How I gambled away family peace in bunk-bed basketball

Maybe I should have read the product description and taken it seriously. "With a breakaway rim, a clear, shatterproof backboard and a foam mini ball, your opponent's ego will only be damaged," it says of the SKLZ Pro Mini Hoop Micro, a small basketball hoop that has been hanging on my seven-year-old son's loft bed for a few months. That should have been warning enough.

Now my son is usually not an opponent, but my favourite teammate. The opponent is time. It's almost half past eight again, the clock ticking mercilessly towards bedtime. Of course, he wants to play on and doesn't have to beg much, because he knows that I want to too. We manage a couple of magic baskets over the rail and the mood is so good that he acknowledges my "now go brush your teeth" with a smile.

"Come on, Dad.

"Come on Dad, free throws!", he baits me and sets up for a jump shot. All right, I think, I'll give you a lesson then: "Five shots each. If I win, you go to bed." He agrees and I am determined to play to my reach advantage. The basket hangs about level with my nose. If I extend my arm all the way, I can safely sink the ball in a gentle arc. At least I hope so.

Crunchtime in the nursery

I realise too late, unfortunately, that I have just decided to send my son to bed with a disappointment. Genius. He digests defeat about as well as a kilo of prunes. So I'm expecting the worst. Screaming and tears in the next five minutes. But not with him ripping me off time and again when he should have been in bed long ago. Whenever things get tight, I fail and, if I interpret my wife's irritated tone correctly, slowly get into trouble myself. Fortunately, I finally have the offspring on the verge of defeat when Mami peeks into the room. Either a shot clock is ticking somewhere, or she has a good pulse.

What she also has is right. Of course. It's way too late, and always a mistake, to go all out before bedtime. But the boy just has another litter. It's a point of honour. The look on your face is not good. Not for any of us. "Now you've got real pressure," I whisper to him, trying to get his throwing hand to shake. "If you miss, it's over," he peers. With tiny little tripping steps, dances himself a little closer than allowed to the basket. Shoots. Swish. Nothing but net. "That one was better than yours," he triumphs. "Yours touched the ring." Mummy shakes her head, rolls her eyes and disappears again. Just you wait, laddie. Now it's showtime.

I Michael, you Muggsy

I have no choice but to reach into the psycho box. "You look tired, it won't work," I murmur to him at the earliest opportunity. He retaliates with pointed shouts whenever I go in for a throw. Trash talk with a seven-year-old. I can do that. The thing is going to escalate anyway and has to be brought to an end somehow. As quickly as possible, because my nerves are starting to get the best of me. Just don't show any weakness now. At least not another one, apart from my obvious throwing weakness with this stupid mini-ball.

We talk and play our way into that dangerous state between fun and seriousness, familiar from school, sports and shallow Hollywood comedies. When winning seems to be the only acceptable option at some point, there are only losers who make up ruefully at the very end. But only when half the neighbourhood is in ruins. We're not quite there yet, but there's already a fair amount of chaos in the children's room and condensation is about to form on the window panes. I'm struggling with my son's penetrating hustle and bustle and have to think of Muggsy Bogues, who, at 1.60 metres, stirred up the NBA in the 1990s. And of Michael Jordan, who allegedly once upset him by saying "shoot it, you midget". Shoot it, you midget.

Ego damaged, me on the rim

My dwarf throws, I throw. There is no other way out. And at some point I take a little too much pleasure in that one more pathetic hit that puts an end to the increasingly undignified spectacle. Whereupon the dethroned serial winner refuses me the patronisingly offered handshake, before screaming and going on a Nerf rampage, firing incessantly at his trumpet case. Also a statement.

And a deliberate provocation, because the foam-shooting plastic gun is in the house against Mummy's will. I'm not a fan of it either, but at some point I let myself be persuaded to buy one for self-defence. It didn't go down too well. Today I no longer use it. I know I've lost because the evening has long since completely slipped away from me. Surrender. Strategic retreat. If I try to talk now, I'll get turned down anyway.

The upshot of a memorable evening: an ego damaged. A wife who would probably love to pull the clear, shatterproof backboard of the basketball hoop over my skull. And I'm completely on the rim when my son falls asleep far too late and still unhappy. At least I manage something like a reconciliation shortly before. Sleep well, Muggsy. It then becomes a quiet remaining evening in which I can reflect on my mistakes. I have to be self-critical and say that I could have done better. My hit rate was below ground.