Play Makers

by Mike Lupica

  His fourth foul, before the fourth quarter had even begun. Coach took him out. Sam made room for him, moving one seat over. Ben sat down hard and said, “My feet were set.”

  “I know,” Sam said.

  “Me, too,” Coach Wright said.

  “Coach, I can play the fourth quarter with four fouls,” Ben said.

  Coach patted him on the shoulder and said, “Know that, too.”

  By the time the quarter ended, though, the Rams were down ten. Staring at a potential 0–3 start the way Ben kept staring at the scoreboard.

  He didn’t have to ask to go back out for the fourth quarter, even with those four fouls. Coach just turned to him and said, “You’re gonna be there at the start of the quarter, and still out there at the end of the game. Got it?” Ben nodded, then listened as Coach Wright said, “Here’s all my wisdom for the rest of this game: Go win it.”

  They put their hands together, broke the huddle. As they did, Sam whacked him with one of his crutches and said, “Jamal’s tired.”

  “Right,” Ben said. “He gets tired about as often as I get tired.”

  “I’m telling you, the guy’s dragging,” Sam said. “He’s got no push when he shoots from the outside, it’s why he missed his last couple of shots. Start picking him up fullcourt.”

  “How come you never did this much coaching before you got hurt?”

  Sam said, “Didn’t have to. Had you.”

  But he was right. Jamal was starting to act a little gassed, and Ben making him work bringing the ball up the court didn’t even allow him to have a quick breather doing that.

  And for the first time the whole game, Jamal wasn’t smiling.

  With four minutes left, Ben stole the ball from Jamal at the top of the key, started a fast break, fed Coop for his first basket of the game. Knights 40, Rams 34. Ben still had those four fouls. They were still looking at 0–3 if they couldn’t win the last four minutes. But Ben felt the game changing.

  Felt like something good was finally about to happen in the basketball season.

  Jamal may have been tired, but wasn’t done, came down and made a crazy off-balance three from the corner, falling out of bounds as the ball went through the basket. Knights back up nine. Coach Wright jumped up and called time, waved them over, telling them to hurry, like he couldn’t wait to give the pep talk Ben knew he was about to give them.

  They all took seats, he knelt down in front of them, said, “Plenty of time. Pretty simple plan, too: Get a score, get a stop. Then do that again.”

  Coop grinned. “Now you tell us.”

  Coach looked up at all of them and said, “Boys, the next few minutes are gonna turn our whole season around.”

  This was one more time, Ben knew, when Coach Keith Wright was trying to make his belief theirs.

  Ben came down the right side, left-hand dribbled toward the free throw line, wheeled, and threw it to Shawn on the right wing. Where Sam always was. Shawn didn’t hesitate, even though he hadn’t made a shot for a while, knocked down the three.

  Just like that they were down six again, 43–37.

  Still down six with just under two minutes left. Jamal ran some clock, like he’d been doing, got a step on Ben. This time it was Coop stepping between Jamal and the hoop, Coop trying to draw the foul. Coop didn’t flop, he hated guys who flopped trying to draw fouls, just stood there and took the hit.

  This time the Rams got the whistle, the ref putting his hand to the back of his head, meaning offensive foul. Coop nodded, turned to Ben, pointed. Ben took the inbounds pass from him, pushed the ball hard up the court, got inside, wanting to kick it to either Darrelle on the left wing or Shawn on the right. Both smothered. Ben didn’t hesitate, put up a sweet teardrop over Jamal Warren, money all the way.

  Down four.

  “Score and stop,” Coach had said.

  They got the stop, Darrell made a wide-open jumper off a feed from Ben at the other end. Down two. The Knights’ shooting guard made a wide-open jumper of his own. Rams still down four. Ben went back to Darrelle. Outside the three-point line this time. Darrelle held his shooting pose, sure that he’d made it. He had.

  Now the Rams were down one.

  Thirty-eight seconds left.

  Lot of ways this could go. The Knights could just hold it for thirty-five seconds, dare the Rams to get off a good shot with the three seconds they had left. Or the Rams could foul.

