Travel Team

by Mike Lupica

  Then Richie smiled and used a whole bunch of biggies in one sentence, telling him what he should do with all his worries and what he wanted the Warriors to do to Kirkland.

  Then he motioned for Danny to come close, like he wanted to whisper something, and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Don’t do it for anybody except yourself,” he said. “Make yourself proud today.”

  Danny said, “I love you, Dad.”

  With his good hand, Richie gave him a little shove. “Beat it now,” he said.

  As Danny opened the door, he heard him say, “I love you, too, bud.”

  Danny turned back around then, smiling, trying to remember the last time he’d heard his dad say that.

  “Remember the team rules,” Richie said. “Play hard. Have fun. Shoot if you’re open.”

  “If you’re not,” Danny said, “pass it to somebody who is open.”

  “And I want to add one more, just for today.”

  Danny waited.

  “Beat Kirkland’s ass,” his dad said.

  27

  THE WARRIORS WERE THE ONES GETTING THEIR BUTTS HANDED TO THEM.

  Total nightmare from the start.

  Richie Walker had told Danny one time about what he said was the old coaches’ nightmare. He said he’d heard it from a little guy who used to coach St. John’s, one Richie called Coach Looie, at a dinner one time right before the Big East tournament.

  “It’s like a school nightmare you’ll get someday, even when you’re not in school anymore,” Richie said. “It’s one where you have to take a test, only you’re scared out of your pants because you haven’t been to class all semester. This is the basketball version. The coach wakes up with the heebie-jeebies in the middle of the night because his team is playing this game and, no matter what he tries, they can’t make a single basket.”

  Danny was the twelve-year-old coach having the old coaches’ nightmare now against Kirkland.

  Only problem was, it was real.

  The Warriors couldn’t score a single basket.

  The whole first quarter.

  Kirkland 10, Warriors 0.

  “I’m going to be the first coach to ever get shut out for a whole game,” Danny said to Will with five seconds left in the quarter, while Kirkland’s best player, Bud Sheedy, was making the first of two free throws.

  Sheedy was a tall sandy-haired kid, taller than everybody else on his team, who was a lot like Ty, which meant he wasn’t really a guard, or forward, or center.

  He was another cool basketball kid whose real position was just basketball player.

  “Well,” Will said, “I have been telling people all week that you were going to make history.”

  Danny was playing tight; they all were. Will had missed at least three wide-open shots he would normally knock down. Colby fumbled the ball so much trying to bring it up against the press she reminded Danny of someone trying to play basketball wearing the kind of floppy oven mitts his mom would wear in the kitchen sometimes.

  Every time there was a chance for the Warriors to get a rebound, Bud Sheedy was making Matt Fitzgerald look like he was the one who was fifty-six inches tall. Same with Michael Harden. Same with Oliver Towne.

  Danny called his first time-out when it was 6–0, after they’d played just over four minutes.

  “Everybody relax,” he said in the huddle. “And when I say everybody, I’m talking to myself, too. Okay?”

  “Roger that,” Will said. “The way things are going, we figured it was only a matter of time before you started talking to yourself.”

  Danny heard some stifled laughs, as if they didn’t know whether that was allowed or not.

  “See, Will’s starting to relax already,” Danny said. “And listen, no lie, there’s a long way to go.”

  Colby Danes said, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “We are gonna come back in this stupid game,” Danny said. “For now, let’s try to change the zone a little, make it more of the two-on-two my dad usually has us play. Maybe that will slow down these scumweasels.”

  On their way back out on the court, Will said, “Scumweasels?”

  Danny said, “I didn’t want to say scumwads in front of Colby.”

  The only thing keeping the Warriors in the game was that except for Bud Sheedy, no one was doing much scoring for Kirkland, either. But even after the time-out, the Warriors still couldn’t make anything. When Matt picked up his third foul a couple of minutes into the second quarter, just to make matters worse than they were already, Kirkland had stretched out its lead to 14–0.

