#22 and #0, game shot winners.
My friend Sean #22, and I #0, were playing basketball in a league. The age group was 14-15, and we pulled up a 12 year old who stars on the Jr. High team. It’s not a terribly competitive league, but we like to win. My team this year is fairly good, and we got some good three point shooters. Unfortunately the league advisors screwed up and put my team together with someone else’s, and we can’t fix that. We thus have a large team. They also forgot to mention to us that our schedule which said we were playing at 10am was supposed to be at 9am. We missed the first quarter and a half of the second. When Sean and I arrived we were winning, barley. But before we were put in the lead dropped down, until we were losing. My squad went in, got the score back up and went out again. Then they lost more points and we were trailing by two. Sean and I had been in situations like this before, 1 minute and forty seconds left on the clock. Down the court and Holten, the Jr. High star, made one of two free throws. Down by one. Forty seven seconds left, “Give me the ball Holten!” He gave it to me, I gave it back, he gave it back to me again, a give and go, and I went through three people. Left dribble, right dribble, under, pump, bank. Two points, and we are up by one. “Good shot Steve.” Sean said. Going back on defense, and our opposing team had a “One man team player,” who attempted to single handedly make a drive to the basket, and lost control of the ball. Twenty three seconds left on the clock, the other team wanted a timeout and we had just thrown the ball in. The Referee still gave it to them. Heh. I told my team, “Throw the ball into Holten, he should shoot the free throws ‘they will foul’, if the get a steal, we lose.” As we were setting up Sean got himself fully open, they had double teamed Holten. Of course we passed it into Sean, who got fouled immediately. 16 seconds left. “Sean take your time.” The other team was making noise and being pansies. First shot in. “Good job Sean, now take your time.” More noise made, second shot in. “TIMEOUT!” The other team tried to get a play made, and failed miserably. With three seconds left they gave it to their “One man team player,” he faded away on the corner and threw up the ugliest thing you have ever seen. “Airrrrrrr ball!” Game is over, Sean and I had played well, and our team had won. The last points were made by him and me, and we felt proud. “Nice free throws Sean.” “Yep, just like the other come back on Nintendo last night.”