Free Long Shot by Mike Lupica

minutes until pick-up time, and to start thinking about the Sherrill game on Saturday.
    Only then did the gym sound like a gym again: balls bouncing, players scattering to find open baskets, the real ones at both ends or the ones on the side.
    Everybody seemed to be in motion except Ned.
    He was still standing where he’d been when Pedro stole the ball from him, with his arms at his sides, staring at Pedro.
    He was supposed to be the most unselfish, un-cocky player in town, but now he was looking at Pedro the same way he had the day he found out Pedro was running for president against him.
    Like nobody else was even supposed to be breathing his air.
    Like he was showing Pedro the real Ned Hancock again.
    This time Pedro stared right back at him, held Ned’s look and held his ground at the same time, let him know that he wasn’t going anywhere.
    Pedro looked down the court at Ned Hancock as if to say, I’m here.

TWELVE
     
     
     
    The Knights won again on Saturday, on the road against Sherrill, a town about fifteen minutes away. They had taken the lead in the first quarter and never lost it, though the second unit did let Sherrill come back and tie them up a minute before halftime. But then Bobby hit two shots from the outside, one of them a three-pointer, and everybody on the second unit walked off the court feeling as if they’d done their jobs, pretty much held their place.
    Pedro wasn’t great, despite all the good intentions he’d brought with him to Sherrill. A few times, in his determination to start making things happen again, he forced passes and caused turnovers.
    He didn’t care. His attitude was that when he saw an opening, he wasn’t going to let it go. He was through playing scared.
    In the end, he wound up with more assists than turnovers, including assists on both of Bobby’s baskets. And even though outside shooting remained the weakest part of his game, Pedro had even managed to sink a three-pointer of his own.
    For the first time this season, he felt as if he’d helped the team more than he’d hurt it.
    Ned, of course, was playing like a total star, at both ends of the court, dominating the game in almost every possible way when he was out there. He wasn’t just making Dave look better today, he was making everybody around him look better, maybe even making the Knights look better than they really were. And as soon as he got back out to start the third quarter, the Knights’ lead went from five points to ten in what seemed like a blink.
    With five minutes to go in the quarter, Coach Cory took out Dave and put Pedro in at the point. So this was different than the second half of the Camden game, when Pedro and Ned had only played together during what the announcers loved to call “garbage time” at the end of blowout NBA games.
    This was real ball now. Even though they still had a nice cushion, Coach Cory told them during a time-out to “put these suckers away.”
    For a few minutes, the five on the court were last year’s starting lineup from the fifth-grade team: Pedro, Ned, Joe, Jamal, and Bobby. Maybe things were getting back to normal after all. That’s what Pedro thought, mostly because that’s what he wanted to believe.
    Badly.
    And for those last few minutes of the third quarter, it was like they were all in sync again, sharing the ball, keeping their lead even though Sherrill’s best player, a kid named Dwan, who was built like a football tight end but had a sweet shooting touch from the outside, was doing his best to keep his team in the game.
    The Knights were in charge, though, and had been in charge for most of the game. Everybody in Sherrill’s tiny, old-fashioned middle school gym knew it.
    They only had a few set plays, with a couple of options for each one. And while most of them technically started with the point guard making the first pass, the plays really started with the point forward.
    Ned.
    So even with Dwan staying hot, the Sherrill Sonics never pulled closer