Future Sports

by Gardner Dozois

  Elwood and I were shooting alone in the gym when I asked, “Why don’t we go back to that trapping game?”

  He didn’t even turn around, just sank a shot as he answered. “Element of surprise the only thing makes it work, Bo. Teams’d see through that shit if we hauled it out two nights in a row.”

  “Some great teams won with defense, back—”

  “Shut up, Bo. You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “What have we got to lose?”

  “Shut up.”

  * * *

  Elwood’s playing got more and more distracted, and we went on a losing streak, but I didn’t catch on until two weeks before the end of the season, when the Knicks came to town again. I waited for Elwood to rouse us again, to make a big demonstration, and instead he played in what was becoming his usual trance. He almost seemed to be taking a masochistic thrill in letting Vanilla Dunk run wild.

  The next day I glanced at the papers, and I realized that, for once, Elwood was watching the standings.

  We had to lose three games in the standings to drop out of a regular playoff spot and into the wild-card spot. The wild-card team played the team with the conference’s best record in the first round of the playoffs, in a quick best-of-five series, a sort of warm-up for the real playoffs.

  The Knicks, thanks to their win over us the night before, were now the team with the best record, by one game over the Pistons.

  In other words, the victory over the Knicks earlier in the season wasn’t the main point; that was just Elwood finding out if he could do it.

  * * *

  Elwood and Coach Wilder yelled at each other for a straight half-hour in the visiting coach’s office in the bowels of the Garden. In the meantime I was left to play diplomat with the press and the rest of the team. I’d never been in the visitors’ locker rooms of the Garden before, and it frankly got me a little depressed. I’d never dared mention it to Elwood, but I missed the Knicks.

  When they came out it was Coach Wilder who looked beaten. Elwood didn’t say anything to me, but his eyes said he’d won his point. When we got out on the floor he flipped the practice ball to Early Natt, then crooked a finger and beckoned Early over to him.

  “Remember when I told you to go crazy?” he said.

  Early just nodded, smiling defensively. He looked a little intimidated by the roar of the Garden crowd.

  “We gonna do that again. Remember how?”

  Early nodded.

  “Just stay uptown, look for the pass. Stay open, that’s all.” Elwood turned to me but didn’t say anything, just stretched his arms up in the air. I mirrored them with my own—albeit six inches higher.

  Our moment was swallowed in a roar, as the Knicks came out of the lockers and were greeted by the crowd in the Garden. I looked out and then back down at the Heat uniform on my chest. I felt about as small as a seven-foot guy can feel, at that moment.

  This time I somehow beat Flynnan on the tip-off, flipping the ball to one of our guards. We went up the court and scored, Elwood sinking a jumper from midway out. The Knicks inbounded and I realized I was frozen, that I wasn’t following Elwood into the trap defense. The Knicks got the ball to Vanilla Dunk. Dunk flew upcourt, Elwood dogging his steps, and broke loose for a fabulous mid-air hook shot. I cursed myself.

  Elwood grabbed the ball and hurled it upcourt to Early, who ran into a crowd and had the ball stripped away. Defense again. This time I rushed the ball—it was in Otis’s hands—and forced a weak pass to Flynnan, who was too far out for his shot. I jumped on Flynnan, my hands in his face, and heard a whistle. I’d fouled him.

  Flynnan went to the line and hit both shots. 4-2, Knicks.

  Elwood rushed the ball to Early again, passing into a thicket of Knicks, and Early was immediately fouled. Early went to the line and missed one.

  The Knicks came up and Flynnan rolled over me for an easy layup. God, he’s a big mother, I wanted to whisper to Elwood, but Elwood wasn’t meeting my eye.

  Elwood went up, got caught in traffic, and bailed out to one of our guards, who threw up a brick from outside. Flynnan and I fought for the rebound, and Flynnan won. He dumped it out to Vanilla Dunk, who immediately had Elwood all over him. I rushed up from behind and stabbed at the ball.