  Danny called another time-out after Matt got his third, just to get him the heck out of there, afraid that if he left him in for even another minute, he might foul out by halftime.

  They all gathered around him in the huddle—players, his mom with her clipboard, Tess with her scorebook—and waited for him to say something brilliant, or maybe inspirational.

  Nothing came out of his mouth.

  For one quick second, he felt so helpless—the way you do when some bigger kid gets you down on the playground and you can’t move or even breathe—he thought he might cry.

  He didn’t, just because there was a part of him that knew it would go on his Permanent Record forever, worse than any black mark any teacher could put in there: How Danny Walker tried to coach the team and started crying.

  The best he could do, finally, was: “Okay, listen up.”

  All he had.

  He looked around at some of the faces, staring at him, waiting for the boy coach to start coaching. Only he still didn’t have the words. Like he was the one with the whole game sitting on his chest.

  Then, from behind him, he heard: “You guys are doing this all wrong.”

  Danny was on his knees in the middle of the huddle. He craned his neck around and saw Ty Ross standing there behind Oliver Towne and Michael Harden.

  Ty said, “I played against Buddy Sheedy all summer in this camp league we have out at the beach.”

  They all turned to look at Ty now. Danny didn’t even wonder about what he was doing here; he was just thrilled that someone seemed to know what he was talking about.

  Ty said to Danny, “You’ve got to box-and-one him. That’s what teams always do against me.” He grinned. “It even works against me sometimes.”

  Danny had two thoughts, one right on top of another. One was that Ty was right about the box-and-one. The second was: How come I didn’t think of that?

  Box-and-one. One guy playing man-to-man against Bud Sheedy. Everybody else in a packed-in zone.

  Ty said, “Put Will on him. Buddy’s got the height. But Will can dog him all over the place.” He gave Will a playful shove. “Maybe even talk to him a little bit.”

  Will said, “I think I can handle that.”

  The ref, Tony, their regular guy, poked his head past Ty and said to Ali Walker, “Fifteen seconds, ma’am.”

  Danny said, “Okay. Matt, I changed my mind, I’m keeping you in. Oliver, you play down low in the zone with Matt. Will, you’ve got Buddy, follow him to the bathroom if you have to. Colby, you sit for a minute. Bren, you’re bringing it up with me.”

  They all put their hands in the middle and yelled “DEE-fense!”

  As they broke the huddle Danny said to Ty, “You busy?”

  Ty shook his head.

  Colby was sitting on the folding chair next to Tess and Ali Walker. Danny motioned for her to move over one.

  “Have a seat,” Danny said. “I’m deputizing you.”

  Will didn’t care where the ball was when Bud Sheedy didn’t have it. He just went wherever Sheedy went, like he had blinders on. And whenever the two of them were anywhere near Danny, he could hear Will talking to Bud, as if they were sitting together on the bus.

  After one play when the refs couldn’t decide who’d knocked the ball out of bounds, Danny went over and stood next to the Warriors’ bench area.

  “Will’s gotta be careful he doesn’t go too far,” Ty said,
“trash-talking really isn’t allowed in the Tri-Valley League.”

  “He’s not really talking smack,” Danny said. “He’s just talking.”

  Ty said, “About what? I’m too far away to hear.”

  “When they went by me a minute ago, I heard him saying something about the Knicks’ playoff chances,” Danny said.

  It was 14–8 by then. Will had finally shut up long enough to make two open shots. Danny had put Colby back in for Oliver. Colby scored. Danny had assisted on all three baskets. Then he broke away for a layup when his guy thought he was going to pass to Colby again.

  When Kirkland called time-out, Danny said to Ty, “The defense is working.”

  “So far.”

  Ali Walker said, “Is it really called the boxcar-and-one?”

  At the same time, Danny and Ty said, “Box-and-one.”

  “Well,” Ali Walker said, “I think boxcar is more vivid.”

  “Mom,” Danny said, “we’re trying to work here.”

