Desire Part IV

Tweet James sprinted over to the man Tommy was guarding and took a deep breath and wiped his palms on his shorts, his heart was racing and he was overwhelmed with emotion but knew he had to settle down quickly.  He stole a glance at the scoreboard (Visitor: 45 Panthers: 32) right before Summer-side in-bounded the ball and knew that a win was unlikely.  James quickly forgot everything he was thinking when his man caught the ball and instinct took over. He let the defender get a step but James quickly shuffled his feet forcing the defender to pick up the ball in the corner, after a few seconds of pressure he reached in and almost swore at himself when he heard the whistle.  The sound of coach O'Brien yelling good job surprised him, he turned to look at the ref who had signaled a traveling violation.  A wave of relief washed over James followed by a smile 'this is easy' he thought to himself.   

"Run flex!" the voice belonged to Jamie who was in the game at the point, this was the only play James knew and ran to the top of the key as Jamie drifted to the left side of the court.  'Flex' was essentially a baseline cut by the shooting guard using a screen set by the power forward on the baseline three point line.  As the cut was made the point guard that drifted to the left would fire a pass to the top of the key and then if the cut was open, the forward at the top would feed the cutter.  This is exactly what happened as James fed a player he only knew as 'Jimmy'.  Catching the ball in stride and converting the lay-up Jimmy turned and pointed at James, a quick way of saying 'nice pass', the score was now 45-34 with about 4 minutes to play in the third quarter. The two teams exchanged baskets for the next two minutes, a streak that was broken by a steal and a fast break lay-up by James to make it 49-40.  After another defensive stop James was fed on a cut to the hoop, took the contact and threw a prayer that somehow went in at the buzzer.  He walked over to the line and sunk the free-throw to cut Summer-side's lead to only 6 with a full quarter to play.  When he jogged over to the bench he was greeted positively by all of his team-mates including Tommy who high-fived him without making eye contact.  "Just keep running the offense and keep it simple guys!" coach O'Brien reminded the team as they went back on the court.  James went over to inbound the ball to the starting point-guard who's name he did not know.  On his way he noticed Summer-side pushing up in an attempt to press, as he walked by Tommy he told him "Run" and took the ball from the ref.  Standing on the sidelines, coach O'Brien cursed at himself for not talking to James about their press-break.  Just as he turned to call in a player who knew what to run the roar of the suddenly loud home crowd turned him back to where the action was.  Tommy, catching a beautiful pass in stride and with one step going up and finishing a lay up while being dragged down by a defender. Coach looked at the ref who nodded his head and enthusiastically signaled for an and-one. Satisfied, coach turned to the baseline where the pass came from and forgot about substituting James "Do that everytime!" coach yelled to him, the first time he smiled in three weeks.  

The Panthers played with incredible energy in the fourth and went up by two points when James faked a pass that threw the entire defense off enabling him to drain an easy 15-footer with a minute and a half left. After a defensive stop James corralled the rebound and dribbled into the front-court, he looked to his right and threw a pass to Tommy who was isolated on the right side against a Summer side defender. Tommy took a hard dribble into the paint and stopped on a dime.  He rose for a jumper that looked good until it hit the back rim and popped out.  Anticipating a miss, James leaped for the rebound before anyone else did, he caught it, and fired a pass back to Tommy who had followed his shot.  The crowd exploded as Tommy laid it in extending the lead to 62-57 with :48 seconds remaining in the game.  The Panthers would take care of business at the free-throw line and were now 2-7. For once, the post-game locker room talk was positive and the team looked rejuvenated.  The older players congratulated Tommy on being the leading scorer, but coach O'Brien knew why they won the game.  As the players exited he made sure to find James before he left and told him "I expect much more from you, I am making you the sixth man, do not disappoint me".  He knew that this should be enough to keep James motivated, he did not seem bothered by Tommy getting most of the credit and this pleased coach O'Brien, he needed players like James.

"Hey who was that #12 player?" the question snapped Tommy out of it "Some new kid, he just got onto the team" Tommy said to his father who was in the drivers seat. "I liked what he did, he is really smart for a player his age" Tommy did his best to hide his irritation, his dad did not even say a word to him about his performance yet, he just kept talking about James as if he did anything special. "Yeah, he was OK I guess" Tommy said trying to get past this subject.  "You are aware that you would not have led all scorers if it wasn't for him right?" "What do you mean?!" Tommy snapped back, he couldn't help it. Mr. Johnson just smiled at his son forgiving him the outburst. "Tommy, you know I've told you a million times that you have not mastered the qualities of a winner yet, and this is another example of it" Tommy sighed, he hated when his dad told him this, he always gave some obscure and ambiguous examples of what a winner was supposed to be but Tommy could care less.  In his mind he was easily the best player on the Jr. team now that Michael was out for the year and felt that his teammates were not stepping up how they should be. "Forget it, the team gave me support today and we were able to win, you think we would have done anything without my 21 points?" Tommy looked over at Mr. Johnson who just smiled and replied: "There was only one thing different about this team from the one that lost the last 6 games" he paused for dramatic effect, and also to allow his son to see what he was getting at.  Although Tommy knew exactly what his dad wanted him to say he refused to give him the satisfaction.