  Or the Rams could get one more stop.

  Ben didn’t even wait to hear from Coach, yelled, “No fouls!” at his teammates. Doing what point guards are supposed to do, being the coach on the floor that the coach of the team expected him to be.

  Jamal stood and dribbled the ball near the midcourt line, eyes shifting from Ben to the shot clock over the basket. Ben checking the shot clock over the Rams’ basket, opposite end. Ben more sure than ever that Jamal was going to drive the ball to the basket, either score or draw a foul. Or both.

  Twelve seconds left.

  “Go!” Jamal’s coach yelled.

  It was just enough to distract him, Jamal turning his head just slightly, Ben going for the ball as he did, getting a hand on it, swiping it toward the sideline.

  He and Jamal seemed to have the same shot at the ball, until they didn’t, Ben hearing Coach Wright’s voice inside his head, that voice yelling at him the way he always yelled at practice when they’d have loose-ball drills:

  “Who wants it more?”

  I do.

  Ben got to the ball a stride before it went out of bounds, knowing it would be off him if it did go out, not knowing the time, just knowing there couldn’t be much of it left in Kingsland.

  Got his right hand on the ball. As he did, saw a streak of blue — the Rams were in their blue road uniforms — heading toward their basket.

  Ben didn’t hesitate, just wheeled and threw the ball as hard as he could in that direction, saw at the same time who it was.

  MJ.

  MJ: Who hadn’t even taken a shot yet in a real game, who’d bricked the two free throws he’d attempted in the Parkerville game the week before.

  MJ caught up with the ball at the top of the key, Ben seeing there were three seconds left now at the same time MJ did. MJ deciding in that moment there wasn’t enough time for him to drive in for a layup.

  Ben could only watch helplessly from where he was standing, watch the way everybody else in Kingsland’s gym did, watch as MJ pushed off on the wrong foot, looking as if he were somehow falling down a flight of stairs as he pushed his shot toward the basket, releasing the ball right before the clock showed one second left.

  Ben: Watching in disbelief as MJ’s shot, so high it looked like it might bounce off the shot clock, kissed the very top of the backboard and dropped through the net as the Rams went from losing another game to finally winning one.

  More than anything, Ben was happiest for MJ Lau.

  The guy who hadn’t made the team two years in a row. The guy who needed Sam getting hurt to get his spot this year. The guy who hadn’t scored and really couldn’t score hitting the game-winning basket.

  Looking as happy now on the court as sports could ever possibly make you.

  First he ran straight for Ben, Ben afraid in that moment that MJ was going to plow right through him the way he did to opposing players when they got in his way. Like he might get whistled for one more foul even though the game was over and the Rams had won.

  He stopped just short and chest-bumped Ben instead, Ben happy he’d braced himself for whatever was about to happen, because it would have been a little embarrassing having a teammate’s chest bump put him down.

  “Thank you!” MJ said.

  “You’re welcome,” Ben said. “But for what, exactly?”

  “Passing me the ball!”

  “Dude, you were open.”

  “Are you insane?” MJ said. “I’m open all the time and guys don’t throw me the ball.”

  “Well this time I did,” Ben said. “And you made the shot. An
d if you can make that shot with the game on the line, you know what that means, right?”

  “Help me out.”

  “It means you’re a scorer now.”

  “I am?” MJ said. Like it was still a question for him. But then he smiled and nodded his head and said, “I am!”

  MJ ran up into the stands then, up to where his dad was, MJ’s dad waiting for him the way Ben’s always did, waiting for a hug.

  When Ben turned back around, Jamal was standing there, hand stretched straight out for Ben to shake.

  “You got me this time,” he said.

  “Got lucky, is all.”

  “Nah,” Jamal, smiling again, said. “Was no luck involved. You read me perfectly. Forgot at the worst possible time I can’t let up for one second going against a guy like you.”

  “Good playing against you,” Ben said.

  Meaning it.

  “Same.”

  “Maybe we’ll see you in the playoffs,” Ben said, but Jamal said, “Nah, we’re not good enough.”

