Sunday, after dinner, I called my mother in Indiana. I told her about the match on matchday two of the BNXT League (the Belgian-Dutch league): Donar Groningen against Leuven Bears, seventy-eight all with a few seconds left.
She asked what the coach had done. I said I had no idea, that all I knew was that Alex Merkviladze, a Georgian player at Groningen, had decided to try his luck from his own half. At the buzzer. In. Eighty-one to seventy-eight.
There was a silence on the line. My mother usually asks whether anyone played defence. This time she didn’t.
Let me tell you, in 2000, in Charleroi, my first coach banned me from shooting from distance. He said basketball is the pass at the right moment, the box-out, patience. I have spent twenty-five years saying the same thing to my U10s on Sunday mornings. For them, a shot from halfway is the end of practice, when you put the balls away.
I told my mother that Sporza was already calling it one of the highlights of the season, on matchday two. That here, when we win like that, we check first. Then we say “not bad”.
Tell her the Bears played right up to the last second, that counts too, mind you.
I told her. The Bears had done their job, level to the end. My mother thought about it.
Then she asked: if he can score from there, why does he wait for the last second?
I had no answer. She said: see?
It’s true, we checked: Sporza.
