Free Full Court Press by Eric Walters Page A

ball to start the second half. As I walked up court to take up my position, I felt that strange sensation in the pit of my stomach that had been missing when I knew I wasn’t going to play. It was a cross between that feeling you get Christmas morning as you’re running down the stairsto open your presents, and the feeling you get while sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s, and hearing the drill going in the other room.
    â€œLet’s get ‘em,” Marcus said as he walked over and gave me a low five.
    The ref gave the ball to their throw-in man. They weren’t reacting to what we were doing at all. One man was back to take the in-bounds pass, while the other three were far up court. I could just barely see their player, hidden behind Roy.
    â€œCome on, ref, he’s only got five seconds to throw it in!” Roy bellowed.
    The player we were covering hardly moved. It was like he didn’t understand any of what was happening.
    â€œCome on, move! Get open!” the throw-in player screamed.
    The ref blew his whistle. “Time violation. Ball turns over to Clark!”
    Roy stepped out of bounds, took the ball from the surprised player and then tossed it to the ref. The ref immediately handed it back to Roy who instantly passed it in to Marcus. Before the other team could even think to react, he put up an easy two-pointer and I heard ourentire bench scream out!
    Nobody on the floor made a sound though. We’d agreed that we wouldn’t congratulate ourselves or lose our focus after the baskets. We were just going to get more and more intense each time we scored or stole the ball. More intense, more serious… more scary.
    Their man took the ball from the ref and got ready to in-bounds it again. The ball was hardly in his hands when he threw out a wild pass. Marcus gobbled it up, passed over to me, and I completed a pass to Roy who was right underneath, uncovered. He put it up and in!
    Suddenly it was twenty-seven to twenty-one. This game wasn’t just in reach. It was in the bag.
    * * *
    We all hooted and hollered as we ran into the change room. The final score was forty-three to thirty-seven. Not only had we won, we’d limited them to ten points in the whole second half!
    They were so fr ustrated that in the endthey’d started pushing and shoving us. That didn’t go on for long though. One of their players had stuck out a leg to trip me as I went to go by him. I went crashing to the floor. Roy went right over to that player and stood right beside him. I couldn’t hear what he said — nobody could because that was the way Roy would have wanted it — but the player came right over and apologized to me. Maybe Roy could still be a scar y jerk, but now he was a scar y jerk who was on
my
side.
    We’d played almost the whole third quarter and then Mr. Roberts had put out the other five. That was good because we were starting to get tired. He’d put us back out a few minutes into the fourth and we played until the game was pretty well decided.
    â€œCongratulations!” Mr. Roberts said loudly. “We are no longer the last-placed team in the league. We are tied for last place!”
    Another cheer went up. I couldn’t believe how excited everybody was… I couldn’t believe how excited I was!
    â€œActually we’re not in last,” Kia said. “Technically, because we
beat
the team we’re tied with, we’re ahead of them.”
    â€œAll right!” Roy screamed out. “We’re number eight! We’re number eight!”
    Everybody started chanting. Mr. Roberts even chanted along in his loud, rumbly voice. Finally he stood up and raised his hands above his head to silence us.
    â€œWe have two things we have to take care of. First, I’d like to present the game ball to the player of the game.”
    â€œWe have a player of the game?” Kingsley asked.
    â€œWe’ve never done it before because