  Dunk twisted out from between us, head-faked, made a move. The move didn’t come off. He and Elwood tangled up and fell together. A whistle. The ref signaled: offensive foul, Knicks. Number double zero, Alan Gornan. Vanilla Dunk.

  Dunk got up screaming. Elwood shook himself out and turned his back. The ref rushed up between them while a kid wiped the sweat off the floor.

  Then Dunk yelled one word too many.

  “What?” Elwood turned fast and got in his face, real close, without touching. The ref squirted out of the way.

  “I said nigger,” repeated Dunk.

  They both drew back a fist. I grabbed Elwood from behind, so he couldn’t get his shot off. Don’t ask me why I grabbed Elwood instead of Dunk.

  Vanilla Dunk’s punch was off-line. It slammed into Elwood’s shoulder. That was his only shot. The other Knicks were all over him.

  The refs threw them both out of the game, and soon, all too soon, it was restarted. With Elwood gone it was too much a matter of me against Flynnan, and it was Flynnan’s night. I couldn’t hang with him. For help on offense all I had was Early, who seemed completely cowed by the Garden and baffled with Elwood gone. I tried to dump it off to him, but he’d lost sight of the basket, kept trying dumb passes instead. Whereas Flynnan had McFront, who’d found his mid-range shot, and was pouring in pull-up jumpers.

  They blew us out. An hour later, I was sitting on the edge of my hotel bed, watching it on television. Early Natt and one of our guards were there with me, but the room was silent except for the tube. Elwood had disappeared, so we didn’t have to be ashamed to watch the sportscast.

  It was Vanilla Dunk all the way. He’d run straight to the press, as usual, and the tape of his interview was replayed every fifteen minutes. The commissioner had already decided: both players were available to their teams for the rest of the series. Elwood would be fined five thousand. Dunk, who’d thrown a punch, would pay fifteen thou. I’d saved Elwood ten grand by grabbing him. And probably saved Dunk a broken jaw.

  They barely even mentioned the fact that we’d lost. I guess the New York press considered that pretty much a foregone conclusion.

  I flipped to MTV just in time to catch Vanilla Dunk’s new video “(Dunkin’) in Yo Face.”

  * * *

  Elwood showed up just in time for the second game. I never did find out where he spent that night. For a minute I was afraid he was stoned on something—I’d seen him stoned, and gotten stoned with him, but never before a game—because he looked too happy, too loose. I even wondered for a second if he somehow thought we’d won last night.

  There wasn’t time to confer. He flipped a thumbs-up signal to Coach Wilder, and called Early over to him. The coach just shook his head. A minute later the refs started the game.

  I put my head down and vowed to get physical with Flynnan. I wanted rebounds, I wanted blocked shots, I wanted steals. I wanted Elwood not to hate me, primarily. He still wasn’t meeting my eye.

  Otis missed a shot and Elwood came down with the rebound, and passed it to Early with nearly the same motion. Early ducked underneath Flynnan and jumped up to the height of the basket. Slam.

  The Knicks came upcourt and put the ball in Dunk’s hands. Elwood and I swarmed him. He faked a move, pivoted, then faked a pass, which shook Elwood for half a second. Half a second was all Dunk needed: he went up.

  But I got my hand around the ball and stuffed his shot backward, out of his hands. It bounced upcourt, to Early, who was alone.

  Slam.

  The Knicks came back up, and McFront hit from outside. We took it back up and this time Elwood faked to Early and twisted inside himself for a pretty backward layup. 6-2, Visitors.

  Otis brought it up for the Knic
ks, and flipped it to Flynnan, inside. I went up and matched his jump, forced him to dump it off or be stuffed. He looked for help, didn’t find any, and Elwood took the ball away from him. Early was waiting upcourt, like a puppy dog. 8-2.

  So it went for the first half. We kept Dunk frustrated with our hectoring defense, and I took my game straight to Flynnan, however bruising. McFront’s hand wasn’t as hot as the night before. Elwood was hyperkinetic on defense.

  And on offense, we were making Early look like the star the fans back in Florida had always hoped he would be. All he had was a handful of one-on-one moves, but if you kept him from having to think about anything but the basket, he was sensational.

