Fourteen-year-old Griffin Finch attends school on scholarship and is struggling to stay on the basketball team. Knowing he has to step up his game, Griffin spends the summer playing basketball on a street court for a team called the Running Rebels in the hardscrabble Toronto neighbourhood of Regent Park. Griffin's hoop skills are taken to the next level by playing alongside streetball stars — especially Fly Davis, the best player in the league. But a summer of fast, high-scoring play ends with Griffin running home, frightened by violence in the street.

Griffin makes his school team and persuades Fly to apply for a scholarship to his school. Having Fly on the team inspires Griffin's teammates and helps increase their team's chance of winning. But opposing ideas of how basketball should be played lead to a standoff between Fly and Coach, and Fly quits the team. How can Griffin convince Coach and the rest of his team that they need to play run-and-gun basketball to win? And can he bring together his schoolmates and his friends from Regent Park?