He Ain't Heavy...

...He's My Brother

I've always liked this song.  I didn't know until tonight that it was recorded by The Hollies.  Since this post is about my brother, I thought it was appropriate to reference it in the title.

My brother with our nephew

My brother S. came up last night to play basketball on my office hoops team with me.  S. and I have always been pretty close and our basketball playing days go back to the time that we would play mini-hoops against each other in the driveway.  Maybe longer.  I'd pretend to be Hakeem Olajuwon.  He was Patrick Ewing.  And it would be a dunkfest-slugfest.  But it was fun.

S.'s drive to the game last night was probably at least an hour each way, but I love playing with him.  It was worth it to have him there because he is such a good player and we can read each other's thoughts without really even thinking.  We started the game when I found him in the corner for an open 3 point shot.  S., of course, nailed it.  That made the score 3 to zip--good guys!  :-)

S. played well throughout the game.  He has such a calm, steadying influence on the court.  We led most of the game, but it was close.  With a minute to go, we were down by 2 points and we had the ball.  I managed to drive through the lane and score a twisting lay-up to tie the game and we prevented them from even taking a shot to win it at the end of regulation.

We had a tip-off to start the overtime period.  I knew S. would be ready and so I won the tip and flipped the ball toward him.  S. dribbled up calmly and raised up for another 3 pointer from pretty much NBA range.  The shot hit nothing but the bottom of the net--giving us a HUGE three point lead to start the overtime.

Later, with about a minute left in overtime, S. would drain yet another deep 3-point shot to clinch the game for us.  I always have confidence in S. when he shoots the ball and I just feel really lucky to have such a great brother and that we get to do fun stuff (like play basketball, among other things) together.

After the game, we messed around a bit dunking and shooting 3's.  Here's quick video of S. putting one down.

S., thanks for making the effort to come out and play hoops with us!  We couldn't have done it without you!