Free Hot Hand by Mike Lupica Page B

the Magic, on a nice bounce pass from Billy. Jeff Wilpon made the first three-pointer of his life. Zack Fredman hit two shots for the 76ers.
    Magic by one.
    Then Lenny drove to the basket, drew Zack and what looked like the rest of the 76er team to him, fed Jim Sarni for a layup.
    Magic by three.
    It was the 76ers ball, thirty-three seconds left, up three points.
    Billy’s dad called time-out.
    “No fouls,” he said. “Just play straight-up defense. Then if they miss and we get the rebound, throw it down to our end and run out the clock.”
    Then he added: “ No shots. Is that clear? No shots. If they tie us, it’ll be because they took the ball away from us.”
    The 76ers did foul once, but after that they just tore around the court trying to steal a pass or the ball.
    With fifteen seconds left, they threw the ball down to Zack. Lenny was guarding him by now. Zack turned on him and tried a shot he’d been making the whole game, and missed.
    As soon as he did, Billy tore down toward their end of the court. Lenny must have been reading his mind, because as soon as he had the rebound, almost without looking, he whipped a long pass that Billy caught up with at the Magic’s free throw line.
    Clear path to the basket.
    Like it was a layup drill.
    And a layup would put the Magic ahead by five points.
    Billy figured that was just as good as running out the clock.
    Took two dribbles, laid the ball up.
    And knew the minute he did that he had shot it slightly too hard. You shot the ball enough in your life, even when you were ten, and you knew.
    Billy knew.
    The ball didn’t even touch the rim, just bounced off the backboard to the other side, bounced right into the hands of Zack Fredman, who had appeared out of nowhere to grab the rebound, like he’d broken some kind of speed record to get there.
    The 76ers had already called their last time-out. So Zack just wheeled the way Lenny had, almost before his feet touched the ground, and threw a long pass down the court to Eric Dodds, known as Doddsie, the 76ers’ best outside shooter.
    Doddsie caught the ball, looked down to make sure he was outside the three-point line, let the ball go with one second left.
    The whole time it was in the air, Billy had this sick feeling in his stomach, because he was sure it was going in and they were going to a second overtime.
    But in rushing to get the shot off in time, Doddsie had flung the ball up there too hard.
    It hit high off the backboard like Billy’s layup, no rim at all, and the Magic had won.
    Survived was more like it, Billy thought.
    He was still staring at the 76ers’ basket when he heard his dad behind him.
    “Are you finally done taking hero shots now?” his dad said in a loud voice you could suddenly hear all over the gym.
    It was just the two of them in this part of the court, and Billy could see everybody else stopping to watch them. Because they sure weren’t celebrating with everybody else on the Magic.
    “I thought I could just make the layup and put the game out of reach,” he said. “I just missed, is all.”
    “What part of ‘no shots’ didn’t you understand?” his dad said, not lowering his voice, still steamed. “Or are you under the impression that ‘no shots’ doesn’t apply to you?”
    And just like that, Billy was sick and tired of his dad taking shots at him .
    Sick and tired of being picked on, sick and tired of being yelled at because of basketball, sick and tired of his dad talking about this perfect season and then doing everything to ruin it for him.
    “Leave me alone!” he shouted back at his dad.
    He didn’t care who heard. Not the other players, not his mom, not Peg.
    Not anybody.
    “You ruin everything!” Billy said.
    His dad stared at him for what felt like a long time and then said, “Everything except tomorrow’s game.”
    His dad walked away, saying, “Because you’re not playing in it.”

FIFTEEN
    When they got home, his mom said she would talk to his dad about