coach Cory finally decided, almost in desperation, to put Ned Hancock on him, to see if he could cool him off or at least slow him down.

Even Ned couldn’t.

Nate stayed hot and with four minutes left, the game was tied at 40-all. Usually Ned could shut anybody down, at any position. Use his length the way he had used it that day in practice against Pedro. But today, his length, even all his great basketball instincts were no match for Nate Clark’s quickness.

Pedro’s dad always said that the only way to beat speed in sports was with more speed. Ned didn’t have that and Nate was beating him as effortlessly as he had the other guys.

With two minutes to go and the game still tied, Coach Cory called time-out. He was switching Pedro over to guard Nate.

“No,” Ned said.

His face was red and he was breathing hard.

Pedro couldn’t believe it: The kid who never looked tired, who never even seemed to
sweat,
was gassed now.

He just won’t admit it,
Pedro thought.

“Ned,” Coach said. “Listen to me.” It was amazing. Even now it was as if he had to negotiate with Ned Hancock. “The kid’s just having one of those unconscious days. It’s nobody’s fault. I’m not sure even
I
could guard him today. And we’re gonna need your energy on offense the rest of the way. You all know how much I preach defense, from day one. But this thing has turned into a shoot-out, which means we gotta keep scoring the basketball.”

“Coach, I
got
him!” Ned said. “I can do it all.”

He never seemed to raise his voice, on the basketball court or anywhere else. Too cool. But Pedro was pretty sure everybody in the gym had heard him now.

Pedro wondered what it must be like, to actually believe that about yourself. Not just believe it, but come out and say it.

Coach Cory let him stay on Nate. But right away Nate got loose for a dribble-drive, pulling up just inside the free throw line the way he had the entire game, making one of those one-handed teardrop shots.

Now the Warriors were ahead, 48-46.

Ned let Pedro bring the ball up, even though he usually did that at the end of games, no matter who was playing point guard for the Knights.

Then Pedro was the one getting inside his man, getting into the lane the way Nate just had at the other end, going up as if he were shooting before twisting his body just enough in midair to fire a pass to Ned on the baseline.

Ned was ten feet away from the basket and if he had one shot he liked the best, this was it.

Only he seemed to short-arm this one a little. Pedro watched the ball in the air and from his angle, it looked short. And it was. But Ned had enough spin on the ball and enough touch and it caught just enough of the front of the rim to give it a chance.

Pedro held his breath as he watched the ball bounce up, come down on the back of the rim, and catch a piece of the backboard before finally dropping through.

Shooter’s roll if there ever was one.

48-all.

Under a minute now. Pedro couldn’t even remember the last time he felt this good—this
happy
—on a basketball court. However this game came out.

He was a point guard again.

Problem was, he was the point guard who should have been the one trying to shut down Nate Clark. As soon as the Warriors had the ball back, Nate not only got open for a fifteen-footer, but Ned foolishly fouled him as he was making the shot. When Nate made the foul shot, too, it put the Warriors up by three.

Thirty seconds to play.

As Pedro started to bring the ball up the court, he looked over, thinking Coach Cory might want to call time-out. Coach just told him to push the sucker up, get the first good shot they saw.

It belonged to Jeff. Maybe the Warriors thought Pedro would want to bang the ball down low to Ned again, but he faked the pass to Ned, threw it over to Jeff on the left wing, and watched as he buried a jumper from the left side.

The Knights were down by a point, 51-50.

Pedro knew what to do next without Coach saying a word. Just because point guards were supposed to know. He didn’t even hesitate in the frontcourt as soon as Nate was foolish enough to give the ball up, passing it to Kyle.

Pedro fouled right away, going for the ball, not wanting to get tagged with an intentional foul. All Kyle was going to get, now that the Knights were over the foul limit, was the chance to shoot a one-and-one.

He had to make the first foul shot to get the second.

Kyle, who hadn’t taken a single shot in the fourth quarter, missed. Joe grabbed the rebound. Now Coach Cory called time-out, the Knights still down by one on the day when they had a chance to be the first team in two years to beat the Wilton Warriors.

In the huddle, Coach Cory said to Pedro and Ned, “Just run that little two-man game we used to run last year. Get Ned a good look down there in the low blocks, and send a bunch of sad faces back to Wilton.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Pedro said.

They spread the court. Pedro burned some clock, made it look as if he might go back to Jeff, and ended up with Ned on the right side. Ned faked as if he was going to set a pick on Kyle Sullivan, tore down toward the basket, and ended up wide open in his money spot.

Eight seconds.

Kyle saw what was happening and took off for Ned, but he wasn’t going to get there in time.

Ned hesitated when he got the ball, but it shouldn’t have mattered, because he had enough height on Kyle to shoot over him all day long.

Five seconds, Pedro saw.

Ned released the ball.

Only he hadn’t shot it. Instead, he wheeled and threw a dart back over to Pedro, now open on the left wing.

Three seconds.

Nothing for Pedro to do but catch and shoot, or the game was going to end without the Knights ever putting the ball in the air.

Inside his head was his dad’s voice, telling him to trust it.

He let the ball go in time, felt as if he’d put a good stroke on it, even though he hadn’t attempted an outside shot all day. In the air, the ball looked as if it was on line and had a chance, but he had put a little too much on it, tried to make too sure, and it hit off the back of the rim and bounced toward the left corner as the horn sounded ending the game.

The Knights had lost by a point, lost their first game of the season, lost their chance to knock off Wilton.

Lost because the best shooter they had had passed up a wide-open shot to pass the ball to a guy he knew couldn’t make a shot to save his life these days.

Me
, Pedro thought.

 

 

 

Pedro knew that even if he did say something to Ned, Ned would have the perfect answer: What’s the problem, dude? You were open.

Coach always said that if a teammate was more open than you, pass him the ball, and that’s exactly what Ned had done.

Except.

Except he never passed the ball back out when he got the ball down there, which is why the last thing in the world Pedro had expected was to be hoisting up a buzzer-beater.

It was bad enough that he’d missed, and they’d blown a sweet opportunity to beat Wilton. What was even worse, what hurt Pedro even more, was to think that Ned Hancock, the ultimate team guy, had decided today he’d rather mess with Pedro’s head a little more than beat the Wilton Warriors.

“This thing is officially messed up,” Joe said.

“You figured that out, huh?” Pedro said.

They were in town an hour after the game, having finished up with their shakes and fries at Bobby Van’s, the diner all the kids in town liked the best. Now they were just walking around until Joe’s mom picked them up in a little while.

“You gotta do something about this,” Joe said. “
We
gotta do something about it.” They had stopped in front of the video store. Joe wanted to go in there and rent a game for when they got home. “I could say something if you want.”

“I told you, I’m going to.”

“When?”

“This week.”

“Can you at least tell me what you’re going to say?”

“You’ll see.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means you’ll see.”

“I still don’t get why this has to be such a big secret.”

“It’s not a secret,” Pedro said, grinning. “Not to me, anyway.”

“But you don’t care to share.”

Pedro said, “Hey, I already shared half of my fries.”