True Legend by Mike Lupica Page B

to shake Drew’s hand, give him one of those fake, lean-in half hugs. Like they were bros.
    â€œThey afraid to have you guard me, Junior?” King said.
    Leaving out the “LeBron” part of the nickname.
    Drew didn’t smile now, just gave King his blank stare and said, “Do I know you?”
    King Gadsen didn’t play the point for Park; another kid—Steve McCrae—did. But Coach Mabry didn’t worry about that on defense, he had King guarding Drew. Not that it helped much at the start of the game. Lee made threes the first two times Drew threw him the ball, and the gym got even more insanely loud.
    Coach Mabry immediately switched King over to Lee, but it didn’t matter—he came around another screen the third time the Wolves had the ball and buried another bomb from the wing. Then Tyler Brandt, their power forward—his twin brother, Jake, was his backup—grabbed the rebound, threw a long pass to the streaking Brandon Yarborough, their skinny small forward, and as soon as he laid the ball up to make it 11–2, Coach John Mabry was standing up, hands over his head, signaling for a time-out.
    Coach Mabry looked annoyed that he had to keep up out of his seat due to the way his team had started the game.
    The Wolves ran to their own bench, jumping around like they’d already won the game. Drew didn’t even wait for Coach to tell them they hadn’t won anything.
    â€œSettle down!” he snapped at them. “You think they’re gonna run to the bus ’cause we played a couple of good minutes?”
    â€œDrew’s right,” Coach D said, sticking his chair in the middle of them and sitting down. “Just keep doing what we’re doing. And be ready when they make their run, because you know they’re going to.”
    They did. Coming right out of the time-out. King Gadsen was still talking, both ends of the court, but now he began to back it up, scoring ten straight points. After he made a three-pointer from what looked like NBA distance to Drew, King ran past and yelled, “You know who I am now, Junior?”
    From then until the end of the half, it was just a great high school basketball game. Everybody playing in it knew that, the way everybody in the stands did. Most of the Wolves’ wins up to now had been blowouts, but this was different.
    This was, as Lee liked to say,
all that
.
    Only Drew couldn’t get his shot to fall. It didn’t matter, because Lee stayed hot, hot as Drew’d ever seen him. Still, Drew was pressing, whether he was open or coming off a screen, even missing a layup when he had gotten all the way to iron after blowing past everybody.
    Coach had said let the game come to him, only now he couldn’t find it anywhere in the gym, the way he couldn’t find his shot.
    The shoot-out that everybody had expected—that
he’d
expected—between him and King, wasn’t happening. It was between King and Lee Atkins. King already had twenty-five for the game, and Lee had twenty.
    Drew did get loose a few times for layups he made, and he managed to knock down a couple of teardrop floaters in the lane. But mostly he was getting his assists, content to feed Lee. That is, until the last shot of the half, when Drew hit a long, fadeaway three of his own from in front of the Wolves’ bench. The shot broke a tie and put Oakley up by three, 49–46, going to the locker room.
    Finally he heard the crowd chanting, “Truuuuuuuuuuue,” the way it usually did when he was making everything he looked at, against King Gadsen or anybody else.
    Seth Gilbert was waiting for him in the tunnel.
    He put his hand out, and for a second, Drew thought he was going to give him some kind of halfhearted high-five. But what he did instead was pull him aside.
    â€œNice shot,” he said.
“Finally.”
    â€œCan’t find my rhythm,” Drew said.
    â€œWell, you better.” Mr. Gilbert spoke