Long Shot - Mike Lupica [2]
As soon as Joe cleared out, Ned came running up to what the announcers on television liked to call the “foul line extended,” and set a monster pick on Jeff Harmon, who had been sliding to his left as he guarded Pedro. Jeff may have been Ned’s bud, but it didn’t help him now on game point, because when he ran into Ned’s pick, nobody having called it out, Pedro could actually hear the air come out of him like it was coming out of a balloon.
Jeff was still sure he knew what was coming.
“Pick-and-roll!” he said, gasping for breath. “I’ve got Ned.”
He stayed home on Ned. Bobby Murray left Ned now and picked up Pedro. And they would have had the play covered if Ned had kept going toward the basket, the way you were supposed to on the kind of pick-and-roll play they had been using all game long.
Only Ned, instead of cutting toward the basket, popped out a couple of steps away from it.
And instead of trying to beat Bobby Murray off the dribble, Pedro suddenly pulled up, too, spun and put the ball over his head and whipped a two-hand pass, hard, over to Ned.
The ball barely seemed to touch Ned’s hands before it changed direction and came right back at Pedro.
Like the ball was on a string.
Or had bounced back to Pedro off some kind of invisible wall.
It was just enough to make Jeff Harmon turn his head. As soon as he did, Ned was gone.
The only thing missing was that whoosh you got in a superhero movie when Spidey or the Silver Surfer or one of those guys was there and gone.
Pedro didn’t even bother catching the ball, just tap-passed it back to Ned over Jeff’s head and over the rest of the defense, a sweet little floater of a pass, almost like they were playing volleyball on the beach and he was setting Ned up for a spike.
Ned didn’t spike it. He just caught the ball and laid it up in one motion.
Ballgame.
Even a couple of the guys on defense put their hands together.
So did Mr. Lucchino, standing in the open gym door.
Pedro stood in the exact same spot from where he’d delivered the pass and watched as Ned, as usual, got high-fives all around. Joe once said that you didn’t need one of those GPS guidance gizmos from your parents’ car to locate Ned Hancock—just the sound of applause.
Everybody was acting as if Ned had somehow passed the ball to himself.
Pedro didn’t care. If you played with Ned you knew it was his game, and you were just playing in it. It had pretty much been that way since they’d first become teammates, and Pedro accepted it. He was a point guard and he always remembered something he’d read once from a famous coach named Larry Brown, who said that the only stat that mattered for a point guard was the final score—whether or not his team had won the game, not how many points and assists he had.
Their team had won, and that was enough for Pedro. That and the satisfaction of making that pass, delivering that baby like it was the afternoon mail.
He quietly walked over to the water fountain to get himself a drink before they started up all over again.
Joe Sutter, when he did talk, liked to say that the best thing about his buddy Pedro was that he knew who he was. He never needed to be a star, on any team he’d ever played for. He didn’t need to put himself out there, to say to everybody, Hey, look at me.
He just wanted to win the game.
TWO
Even though it was November and soccer season had just ended for Pedro’s town team, it hadn’t ended for him and his dad.
For the two of them, on Saturday mornings at least, soccer season didn’t end until there was snow on the ground.
For Pedro, the best part of soccer Saturdays wasn’t running around on his school’s soccer field, it was being with his dad. Because more than any professional athlete, Luis Morales was Pedro’s hero.
They were on the field at Vernon Middle even earlier than usual because Luis had to work later that day. The way he had been working every day lately, getting ready to open his own restaurant in Vernon’s downtown district.
The restaurant was going to be called Casa Luis, and Pedro knew it was so much