Hot Hand by Mike Lupica

to play with only one sneaker on.
    The Hornets made their run, just like Lenny said they would. They scored three baskets in a row in the first minute Lenny was on the bench, then even when Lenny put himself back in, they scored two more baskets on turnovers.
    Just like that, the game was tied.
    This was a whole different game from the one they’d been playing all morning.
    It stayed tied into the last two minutes. The Hornets stayed in their man-to-man, Tim on Lenny, Tony Gilroy on Billy. Billy hit another one on the outside, snuck away on a fast break, getting to the middle just like his dad would have wanted. He wasn’t sure, but keeping track inside his head, he had twenty points now, the most he’d ever scored in a game.
    He knew it would make his dad crazy if he even thought Billy was keeping track of his own points.
    But his dad wasn’t here.
    The game was still tied with twenty seconds left.
    Lenny called their last time-out. Everybody knew he was the one who’d really been coaching the team all game long. He wasn’t going to stop now. In the huddle he told everybody where they should go on the last play, what they should do. The rest of the guys out there with him—Billy, Jeff Wilpon, Jim Sarni, Danny Timms—just listened.
    When Lenny was finished, he looked up at his dad, as if remembering he was still there, and said,
    “If that’s okay with you, of course, Dad.”
    Mr. DiNardo smiled.
    “Boys,” he said, “you just do exactly what my son the coach told you to do.”
    There was nothing tricky about the play Lenny had come up with. He said there was no way he could take Tim Sullivan one-on-one. But he wanted Tim to think he was going to try, anyway. He was going to drive to his right like he wanted to go around him on the baseline, have Jim Sarni set pretty much what would be a fake screen on him.
    At the same time he was making his move, he wanted Jeff Wilpon to run over to the other side of the court and set a pick for Billy.
    The way Lenny said it would happen from there, Billy would cut around Jeff’s pick, then be open when Lenny passed him the ball a couple of steps inside the free throw line.
    Everybody knew it was Billy’s favorite spot.
    And then , if everything had gone the way it was supposed to, Billy would make one more open shot today and the Magic would be the number-one seed going into the play-offs.
    And they would still be undefeated.
    Lenny made his move with ten seconds left. Jim set his pick on Tim, Lenny took a couple of more dribbles to his right like he was going hard down the baseline.
    Only he put the brakes on.
    Tony Gilroy, Billy’s man, turned to watch. As he did, Jeff came over and set a pick on him.
    Billy blew past both of them, busting it the way Lenny had told him to, and headed toward the lane.
    One small problem: Tim Sullivan was running at him from his right almost at the exact same moment Lenny was getting ready to pass Billy the ball. Billy thought about cutting the other way, toward the basket. But when he gave a quick look behind him, he saw Tony Gilroy scrambling back into the play, coming hard from Billy’s left.
    There was still plenty of time to give the ball right back to Lenny, who Billy could see was wide open now.
    But Lenny, who usually would take the last shot himself, had wanted Billy to do it this time, or he wouldn’t have drawn up this play in the huddle. And Billy wanted in the worst way to be the kind of guy who had the ball in his hands in moments like this, who wasn’t afraid to take the last shot in a game, no matter how hard a shot it was.
    Hero shots, Lenny called them.
    Making one against somebody as good as Tim Sullivan was going to make it all that sweeter.
    He knew he wasn’t passing the ball now, passing up a chance like this.
    Billy squeezed between Tim and Tony instead, leaned in the way he thought only Lenny could for one of his hero-shot moves, took one last dribble and let the ball go.
    The shot was still in the air when the