  Ty said, “If Will starts to get tired, go to the triangle-and-two, and you help out.”

  Bud Sheedy started to get frustrated now, even complaining to the ref one time about Will’s relentless chatter. He finally threw up a long hook shot, more in frustration than anything else. He seemed as surprised as anybody in the gym when it went in. Now it was 16–8, Kirkland. But Danny took the inbounds pass and beat everybody down the court and fed Colby for the layup that made it 16–10. Then Matt Fitzgerald shocked everybody by making two straight free throws for the first time all year. 16–12.

  Right before the horn sounded to end the half, the Warriors had a three-on-two break: Danny with the ball in the middle, Will on his left, Colby on his right. He passed to Will, who seemed to have a step on his guy. But the guy got in front of him. Will passed it back to Danny.

  It was as if the ball barely touched Danny’s hands.

  He half passed it, half slapped it to Colby, who made another layup.

  Kirkland 16, Warriors 14.

  Whole half to go.

  Game on.

  Danny took them all out into the hallway at halftime. After his mom passed out the Gatorade bottles and the oranges she’d cut into perfect wedges, he said, “Anybody got anything to say?”

  “I’ve got to save my voice for Buddy Boy,” Will said. He ran a hand through his thick hair. Danny was surprised, as usual, that the hand could make it all the way through in one shot. “He still won’t tell me whether he thinks Hilary Duff is hotter than Britney, by the way.”

  Ali Walker said, “Will honey? You could make prisoners of war talk.”

  Danny said, “Will, you just keep doing that mad thing you’re doing to him. On account of, it’s working. Matt, remember: No fouls. If you don’t have a clear path to the rebound, forget it. None of that reaching-over crap.” He gave a quick sideways look at his mom. “Sorry, Mom,” he said.

  “That’s Coach Mom,” she said. “I can take it.”

  Then he told Bren that the guy guarding him was backing off, and that Bren might get more shots in the second half than he’d gotten all season.

  “Cool,” Bren Darcy said.

  Then Danny looked over at Ty. “You got anything?”

  Ty said, “Just remember: The only other guy on the team besides Buddy who can hurt you is the kid up front who’s almost as big as Buddy. I forget his name. He doesn’t get to shoot much, but he can make an open shot. So Matt, you’ve got to keep an eye out for him down low.”

  Matt said, “He smells.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he can’t make an open shot,” Danny said.

  Matt said, “No, I mean he really smells.”

  Tess said, “Well, on that manly-man note.”

  They were all standing around Danny then. “I’m gonna tell you all the last thing my dad told me today when I went to see him,” Danny said. “Beat Kirkland’s—”

  “Daniel,” his mom said.

  “—butts,” Danny said.

  Matt picked up his fourth foul halfway through the third quarter, doing exactly what Danny had told him not to do, going over the top trying to take a rebound away from the smelly kid.

  Danny took him out and put Oliver Towne in the middle of the triangle, between Colby and Bren. Will was handling Bud Sheedy most of the time, Danny coming over to help out when he could, which meant any time he wasn’t afraid that he was leaving about three guys wide open.

  Six minutes into the third quarter, the game was tied at 24.

  All of a sudden Colby Danes—the one Richie Walker had called the basketball girl of Danny’s dreams—couldn’t miss. She made the first three shots she tried in the second half, two from the outside, one of them way outside, the other one over Bud Sheedy after she took a rebound away from him and got an easy put-back.

  Every time she made a basket, she’d jump a little higher in the air and her smile would get a little bigger, and then she’d go bounding down the court like a colt, ponytail bobbing behind her.

  It didn’t take great powers of observation to notice that Bud Sheedy and the rest of the Kirkland Comets liked having a girl show them up—for the time being, anyway—about as much as they would have liked wearing her clothes.