Coach O'Brien popped in the game tape that one of the students he hired had given him at the end of the game.  Being thorough was his motto and he often had two students film all of the Panthers home games in return for a credit in Gym or some cash.  No one ever took the credit.  He went over the game paying careful attention to the games last 14 minutes jotting down notes.  Mike O'Brien hated looking at stats because he knew that they could be misleading, but glancing at James Miller's 9-point (on perfect shooting from the field), 5-assist, 4-rebound, and 2-steal performance (not to mention the other turnovers he caused, 2 forced travels and pressure that enabled a teammate to get the steal) he knew that nothing about these numbers was a lie. He rewound to the key play, James' rebound and pass to Tommy for the lay up and something caught his attention.  Coach O'Brien decided to look at all of James's assists and found that 4 out of the 5 were to Tommy. Coach flipped back to his playbook and took a look at some plays, then he grabbed some of his coaching books, it was time to alter the playbook.

The Desire Part III

Tweet James forgot what it was like to wake up at a normal time, in this case 8:15am on a warm Monday morning.  It was September first and it was the first day of school, he decided to skip his last training day and get some rest so he could kick off his year with a good start.  Last year his family moved in the middle of October and he had to go through being the new kid in school and that was something he chose to stop thinking about at that moment.

"What is this coach?"  It was Tommy, the last person coach O'Brien expected to say anything at this moment, then he remembered what Mr. Lopez told him about James and him having issue with some players on the team.  "Try-outs ended a long time ago" Tommy tried to sound innocent but the look he and James were exchanging told coach all he needed to know.  "Now, Tommy, James moved here after the try-out so I decided to give the boy a chance.  After all," coach continued "Michael's injury has left a spot open anyways".  Most of the team didn't care, the Panthers were 1-7 and had 13 games remaining, if it were up to them they would have given up on the season then and there.  Tommy Johnson however, kept his eyes locked at James, he couldn't believe that HE was going to be his teammate, what hurt him the most was probably the fact that he knew James would nail this try-out.


Tommy picked up his time-table from a box labelled 'J' (for Johnson).  The school thought that assigning time-tables for students who could not chose their electives yet was a good idea, everyone really knew it was the principal's way of separating the troublemakers.  As Tommy walked into his home room class (English) he paused.  James Miller stared back a him from one of the desks. "No way!" Tommy thought, admittedly he hated the guy way less than he did last year but he still despised him.  Now he was going to spend an entire semester with him in homeroom.  Tommy sighed and sat in the furthest possible seat he could, he was soon joined by Jamie Smith, the back-up point guard from last year and quickly forgot about James.  Mr. White, Forest Hill's English teacher glanced at the memo on his desk, read it, and decided not to question the vice-principals motives.  "Mr. Johnson" "Yes sir?" came Tommy's reply. "Please switch seats with miss Adams"  Tommy looked around for Rachel and saw who she sat next to "Sir. why--" "Please Mr. Johnson no questions right now" Mr. White said sternly in a way that Tommy realized it would be useless to argue.  He sat down next to James and didn't say a word for the rest of the period.

The Desire

Tweet The ball was batted out towards the corner right towards the team bench, in seven seconds they would advance to the playoffs all the ball had to do was go out of bounds...


James woke up suddenly, he quickly hit the sleep button on his alarm something he got quite good at turning it off rapidly over the summer.  He sat up in bed and glanced at the clock display, in bright red letters it read 6:30.  He quickly jumped out knowing that if he lingered any longer he would lose valuable time.  Getting dressed with the clothes he prepared the night before he quietly opened his door and went to the kitchen.  When he opened the fridge he recalled the dream he had, or rather, the nightmare.

Number 17 of the other team runs down the ball, The coach is sure he stepped on the sideline but the refs are having none of it.  Even if they had blown the whistle no one would have heard it over the crowd noise.  17 whipped a pass to the top of the key to his point guard, James is looking at it all from the bench, no one is in position except Tommy who runs out to contest the open 3.  The point guard fakes out the whole gym by making one more pass to the other sideline, a spot occupied by number 3, there is no one within 10 feet of him, the clock reads 2 seconds.


James quickly shrugged it off, he hated thinking about something that had happened over 5 months ago but for some reason even when he avoided thinking about it he would dream about it.  He quickly tried to focus on what had to be done today, the dream only serving as motivation and nothing else.  He slammed the fridge door a bit harder than he would have liked, he wolfed down the meal he made for himself last night, over the summer he learned that these little things like picking out clothes and making a meal in advance would save him a lot of time.  Getting to his door he stepped out "Good" he thought, it had rained, running in cloudy cooler conditions gave him a sense of peace for reasons he did not quite understand, but to him it did not matter.  School was starting up again in twelve days and he was determined to make all of them count.

Number 3 catches the ball in stride and plants his feet.  The look on his face at realizing how much room he had told it all.  For a brief second James hoped he would step inside the 3 point line and tie the game, they deserved overtime at the very least.  They earned the right to make the playoffs with how they played their last 10 games.  Number 3 apparently did not feel the same way,  Launching a 3 in front of the loudest section of their home crowd.