I knew we were in for it against Millwood, but I didn’t realize just how much we were in for it until I pulled open the gym door.
No lie, Millwood’s gym looked like one of those high school gyms you see in the movies. Fifteen rows of bleachers on both sides, baseline to baseline, and those bleachers were packed. Seriously packed. As the Millwood players warmed up, the fans waved orange and black towels and bobbed to the dubstep pumping out of the speakers on the walls behind the baskets. Championship banners hung from all the rafters. The only thing missing was a Jumbotron!
As we entered the gym …
“Boo!”
“Go back to Clifton!”
“Boo!”
“I’ve never been booed and heckled before,” Keith said, cringing.
“Me neither,” I said.
I ducked back into the hall and went over to Red. He was with Mehdi and Mikey and hadn’t reached the door.
“It’s loud in there, Red,” I said.
“That’s why I’m wearing my earplugs, Mason Irving.” He tapped his ears.
“Really loud.” I tried to say it like I meant it without freaking him out.
Red turtled his neck and pressed his earplugs.
“You ready?” I asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, Mason Irving.”
We stepped in.
You know how before a big UFC match the two fighters stare each other down and you think they’re going to start whaling on each other right then and there? Well, every Millwood player looked like one of those fighters as we walked by their bench. They were ginormous, too. They looked like middle schoolers. Two of them even had mustaches.
The scariest member of Millwood was their coach. He was yelling, red-face yelling at his team.
“Take it to them!” Coach Crazy shouted. “What happened against Edgemont on Sunday was an embarrassment. You will not embarrass the orange and black on this court again!”
Over the weekend, Millwood lost to Edgemont. It was their first home loss in three seasons.
“Show this team what the orange and black is all about.” Coach Crazy gripped the jersey of one of his players. “Take it to them! Stomp them out! Send this league a message.”
I’d heard about coaches like Coach Crazy, but I’d never seen one in person. He freaked me out.
I checked Red: Fists by his squinting eyes. Swaying.
“How we doing over here, Red?” Coach Acevedo stepped to us.
“Their coach is buggin’,” I said first.
Coach Acevedo nodded. “He sure is.”
“Their coach is buggin’, Mason Irving,” Red said. “Seriously buggin’.”
“Seriously buggin’.”
* * *
“Let’s relax, everyone,” Coach Acevedo said in the pregame huddle. “Remember what I said about body language. No slumping shoulders or hanging heads. Whatever happens out there happens out there.”
Coach Acevedo waved us closer.
“We’re Clifton United,” he said. “We’re Clifton United before we take the court, we’re Clifton United while we’re on the court, we’re Clifton United after we leave the court.” He pointed down the gym. “That’s not who we are. That’s not who we want to be either.” He rapped his chest. “We’re Clifton United.”
* * *
On the opening tip, Millwood’s center easily out-jumped Jason and batted the ball to his mega-size teammate. Mega-Man lowered his shoulder and dribbled straight for Mikey and me. We were set in our chairs, but we couldn’t stop Mega-Man. He drove through us and scored a layup.
“Press! Press!” Coach Crazy shouted. He waved his arms madly. “Press! Press!”
Press? A full-court press? Was he kidding?
I knew how to break a full-court press—we needed to spread the floor, make quick passes, and keep the ball in the middle. The thing is, most of my teammates had probably never even heard of a full-court press.
Jason tried inbounding to me, but Mega-Man bodied me out of the way, stole the pass, and fed a super-size teammate. Super-Size lowered his shoulder, drove through Jason, and sank the layup.
That’s pretty much how it went the entire first half.
Red didn’t exactly enjoy it. He hid his eyes for most of the first half. Either with his hands or a towel over his head. A couple times, when Coach Crazy was yelling stupid loud, he had his palms pressed to his ears as he shook his head.
I wanted to be in basketball mode, but Coach Crazy was in my head.
Because of what he was doing to Red.
Then Coach Crazy had his players start cherry-picking.
Midway through the second quarter, Millwood began playing defense with only four players. Whenever we had the ball on their end, they sent one player—a “cherry-picker”—to wait by our basket. As soon as they forced a turnover or grabbed a rebound, they threw the ball to Cherry-Picker for an easy hoop.
“Don’t you think this is a little much?” Coach Acevedo said, walking down the sideline toward Coach Crazy.
Up until the cherry-picking, Coach Acevedo had been his positive, cheering self. But even Coach Acevedo had limits.
“Excuse me?” Coach Crazy said. He stood in front of the scorer’s table with his arms folded across his Homer Simpson belly.
“Don’t you think this type of gamesmanship is a little much?”
“Go back to your bench, Coach. Worry about your own team.”
Coach Acevedo nodded once. “Thank you.”
* * *
At halftime, Coach Acevedo brought us to an empty classroom away from the gym.
“Let’s pick up those heads,” he said. He closed the door and walked to the front of the room. “I don’t want to see any hanging heads.”
We all sat at the arm desks arranged in rows. He waited for everyone to look up.
“That’s more like it.” He smiled. He placed his iPad on the teacher’s desk and pointed toward the hall. “What’s happening out there has nothing to do with you. Nothing. It has everything to do with that coach. That coach is a bully, and if it were up to me, he wouldn’t be coaching kids. Unfortunately, it’s not up to me, so for another half, we have to deal with him.”
With my basketball eyes, I checked Red, sitting diagonally across the aisle in the row along the windows. He was pinky-thumbing his thigh faster than I’d ever seen him. Both knees bounced against the desk. His wide eyes were glued to Coach Acevedo.
“Why doesn’t the ref do something?” Keith asked.
“There’s not much he can do,” Coach Acevedo said. “That coach is not breaking the rules. He’s just being a jerk.” He pulled back his hair. “So here’s what we’re going to do.”
Coach Acevedo picked up his iPad. “At our last practice, we worked on making passes and setting screens.” He flipped open the cover, tapped the screen, and drew with his finger. “Making passes and setting screens. That’s our strategy.”
He held up the display.
“We’re playing keep-away out there,” he said. “Passing and picking away. Nonstop. It’s not going to get us a lot of points, but it will run time off the clock, and it will keep them from scoring as much.”
Then Coach Acevedo diagrammed a break-the-press play and an inbounds-pass play. I wasn’t all that sure either would work, but it was better than what we had now. Which was nothing.
“Whatever happens out there happens,” Coach Acevedo said again. “But no matter what happens out there, we keep our body language. When you’re on the floor, you’re playing hard. When you’re on the bench, you’re cheering hard. We’re Clifton United. Let’s get back out there.”
The team headed out of the room. When I reached the door, I turned around.
Red hadn’t moved.