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around. For a moment he looked absolutely lost, as if
he didn’t know what had happened to him. He seemed
a little embarrassed as he glanced toward me.

39 “That happens sometimes,” I said. “No problem.”
40 He nodded, exhaled slowly, then turned and shot a
long, lazy arc that hit the backboard and fell through.

41 “The backboard takes the energy out of the ball,”
he said. “So if it does hit the rim, it won’t be so quick

to bounce off. Madison made about twenty percent
of its shots the other day. That doesn’t win basketball
games, no matter how good they look making
them.”

42 There are six baskets in our gym, and we
spread out and practiced shooting against the
backboards. At first I wasn’t good at it. I was
hitting the underside of the rim.

43 “That’s because you’re still thinking about
the rim,” Dad said when he came over to me. “Start
thinking about a spot on the backboard. When you
find your spot, really own it, you’ll be knocking down

your shots on a regular basis.”

44 Nicky G got it first, and then Kwame, and then
Bobby. I was too nervous to even hit the backboard
half the time, but Dad didn’t get mad or anything. He

didn’t even mumble. He just said it would come to me
after a while.

45 Baseline plays were even harder. Dad wanted us to
get guys wheeling for position under and slightly

behind the basket.

46 “There are four feet of space behind the backboard,”
Dad said. “If you can use those four feet, you have an
advantage.”

exhaled If you exhaled, you breathed out.

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