Summer Ball by Mike Lupica

their second team in there, but Danny didn’t care, his team was cutting into that lead, and he was finally hooping as if he still knew what he was doing.
    With forty seconds left in the half and the Celtics only down by a basket, Coach Powers asked for another time-out. He called them over, told them to run a play they’d been working on for a couple of days, one he called “Carolina.”
    Coach Powers had said it was a variation of the four-corners offense his friend Dean Smith used to run with the Tar Heels in the old days, when they wanted to run out the clock. He had told them to use the four-corners to set themselves up for a three-point shot at the end of a half or a game. The point guard would eventually have the ball in the middle of the court, and the shooters would run to their designated spots behind the three-point line.
    With the second team, Will and Tarik were the shooters.
    The Celtics ran down the clock the way Coach wanted them to, passing the ball around near the half-court line, weaving in and out. With ten seconds left, as if on cue, Tarik and Will ran into opposite corners, Alex and Ben ran to set picks for them, and Tarik and Will came curling around those picks ready to shoot.
    Danny dribbled toward Tarik, not even needing the clock now, counting the time off in his head.
    Nine seconds.
    Eight.
    Tarik’s man seemed to read the play perfectly, getting right around the pick and cutting him off.
    But Tarik, knowing how little time was left the same way Danny did, gave the guy a head fake, like he was determined to get open for a three, then cut for the basket instead.
    Wide open.
    Four seconds on the clock.
    Danny fired about a thirty-foot bounce pass that should have had steam coming off it, even on a hot day.
    Best pass he’d thrown at camp.
    Wet, as Tarik would say.
    But Tarik must have taken his eye off it for a second. Maybe it was Ollie Grey, back in the game now, scrambling to get back in the play from the other corner. Maybe he slowed down to get his feet right.
    The ball went off Tarik’s hands and out of bounds.
    He looked at Danny, shook his head, banged his chest hard as if to say “my bad.”
    Then they heard the whistle blow.
    Not a whistle belonging to either of the guys reffing the game.
    Coach Powers had his whistle in his mouth and didn’t blow it once. He blew it again and again.
    He pointed at Danny, then at Tarik, and said, “You two. Take a seat!”
    Tarik, not really thinking things through, pointed to the clock in The House and said, “Coach, there’s only a few seconds left in the half.”
    Coach Powers gave Tarik a look that Danny thought might actually set him on fire.
    â€œTake a seat,” Coach said, “or take the rest of the day off.”
    It was like they were being sent to the penalty box.
    Where, as it turned out, they should have stayed.
    Â 
    Because it was late afternoon and practices were ending all over camp, a lot of kids were filling up the stands to watch the end of the Celtics versus Cavaliers.
    Coach Powers had Danny sit next to him for the first ten minutes of the second half, having calmed down by now. He pointed out why this offensive set went wrong or that one did, saying this guy set a pick wrong or that guy was slow to switch, see what happens when a play starts to break down like that?
    He finally gave Danny a pat on the shoulder and one of those smiles of his, the ones where his lips seemed to disappear completely, and said, “Now, go in there for Rasheed and run the offense I want to run, not the one you want to run.”
    The score was 46–40 for the Cavs when Danny went back out there, along with Tarik and Alex Westphal.
    The Cavs immediately went on a 16–2 rip.
    Coach Rossi had his guys start pressing all over the court again, and as soon as they did, Danny felt like he was trying to cross some kind of busy street in traffic.
    They had done some work at practice, trying to