  We ended the half with a twenty-two-point lead. The Knicks nibbled away in the second half, Otis shining like the Otis of old for a few minutes, but it was our night. We dug in on defense and finished fourteen points up. The crowd drained out of the Garden in silence. We were taking the series back to Florida tied at a game apiece. There were two games on our home court, then back to New York.

  Unless somebody won two in a row.

  * * *

  For the third game the Knicks just looked tired. They weren’t adjusting to our defensive pressure. Vanilla Dunk was wearing his cynical sneer, but you could see it drove him crazy not to be able to cut loose. The Miami crowd gave Flynnan, their ex-hero, a hard time, and he responded by getting sheepish—for the first time I felt I could actually push him around a little.

  This one was Early’s game. He played to the crowd, and the slams just kept getting showier. Elwood poured in a few himself, but Early was the star that night. We led all the way, and the game was over by the third quarter. Both teams pulled their regulars and started thinking about the next game.

  Elwood was glowing on the bench. We all were. We had a chance to take it from them. They had to beat us tomorrow to even stay alive. This was supposed to be their year of destiny, the Vanilla Dunk Victory Tour, and we had them down, 2-1. The wild-card team.

  * * *

  Flynnan woke up. Dunk was still moribund, but Flynnan woke up. I knew because he started punishing me. I was taking down some rebounds, but I was paying in flesh. I looked for help, but who was going to help me? That’s the horror of the center: there’s just two of you seven-foot monsters out there, and you’re enemies. If the other guy’s a little bigger and meaner, who’s going to tell him to leave you alone? Some shrimpy 6-5 guard? The Tokyo army? The ref? Your mother?

  This one wasn’t a game. It was a trench battle. Elwood and I were working together, stripping balls away, bottling up the middle, but there was no communication between us. Just sweat and grunts. We had to keep our eyes peeled or we’d be flattened. McFront and Dunk were both fighting to open the lanes, throwing elbows, double-faking to make sure we got our faces in the way. Where were the whistles? I’m sure the Knicks were asking the same question at their end. The refs were letting us duke it out.

  It was Knicks 34, Heat 30 late in the second quarter: a defensive struggle. We’d forced the Knicks into our game, and they were playing it. Every time Early touched the ball he was mobbed. He’d dump it back out and our guards would chuck it up from the outside and hope for the best.

  Most of our points belonged to Elwood, who was scoring by grabbing rebounds and muscling back up for the layup.

  We were holding on until two minutes before the half, when Dunk broke loose for a couple in a row, and we went to the lockers down eight points.

  Elwood stood to one side, a wild look in his eyes. He wasn’t playing coach anymore; he was too far inside himself. He and Dunk had been in each other’s faces every minute of the first half, and I could feel the hate burning off Elwood’s skin, like gasoline vapor. I could almost imagine that Elwood would rather lose this one and take it back to New York, just to maximize his crazed masochistic war with Dunk, just to push it to the very edge.

  I personally had a strong preference for ending it here.

  Coach Wilder, seeing that Elwood wasn’t receiving, looked over at me. I shrugged. The rest of the team milled nervously, waiting for someone to break the silence.

  “Okay, boys,” said Coach Wilder courageously. “Let this get away and it’s just another tied series going back to New York. That’s handing it to them.”

  No one spoke. Elwood’s foot was tapping out accompaniment to some internal rhythm.

  “You’re only eight points back,” said the coach. “Just keep tying them up on defense. They’ll turn it over when they get tired.”

  With his voice trailing away, he sounded like he didn’t believe himself. I felt like patting him on the head and sending him to the showers. The fact was it was Elwood’s team now, and Elwood didn’t give half-time pep talks. We would all have to feed off his energy on the floor; it would happen there or it wouldn’t happen at all.

  We drifted apart, and what seemed like seconds later we were back on the court. The ball was ours; Elwood hit from midway out and we fell back on defense. We stuck to our one plan, of course: I caged Vanilla Dunk with my long arms, and Elwood harassed the ball from underneath. This time the gamble worked, and we forced a bad pass, which one of our guards picked up. He found Early, and Early found the net. We’d closed the gap to four points.

