Gramps drove Lucas and Ryan to the big game on Saturday morning.
They were the first ones to the gym. It gave them a chance to work more on the help defense they’d practiced on Thursday night, as a way of getting ready to play the Jefferson Jazz, and particularly Corey Tanner.
“We’re not gonna use this scheme of mine the whole game,” Gramps said. “Who knows, maybe we won’t need to use it at all if things go our way. But even if we just get one chance to use it, we better use it right, because the championship might ride on it.”
Maybe because it was just the three of them for now, Gramps’s voice sounded really loud in the gym, as if he were shouting, even though he never did that.
“By now,” Gramps said to Lucas and Ryan, “I guess we’ve figured out that we can all use a little help sometimes.”
They had rolled out bleachers on both sides of the gym for the championship game, as a way of accommodating the biggest crowd, by far, Lucas and the guys had seen all season.
The championship trophy was somewhere in the building. They didn’t know where. But it was here, and so were they.
“Still a long way to go between us and that trophy,” Lucas said to Ryan when they were in the layup line.
“Dude,” Ryan said. “I’m just glad we’re all here. Because it wasn’t all that long ago that I wasn’t sure I’d be.”
“Or Gramps,” Lucas said.
“You still keeping that basketball journal?” Ryan said.
Lucas told him it had turned into more of a project than their English papers, because of everything that kept happening.
“Let’s go write a good ending,” Ryan said.
“How about a great one?” Lucas said.
Not for the first time, he was glad Mr. Collins had suggested he keep a diary. Mr. C. had been right. Someday when he read it, he still might not believe everything that had happened, even though he’d lived it all.
When Gramps gathered them around him right before the start of the game, he kept his remarks brief. As usual.
“Everything under the sun that needs to be said has been said,” Gramps told them. “I’ll just build on something my grandson said the other night. You all know who you are. Now all that’s left to do is show everybody one more time.”
Lucas looked up into the bleachers behind their bench. His mom was sitting next to Maria and her parents. Even Maria’s grandmother was there. At the end of the row was Mr. Collins, sitting next to Ryan’s dad.
Corey Tanner was still getting his shots against Lucas in the first half. He just wasn’t making as many as he had in the first half, the last time the Wolves had played the Jazz. And Lucas was using just about every defensive trick he knew to slow him down. He was overplaying when he could. He was picking him up full-court sometimes. He was willing to try anything to get him off his game, and away from his favorite spots.
And the Wolves were making Corey work as much as they could on defense, running one pick-and-roll after another. They didn’t all result in baskets, of course. But they were working that play, working their stuff, the way they had all season, and working the other team’s best offensive player as hard as they possibly could, looking to tire him out.
Gramps was running his players in and out, using his bench, almost like a hockey coach sending his players over the boards for shorter shifts than usual, telling them he wanted everybody on the team to have fresh legs by the fourth quarter.
“You boys got the rest of the school year to get your rest,” Gramps said during one time-out.
“What if we make the state tournament?” Ryan said.
Gramps turned and stared at him, as if a snake had just crawled out of one of Ryan’s ears.
“What tournament?” he said. “All’s we got is today. All’s we ever got in sports is today.”
Just like that, what felt like such a long season when they were starting out, had become a short season. Just like that, it was a two-point game with two minutes left in the fourth quarter.
And two minutes would feel like a long season all by themselves.
Corey came down against Lucas, and began backing him in on the left side. Lucas tried to force him toward the baseline, knowing he preferred wheeling to his left when he went up and into his shot.
Didn’t work.
Corey scored over him.
The game was tied.
Lucas brought the ball up the court. He shot a look at Gramps.
“We’re fine,” Gramps said.
They passed the ball around on the outside until Ryan, who had made a couple three-pointers already in the second half, had a wide-open look from the right. This time he missed. But Billy fought off two of the Jazz big guys for a huge offensive rebound, then kicked the ball back outside to Lucas. They had a new shot clock. Ryan was back in the low blocks, and made a move toward the free-throw line, as if they were going to run another pick-and-roll. But then he stopped suddenly, and was spinning back toward the basket. Lucas had read him all the way. Sometimes you just know. Maybe because they knew each other’s games so well.
Lucas lofted a pass over Max. Ryan banked his shot home.
They were ahead by two again.
Just over one minute left.
The Jazz didn’t rush. Corey chose the right side now for his isolation against Lucas. He checked the clock over the basket. But this time he didn’t try to back him in. This time when Lucas gave him just enough room, dared him to take a three in this situation, he did.
Made it.
The Jazz were ahead by one now, the first lead they’d had in the fourth quarter.
Fifty seconds left. Even if the Wolves scored and took back the lead, there would still be plenty of time for the Jazz to take the last shot, maybe the dream shot that from Corey or Max or somebody else that would win the championship game.
Gramps didn’t call time, even though he had a time-out in his pocket. He let his players play. It wasn’t just who they were. It’s who he was. With ten seconds left on the shot clock, Ryan came up and set one more screen. Lucas threw him the ball. Only he didn’t use the screen now. He was the one popping out, to the foul line extended.
Ryan passed the ball back to him.
Lucas let his shot go.
It felt like money leaving his hands, as if he’d put a Steph Curry stroke on it.
But Corey Tanner got a piece of it, because of those long arms. Problem was, he got a piece of Lucas, too. The sound his hand made on Lucas’s shooting hand sounded like a thunderclap in that moment. It was a clear foul. The ref didn’t hesitate, and blew the whistle.
Two free throws coming.
If Lucas made them both, his team was back in front.
So here were the two free throws he’d thought he might have to make in a big moment—or even the biggest—all season long. Here was why he had stayed in the gym or in the park until he had made ten in a row, making himself knock down ten in a row.
Only he didn’t need ten now.
Just two.
All his life, from the time he’d starting playing, he had prided himself on being a team player. But now he was the team. He was like Ryan in tennis, out there alone, nobody to whom he could pass the ball.
He knew how many people were watching. The sound of the crowd today had been louder than anything they’d heard all season. But nothing had changed, not really. He was alone at the line. Him. Ball. Basket.
He went through his routine. Took a deep breath. Visualized the ball going through the basket.
He made the first.
Game tied.
He went through his routine again, telling himself not to rush. Took one more deep breath.
Lucas made the second.
The Wolves were ahead by a point.
Fifteen seconds left in the big game.
The Jazz coach didn’t call for a time-out, either. He let his players play, in the biggest moment of their season. There was no need for him to draw up a play, anyway. Everybody in the gym knew where the ball was going.
Corey Tanner.
He dribbled to the right. Lucas shadowed him.
Eight seconds.
Just the two of them on that side of the court as Corey started backing in.
It was here that Gramps did something he hadn’t done one time all season.
He yelled at them.
Top of his voice.
“Now!”
Ryan came running, long arms in the air, just as Corey turned back around on Lucas and went into his shot.
Only it wasn’t just Lucas on him.
Ryan was there, too, using his own long arms, making the clean block on Corey that Corey hadn’t made on Lucas at the other end.
The ball didn’t get close to the basket. It ended up in Billy’s hands instead, as the horn sounded with the Wolves still ahead by a point.