  Then, just like that, as if somebody had accidentally switched off the power, both teams seemed to stop scoring. It went on over the rest of the third quarter and into the fourth. It was either really good defense causing it, or really bad offense. Or maybe a combination of the two. By the time there were five minutes to go, the game was still tied, 28–28, and as excited as Danny was, as they all were, about having a chance to win, he was worried that Will was getting tired. So he replaced him on Bud Sheedy with Michael Harden.

  But Michael couldn’t stay with him. Sometimes Michael and Danny together couldn’t stay with him. Bud got loose and made two straight shots for the first time since the start of the game. Danny knew he couldn’t let him get hot, not coming down the stretch, when he could run them right out of the gym.

  During a break in play, while the refs tried to untangle one of the nets, Danny said to Tess, “How many time-outs do I have left?”

  “Three,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Tess gave him the raised eyebrow. “I’m going to forget I heard that,” she said.

  Danny called time, walked down to where Will was sitting with a towel on his head that he’d fashioned into some kind of turban.

  “Uh, Mohammed?” he said.

  Will said, “I was actually going for that do-rag look defensive backs go with when they take their helmets off.”

  “You actually remind me of one of my dad’s nurses,” Danny said. “I need you to go back in and stay in the rest of the way on Bud.”

  “I may have to talk a little less,” Will said, taking the towel off his head and spiking it as he stood up.

  Danny said, “I can live with that.”

  They walked down to where the rest of the team was waiting in the huddle. As soon as Danny got in there, a laugh jumped out of his throat like one of those magician’s bunnies jumping out of a hat.

  “How much fun is this?” he said.

  It came down to the wire—Kirkland 32, Warriors 30, with twenty-five seconds left.

  Danny called for the same clear-out play he’d tried at the end of the Hanesboro game, him and Colby over on the right.

  Kirkland played it about the same way Hanesboro had.

  Danny ended up with pretty much the same shot, just inside the free throw line.

  This time it was Bud Sheedy running at him from his left.

  One step too late.

  Danny got his shot up in the air. Telling himself to shoot it higher this time. Give it a chance to come down softer.

  Drained the sucker.

  It was 32–all. Fifteen seconds left. Before Kirkland could inbound the ball, Danny called his last time-out.

  Ty said, “They won’t expect you to put the press back on.”

  Danny had taken the pre
ss off when he put Will back in the game, just as a way of saving Will’s legs, which were wobbly even after Danny had given him his short rest.

  “No,” Danny said to Ty. “Yes, you’re right, they won’t be expecting it. But no, I don’t want to take the chance that somebody gets beat, especially without Matt back there to play safety.”

  He had put Matt back into the game with four fouls at the same time he put Will back in, but the big guy—who’d been coughing and wheezing with a cold all day and seemed almost relieved to be able to sit down for good—had fouled out a minute later.

  Danny said, “They’re going to try to isolate Bud. Because whatever they might want us to think they’re doing, nobody else besides Bud will have the stones to take the shot.”

  He looked up at his mom. She just made a motion with her hand, like, just keep doing whatever it is you’re doing.

  Danny said, “He’ll get the ball behind that double screen they’ve been running. Then everybody’ll get out of the way, and they’ll let him try to dribble through all of us.”

  Danny looked at Ty, who nodded.

  To the Warriors, Danny said, “Everybody just play the D straight up, the way we have been. Once they see the press is off, they’ll probably have the point guard bring it up. Will? As soon as he crosses half-court, you leave Bud and run right at him.”

  “Excuse me?” Will said. “We’re going to leave Buddy Boy without anybody on him?”

  “Trust me,” Danny said.

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “Trying to win us a ball game,” Danny said.

  They put their hands together, came out, set up their triangle-and-two one last time. The point guard brought it up quickly, the way Danny had figured he would. Will was over on the right, where the smelly kid and one of the Kirkland forwards were coming out to set their screen.

  Will was still with Bud.

  As soon as the point guard crossed half-court, about twelve seconds showing on the clock, Danny could see him looking for Bud Sheedy.

  Will ran at the kid with the ball like a maniac.