Long Shot - Mike Lupica [30]
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.
Shoot it.
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.
FIFTEEN
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