  Maybe we aren’t, either, Ben thought after Jamal walked away. Maybe we’re just not this season, not without Sam. But as Ben walked toward Sam now, Ben feeling a smile of his own coming over him, he thought this, too:

  We were good enough today.

  Just.

  Sam said, “So this is what winning feels like, huh?”

  “Almost forgot.”

  “It has only been a few weeks since football.”

  “Dude, a lot has happened since,” Ben said. “Too much.”

  “Let’s just enjoy this one at least until we get home,” Sam said. “You’re the one always telling me the biggest game is the one we’re playing.”

  “Or just played.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “That, too.”

  “If we can win one like this,” Ben said, “maybe miracles can still happen for us.”

  They both turned at the same time, saw MJ still up in the stands, high-fiving other kids’ parents now.

  “One just did,” Sam said.

  Ben and Sam went back and sat down in front of Coach Wright with the rest of the guys, as Coach said, “Boys, that one was just pure good.”

  And that’s the way Ben was feeling right now, first time in a while, hoping the feeling would last.

  Pure good.

  Not bad.

  Usually when he’d get home after a game like this, a win like this, Lily would be waiting for him.

  Lily would know about the game, because she always knew. Win or lose. She might wait a little longer sometimes if it was a loss, just to give Ben some room. But if it was a really bad loss, she’d be right there, sitting on his front porch or waiting inside with Ben’s parents if somebody else had given him a ride home.

  Lily: Who’d tell him it was just a silly old game if the Rams had lost or making it sound like practically the greatest win in the whole world if they’d won.

  Just not today.

  She wasn’t waiting for him at the house when Mr. O’Brien dropped off him and Sam and Coop and Shawn. When Ben tried to call her house, he got the answering machine. No e-mails from her on his laptop when he ran up to his room to check, telling the guys he’d be right back, he wanted to grab his Packers sweatshirt in case they went outside.

  No message on the McBains’ phone.

  No text message on the cell phone he’d only had for a month.

  No Lily.

  So things still weren’t normal between them, even though she’d accepted his apology — Monday, at school — for the way he’d acted at Pinocchio’s.

  If things were normal, he knew, he would have heard from her by now. She would have texted him about the game. Or come over. Or called. But she hadn’t. Her call, Ben thought. It had been too great a day, too great a finish, too great a win for him to let a girl ruin it. Even the best girl Ben knew.

  He threw on his sweatshirt, walked down the stairs, already hearing the laughter from the basement.

  Ben went down there to be with his boys.

  Saturday before Christmas. Second regular-season game against Darby. Darby’s gym.

  Rams at 2–2, having beaten Glendale at Glendale the previous Saturday. The Bears still undefeated, a perfect 4–0.

  Rockwell vs. Darby, again. Ben vs. Chase, even if Ben had been telling himself all week that the object of the game wasn’t for him to beat Chase Braggs on Chase’s home court. It was to get the Rams over .500.

  If they could beat the Bears, they’d go into the break with a 3–2 record and the Bears would be 4–1. One game separating them in the standings. Game on.

  Two wins in a row now for the Rams. So things were getting better in basketball for Ben. And with Lily, ever since his apology, still not great, like there was something between them, something they still weren’t talking about.

  But a little better.

  Ben was trying to explain it to Sam on the way to Darby, Ben’s mom driving her new SUV, Ben and Sam and Coop in the backseat, Shawn in the way-backseat.

  “It sounds, dear,” Ben’s mom said, “as if this Chase is still the elephant in the room.” And then explained to them that the elephant in the room meant something nobody wanted to talk about.

  “More like the donkey in the room, if you ask me,” Coop said.

  “Good one, Coop,” Sam said.

  Coop blew out some air and said, “Wow, I don’t hear that one very much.”

  Shawn said, “Is Lily coming today?”

  Ben said, “She said she was.”

  “To an away game?” Coop said.

  “Uh, I think she slept over at Molly’s last night,” Ben said.

