Free Hot Hand by Mike Lupica

Magic were here today, nobody sick and nobody missing, so that meant he was only playing two quarters.
    Meaning this: If he didn’t start playing better, if all the guys on the Magic didn’t start playing better, Billy had one more quarter left in his season.
    When his dad got the whole team around him before the second quarter started, he looked at Billy and Lenny and said, “You guys and the rest of the so-called first unit take a seat. I need to talk to the guys who are going to get us back into the game.”
    That’s just what the second unit did. As badly as Billy’s five had just played in falling way behind, the guys off the bench came out smoking, as if the first quarter had never happened.
    Jake Lazar was the point guard, Ollie Brown the shooting guard for this unit. They played the way Billy and Lenny usually played together, had expected to play today. They played so well that Billy started to think that they might get to play the fourth quarter today, when the whole season would be on the line.
    The score was 20-20 at the half. When they ripped into the orange slices and small Gatorade bottles Mr. DiNardo had brought, Billy noticed his mom taking a seat next to Peg in the stands.
    No Ben.
    Billy hoped he was at piano for a change but didn’t really care, not today. All he cared about was beating the 76ers.
    His mom waved at him, held up a hand to show him she had her fingers crossed
    Billy gave her a quick wave back, the kind you gave when you didn’t want anybody else to notice.
    When they went back on the court to warm up for the second half, for what his dad called “a brand new ball game,” sounding like a TV announcer,
    Billy still didn’t know which five guys were playing the third quarter and which guys were playing the fourth.
    But the horn ending halftime sounded and Joe Raynor said, “Same group that ended the first half starts the second.”
    Lenny made a motion like he was wiping sweat off his forehead. Despite the way they had played, they were still fourth-quarter guys.
    Billy and Lenny were sitting next to Billy’s dad. Mr. DiNardo had moved down a few seats.
    Without looking at them, Billy’s dad said, “I hope I’m not making a mistake having these guys on the bench in the fourth.”
    “You’re not,” Billy said. “We won’t let you down.”
    “We’ll see about that,” Joe Raynor said. “Won’t we?”
    The second team didn’t play nearly as well in this quarter, and the Magic were behind again, by six points, starting the fourth. Billy expected his dad to give him one more big pep talk then, out of what Billy sometimes imagined was like a whole catalogue full of different pep talks for different situations.
    But his dad fooled him.
    All he said was this: “You guys have worked too hard to lose in the first round of the play-offs. Just go out there and play every single possession on offense and defense as if the whole season is riding on it.”
    Then he said, “One guy can’t win this game. But a team can.”
    It was probably Billy’s imagination, he was sure, that his dad was looking right at him when he said the last part.

FOURTEEN
    Billy and Lenny brought the Magic back this time.
    They brought them back like it was still just the two of them on this court, the way it had been before everybody showed up for the game.
    The Y had painted an extra three-point line on their court this year, a much shorter distance than a regular three-point line, but something the coaches thought would be fun for guys their age. When Billy made one from behind that line to finally put the Magic ahead, Lenny did his best imitation of Walt Frazier, the Knicks TV commentator who was always coming up with funny rhymes.
    “We are swishin’ and dishin’ now,” Lenny said.
    The Magic kept the lead into the last minute of the game. But then Zack Fredman, the best player on the 76ers, their center and the tallest kid in their league, amazingly stepped back and made a three-pointer of his