Double Team by Amar'e Stoudemire Read Free Book Online Page B

trouble. How do you have guns for hands? That’s got to make dinner awkward. I guess maybe cyborgs aren’t big eaters.
    Anyway, I finished level 1 and saved it. Then I got a new sticky note and a pen from the table by the phone. Your turn! I wrote and stuck it on the case.
    It felt really good to get my mind off of the tournament situation.

B y the time practice started on Monday, I still hadn’t told Mike and Deuce about the other tournament. It’s not like I didn’t have opportunities to, but every time I almost brought it up, my heart got faster and my mouth got drier. It made me nervous, and I just couldn’t figure out exactly how to let them know. We’d recapped the action at the lunch table and a few other places for kids who hadn’t been there. We might have concentrated a little more on the high points. And it’s possible that Deuce claimed that Jammer was “like, sixteen or something,” but we mostly stuck to the facts. I didn’t brag about how we were going to win it all this time, but I definitely didn’t disagree either.
    Now we were warming up on our local court. I figured maybe I’d tell them before practice really started, but I didn’t. I got this crazy idea that maybe I wouldn’t have to. If anything came up before the game, I’d be off the hook.
    â€œSaturday still good for both of you?” I asked.
    â€œYep,” they both said.
    It was worth a shot. And it was only Monday. Something could still come up: a relative in town, the flu, a dentist appointment, a relative who was a dentist with the flu … I wasn’t picky.
    We talked about school a little and then eased into working on some plays. It was just simple stuff, and nothing with any contact. It was our first time on the court since Saturday, and it felt like we were all being extra careful. I guess we just remembered the hard feelings last time.
    â€œThat baseline play worked really well,” said Deuce.
    So we worked on baseline stuff for a while. Then we did some fast-break drills. We were warmed up by now, and things started to get a little more serious. In the drill we were doing, two of us had the ball, and the thirdguy was defending. There were only two other rules: You had to go fast, and you couldn’t go backward. The goal was to get the defender to commit to one guy, so the other guy could get an easy layup.
    So obviously you needed to pass, or at least make the defender think you were going to. But here’s the thing: I was on defense on the first play, and I just knew Deuce wasn’t going to pass the ball. When he gave a little head fake over toward Mike, I gave a little fake over in that direction. But I never left him. When he tried to speed past me, I was still right there. At his size, he couldn’t go up over me. I basically engulfed him and snatched the shot right out of the air.
    â€œGotta pass that,” I said.
    He shot me a look. I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. So two plays later, it was Deuce and me against Mike. I had the ball, and I shot toward the hoop. I had my head down, like I’d already decided to take it all the way to the rim. Mike jumped in front of me. As he did, I dished it off to Deuce for an easy score. I wanted to show him that I was willing to pass, that that’s how we needed to play.
    Instead he said: “See? If you’d done that more on Saturday, we could’ve won.”
    Now I was the one not saying what I was thinking: No, because you couldn’t beat your defender. The next time it was Deuce and me, I did keep it. Mike jumped in front of me again, but he was too late. His feet weren’t set and he was too deep under the basket anyway. I finger-rolled the ball up and in a split second before the collision.
    Any good ref would call that a blocking foul on him. But there were no refs out here today, and Mike got up mad. “Take it easy, man!” he