  “So she was in Darby last night?” Sam said. “You think that brought the Chase factor into play?”

  Ben said, “Why don’t you ask her?” knowing he sounded way too chafed, not able to do anything about it.

  “C’mon, I’m just playin’,” Sam said.

  “Time to talk about playing this game,” Ben said, and so that’s what they did for the rest of the ride to Darby Middle School, telling one another that today’s game was going to be different from the others against Chase Braggs and the Darby Bears.

  And it was.

  Lily was there, Ben saw her a few minutes before the game started, sitting up behind the Rams’ bench, smiling at Ben and waving when she caught his eye.

  Mouthing: Good luck.

  Ben waved back and then, because he could feel Lily’s eyes still on him, ran over to shake hands with Chase Braggs.

  “Have a good one,” he said.

  “Hey,” Chase said, “they’ve all been good ones for us so far.”

  Ben started to pull away, but Chase still had a grip on his right hand. The two of them at halfcourt, all the other players from both teams shooting around.

  “Well,” Ben said, trying to pull back, “let’s get after it.”

  Chase finally released his hand, saying, “Gotta look good in front of Lily, right?”

  “Right,” Ben said, and ran down to be with his teammates, wondering which one of them would look better today.

  He did early. Ben did and the Rams did. Both the first and second units. Offense and defense. Acting as if the Bears’ house was their house. Playing as if they were the best team in the Butler County League, as if they were the ones who were undefeated.

  Coach started the game with Ben guarding Chase, but after that kept switching up his defenses: man, zone, box-and-one, fullcourt press, sometimes trap press. When they went back to man, it would be Darrelle on Chase, or Shawn, even MJ.

  All good, mostly because all the different looks were clearly frustrating Chase Braggs. Frustrating him at first and then annoying him, Chase starting to force shots and passes. Forcing the action, never a good thing for the guy with the ball, the guy who was supposed to be controlling the action.

  Not only were the Rams winning the game right now, they had done something Ben thought was impossible:

  They had shut up Chase Braggs.

 
As the Rams came out of a huddle with two minutes left in the half, up twelve points, Coop leaned close to Ben and said, “Pretty quiet from Number 1.”

  Chase’s number. Of course.

  “Long way to go,” Ben said, what he always said when he felt like one of his teammates was thinking about going into a victory lap way too early.

  “I’m not an idiot,” Coop said. “It’s just that we know now that when you’re playing like trash you can’t talk it.”

  They held their lead from there until the half. Chase finally hit a jumper, fed Jeb Arcelus for a layup. But Ben made a long two-pointer of his own, the third outside shot he’d made in the half, ended up with the ball again, the Rams with a chance to keep the lead at twelve. Chase guarding him. Waiting for Ben to make his move.

  Chase: Almost looking impatient for Ben to get on with it, so the half would be over.

  With ten seconds left, Ben dribbled hard to his right, picked up a screen from Shawn, kept going, turned the corner ahead of Chase now, ahead of the play.

  Still plenty of time.

  “I got him!” he heard Chase yell behind him.

  But he didn’t.

  I got you, Ben thought.

  As Chase scrambled to get in front of him, Ben crossed over to his left hand. As he did, Chase Braggs, the great Chase Braggs, got his feet tangled up.

  And went down.

  Ben didn’t waste time checking the shot clock, knew there couldn’t be much clock left, pulled up and pushed a soft floater at the basket, saw it go in with three seconds left, the Rams back up by twelve. Chase still on the floor.

  Ben reached down to help him up, seeing that Chase didn’t want to take his hand, seeing Chase hesitate slightly. But knowing he had to take Ben’s hand, knowing how bad he’d look if he didn’t. Maybe just not wanting to look bad in front of Lily, whether he cared about everybody else in the gym or not.

  Let Ben help him to his feet.

  “This isn’t over,” he said.

  “Who said it was?” Ben said.

  They went to their benches like fighters going to their corners. Rams 32, Bears 20. Long way to go.

  This was one of the times when Coach tried to dial down their excitement a few notches. Like he was trying to pump them down instead of up.