What is the perfect ending to a basketball game?
Our imperfect season came to an end this Saturday. It was the second season for my son and I in this league. If you recall, we were winless last year. This year we won 1 out of 8 regular season games. Of course the nice thing about the 4-6 year old league is that everybody makes the playoffs. We faced the team we tallied our only win against this year in the 3rd vs 4th place game.
We had the early 9am start time. As we lined up for the jump ball, we only had 6 of our 9 kids in attendance; this was surprising, considering we almost always had a full lineup… that’s the reason I picked the kids I picked. Also, we would be receiving trophies one way or another after this game. As the 1st quarter rolled on, the other 3 kids showed; the full team would be in attendance for this season finale.
In the first matchup with this team (a loss), I made a coaching mistake. I did wholesale changes in the 2nd quarter, substituting our “1st string” for our “2nd string”. The 6-0 lead disappeared, and we ended up losing. I made adjustments since then. The late arrival of our kids for this game put me right back in that same spot. If I wanted to get everybody as even as possible playing time, I would have to make 4 substitutions going into the 2nd quarter; it would be risky, but that’s how we roll. We had a 2-0 lead at the end of the first quarter when the changes were made. It worked out OK; at halftime, the score was 4-4.
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It was getting late… I was getting nervous. Man I was hoping to end the season on a good note. There was a little more than a minute left when our best defender tied the game; it was his 2nd bucket of the day. That was huge. We even had another kid score earlier in the game too. We needed each bucket. Under a minute to play, game tied at 10. Of course the other 4 points in this contest were scored by my son; he had a hell of a game. He was passing the ball, rebounding the ball, and reminded me of those old Bulls Doberman teams on defense with like 6 steals in this game… no exaggeration. He even blocked a shot too. He didn’t have his highest point total, but he was playing his best overall game of the year. It was only fitting the way this game, and season ended.
With about 10 seconds to go, the other team had the ball. They shot it; it didn’t go in… whew! We got the ball back. Another nice “rule” that they follow, is they hold the clock at 1 second until possession changes hands, well most games; we got screwed with that in the past too… anyways. My son corralled another rebound with 7 seconds left, we would have the last shot. The whole season I told him to get inside… shoot closer to the bucket. On this final possession of the season, that’s exactly what he did. He pump faked, dipped, and shot it up… rimming….. yes… YES!!! The final horn blew, and the game was over; my son made the last second game winning bucket to win our playoff game… or “the championship” as we called it. Yeah, it was pretty perfect…
I was super proud, both as a coach of our team, and more importantly a dad. My son was flying high too. One of the other dads came up to me, and gave me an awesome surprise; he had recorded the last shot on his phone… wow. Once I got my hands on that video, I sent it out to the family. The responses came rolling in, my son watched the video like 20 times, he talked to each one of his grandparents; it was awesome. One of the responses said “clutch!”; my son asked what that meant. I told him it’s when you play your best at the biggest, most important time. He responded, like I did in the baseball playoff game when I hit all 3 balls in the grass; I said, yes, just like that. And just like you did today, hitting that game winning shot. This was one for the books. Next up, floor hockey.
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