DYLAN HICKS, AN 11-year-old fifth-grader at Monkton Central School, drives by his Uncle Peter to the hoop in a game of one-on-one on the driveway court at the Lindholm A.C. in Cornwall.

Editor’s note: Columnist Karl Lindholm is taking it easy this week and, for the third time, his son Peter is picking up the slack for his dad.

A common style of offense in basketball is the “motion” offense. Like much of life, it is defined by an oxymoron: constant change. Players cut, screen, and pass over and over again until an option emerges. A player cuts to open space and is replaced by another player, a person grows older and is replaced by a younger person, a leaf falls from a tree and is replaced by a green one in the spring.

Motion.

In pickup basketball, motion offense becomes a universal language, unspoken but understood. When there are no coaches to call out set plays or practices to get to know your teammates, everyone knows to cut, screen, and pass, never standing in one place for too long. Like any language, it is maintained through generations, passed down through traditions and ceremonies. Here are the stories of two:

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The Lindholm family was eight days into a cross country jaunt in the summer of 2008, and the wires were starting to fray. My younger sister and I sat in the back seat, arms crossed like knives after being scolded for yet another argument over what to watch on the portable DVD player (“White Men Can’t Jump” versus “The Cheetah Girls.”)

At her wit’s end, my mom pulled off at a public park somewhere in Michigan, hoping for an early lunch and some peace and quiet. Across from the picnic tables was what my dad and I had secretly been hoping for: a concrete basketball court. Double rims, a net missing a loop, and no three-point line. Nothing fancy, but pretty good. Just how we liked it.

My dad and I were already well-versed in unspoken language. “Did you read the Globe yet” meant “I love you.” A contented silence with the Celtics game on the background meant “I cherish our time together.” “Clean your room or no TV” meant “clean your room or no TV — except for the Red Sox game.” Sports gave us a filter for our emotions, a glossary of terms for the feelings we had trouble stating plainly.

We ambled over to the court and started shooting around. From the other end of the court, two players, probably 15 or 16 years old, came over, along with their dad. They challenged us to a game of two on two. I was nervous about it. At 13 and 63, my dad and I had age mismatches on both ends of the spectrum. My dad and I had never played together before. We didn’t have a euphemism yet for embarrassment.

I needn’t have worried: we whupped them. As we played, I watched the easeful, practiced movements of my father. He never moved quickly, yet he always ended up in open space. And when I took the space he had just vacated, I found myself in open space too. The motion offense. After the game, the two boys went back to their side of the court. Their father came up to us and, chuckling, said, “Hey kid, your grandpa can really play.” I silently agreed.

• • • • •

PETER LINDHOLM

Seventeen years later, my nephew Dylan and I are shooting around at the rec courts at UVM. He is 11 (going on 17), a fifth-grader, tall for his age and with questions beyond the grasp of his peers. In between rebounds, we talk about school, fights with his sister, and the outdoors (our other shared love). Like for my father and me more than 15 years earlier, basketball is the lens through which our connection shines, our language.

Today, however, I have been selfish. One of my numerous pickup basketball group texts has lit the beacons and will be playing while we are there. I’m hoping that Dylan will be excited by the idea of watching his uncle and five other 30-year-olds struggle against UVM first years.

He is not. When the adults are finished splitting up the teams, there are only nine players. Dylan walks onto the court like Lebron James at the Staples Center. The other players share bemused glances, but the 10th player in a pickup basketball game stuck on nine can be a Civil War reenactor as long as they can guard. Dylan sinks his foul shot (the traditional way to gain entry into the game) and we’re off.

On the first play of the game, Dylan is waiting on the right wing. I dribble toward him, imploring him to see the open space by the basket. He does, and fakes out his defender, a skinny first year who wouldn’t have looked out of place at the X Games. I lightly drop the ball onto the baseline and Dylan makes smooth right-handed layup. The motion offense strikes again. My nephew and I jog back on defense, exchanging the traditional high five.

Dylan scores four more baskets over three games. At the end of the last game we sit, drained and sweaty on the sidelines, each chugging a blue Gatorade. I am struck by the power of this moment, Dylan’s induction into a new level of connection with basketball and with the world he is entering.

I look over at Dylan, expecting barely contained euphoria. He had just more than held his own in a game in which he was the youngest player by 10 years. Instead, he looks me over appraisingly. “You’re pretty good,” he says.

Nothing more need be said.

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Peter Lindholm grew up in Cornwall, graduating from MUHS in 2013 and from Middlebury College in 2018. He is a behavioral interventionist at Winooski Elementary School and is pursuing a master’s in social work at the University of Vermont. He coached the Winooski Elementary fifth-graders and plays a lot of pickup hoop at UVM and elsewhere.