  And that’s where it stayed. We all gritted our teeth and went back to the trenches; even Vanilla Dunk and Early were playing defense. Both sides would have fouled out if the refs hadn’t been squelching the whistle. We forced turnovers, then turned it over ourselves, rolled our eyes, and fell back for defense again. Elwood was a maniac on rebounds, but he’d pass it up to Early, and Early would disappear in a cloud of Knick uniforms. Otis stripped the ball from him with two seconds left in the third quarter and chucked up an improbable three-point shot from mid-court which only hit net, putting them up seven points as the buzzer for the fourth sounded.

  At the start of the fourth, Elwood began trying to do it all, to outrebound everybody at both ends of the court, to steal the ball, pass it to Early, then run up and set a pick for Early and rebound Early’s shot if he missed. I watched in amazement, near total exhaustion myself just from our frantic play on the defensive end. In frustration with the Knicks’ defensive adjustments he started going up himself, with his usual too-powerful stuff moves, scoring some points but committing fouls the refs couldn’t ignore. Still, he bulled us to three points back, then doubled over with a leg cramp.

  Coach Wilder called a time-out. Elwood limped back to the bench.

  “Okay, Elwood, you got us close. Now you better sit.”

  “Uh-uh,” said Elwood. “I’m stayin’ in. Listen, Early—”

  Early leaned in, his eyes wide.

  “You gotta figure out one new trick, ’cause they’re bumping you off, man.”

  “What?” said Early in his high, frightened voice.

  “Pass off when you go up now. Don’t shoot. Find the big man here.” Elwood jerked his thumb at me. “He’s big and white, you can’t miss him, man. Just throw it up to him every time you get a clean line.”

  “Elwood,” I began to complain, “I’m not like you. I can’t go back and forth. I won’t make it back on defense if I’m up fighting with Flynnan under their basket.”

  “Don’t go up under their basket,” he said. “Shoot from wherever you are when you get the ball, man.”

  “What?”

  “I seen your jump shot, Lassner. Just shoot.”

  The time-out was over. Elwood hobbled out, massaging his own thigh, and we took the ball up. We fed it in to Early and he drew three men. He spun out and five hands went up between him and the basket.

  He didn’t try and shoot over the hands. Instead he turned and lobbed a clumsy pass high in the air to me, halfway back to our end of the court.

  “Shoot!” hissed Elwood.

  I tossed it up, not even noticing which side of the three-point line I was on. It went in.

  I panted a thank-you prayer and zeroed in on the ball, which was in Flynnan’s hands. I thre
w myself in his path and forced him to give it up, miraculously avoiding destruction in the process. Elwood followed the ball out to Vanilla Dunk, who pumped, pivoted, pumped, head-faked, shrugged, anything to try to get out of Elwood’s cage. He lifted the ball up and I batted it out of bounds.

  Elwood stole the inbound pass and scored on a solo drive for a layup.

  The Knicks brought it up and Otis, looking frustrated with Dunk, shot from outside. He missed. Elwood directed the ball to Early, who drove to the basket and was surrounded there. He threw it out to me where I stood at the top of the key. “Shoot!” said Elwood again. The ball floated up out of my hands and hit.

  Tie game, four minutes left.

  Elwood got too excited and fouled McFront on the next possession. McFront, ever solid, hit both from the line, putting the Knicks up two. Elwood brought the ball up to mid-court, then passed it directly to me and nodded.

  Swish. My jump shot was on. Practice, I guess.

  We traded turnovers again, and then the Knicks called a time-out with just over two minutes left. Their season was getting very, very small. We only went halfway to the bench and then just hovered there, waiting for the Knicks to come back out. There wasn’t anything to say. We were too pumped up to huddle and trade homilies. Too much in the zone.

  The Knicks brought it up and Flynnan staked out prime real estate under the net. I sighed and went in to try and box him out. He got the ball and I went up with him, tipped the shot away. Elwood took it and charged upcourt, slamming it home at the other end.