Sweat pours down my face and glistens in the harsh rays of sun. My body begins to glow as the light is reflected off my soaked arms and face. The sound of feet scraping the pavement as they slide across cement and bouncing rubber spheres fills my eardrums. My hands approach each other as the twenty-nine and a half inch ball enters my fingertips. My eyes widen as my shoulders and head face up towards the smooth brown wooden backboard with a padded black pole firmly placed in the barren tough ground.

The outline of a defender came closer, knees bent and in his stance. This was a familiar stance. I had seen this stance 4 hours of each summer day. The tall and lanky silhouette stood in my way of the basket waiting for my next move. He is too close and tall for me to shoot over him. Normally, with a defender being this close, it would be an automatic drive to the basket and score. This guy was way too fast for that. There was nothing else I could do so I began the take the ball to the red circular hoop. I attack the basket like never before. I get one step by the defender before he quickly recovers, and the whole world seemed to move in slow motion.

With the opposing player in front of me, I decide to rise up, and I see that I caught him off guard as he couldn’t quite jump as quickly as I did. He manages to get his hand in my face but it was too late. My shot had already been released, and as this had happened the bright sun had gotten dull and dark. As I landed softly on the cement, the ball seemed to freeze on the rim. It bounced a few times but suddenly fell through the net. The sky’s light was like a curtain coming over a show. Except this was my show, I had won, and the rain had made my last shot a buzzer beater. In a split second the rain had washed away all our hard work we had gone through in our intense session on the court. After drying off, we decided to play again. The rain had stopped, but it was daring of us to play as the court was extremely slippery. My best friend and I walked back out on the gloomy court and began to play. With the court being slippery, I decided that I shouldn’t play very hard and that I should just take it slow and work on my moves close to the basket. So as we started the game, that is exactly what I did. I worked the ball down low. I backed my man down towards the basket every time and scored in this way. He tried to take the ball down low on me too. On defense, I tried very hard to not let him score. He was very unorthodox so I did not know where or how he was going to take his shot. It was unpredictable. It was game point, the next basket wins, and he had the ball. He dribbled down close to the basket. He put up his shot and I jumped as high as I could to get the block.