Rivalry turned partnership

My bball game at NUS was cancelled cos they found out the facilities were closed for some Xmas thingy. super gao wei so i decided to go down to play. turned out to be awesome.

The guy who i felt was the only one at the cc stronger den me came again. lets call him the fit guy to keep him anonymous since... he is really bloody fit!

We played oneonone again. After playing semi-regularly since my finals ended, my fitness recovered enough for me to be roughly on par with him again. Loads of fun, dribbling vs shooting as usual. But this time thats not the highlight. We played a couple of games; each took one victory and two more guys came to join us. They alrdy looked bloody fit and later i realised they were lifeguards. lets call em lifeguard A and lifeguard B. And so we played a little two on two.

Lifeguard A was freaking ridiculous. fit guy and me are roughly the same level and i gotta say lifeguard A was above us both. slightly, but significant enough to be a problem. i started off guarding him but my defence has always been notoriously shitty and i realised i couldn't stop him. If i really spent all my efforts guarding him i would have been as good as useless on offence. so i asked fitguy to switch w me. lifeguard B was pretty easy; still strong and athletic like mad but slower and less skills. Later i found out lifeguard A used to play pro. dafug lol.

in fact, lets play our favourite game. Rating system in fm style. I'll start off with my base stats as a benchmark

Kai
Speed: 16 (althou rather than being fast, when it comes to bball its more about experience than it is speed. thats why people at a lower level den me can't guard me, but people at a similar level or above me can stop me easily. its a strange concept; i dunno how to explain it either. People at lower levels feel that i am ridiculously fast, but people at similar levels find me average. But i'm running at the same speed throughout.) (when it comes to speed, its not always about the max speed. ur acceleration from zero to max. and ur deceleration from max to zero. those are the important aspects in bball.)
Shooting: 12
Dribbling: 19
Strength: 8
Defence: roughly 2 or 3
Athleticism: 12

fitguy
Speed: 14
Shooting: 20
Dribbling: 12
Strength: 12
Defence: 16
Athleticism: 15

Lifeguard B
Speed: 14
Shooting: 6
Dribbling: 11
Strength: 17
Defence: 12
Atheleticism: 16

Lifeguard A
Speed: 17 (the bystander might think we're equal, maybe he thinks we're equal also. But mine is more of hesitation and direction changes. i can tell he has a slight edge in raw speed)
Shooting: 16
Dribbling: 16
Strength: 19
Defence: 17
Athleticism: 19

and the annoying thing is, he freaking decided to guard me every chance he got. Can't blame him, cos lifeguard B couldn't stop me at all. But his defence was so good that it was really tough. Which makes it fun as mad but insanely intense and draining. It was the right move because althou i feel fitguy and i are on the same level, he can't destroy a guy below us as consistently as me, because after he beats the guy, he still needs to rely on his shooting. Even thou i ranked his shooting as 20 because its the best at the cc by a mile, shooting is never 100%. Whereas since i rely on driving and finishing near the basket, and because i can lose lifeguard B consistently, when i'm up against lifeguard B its nearly a 100% score. But when someone as good as or better than me guards me, its extremely tough for me to do anything since i can't lose him easily.

We took the first two games. Extremely tight games won by a point or so. My fitness deteriorated like mad thanks to the insane intensity and we lost the 3rd game. But it was still very tough for the lifeguards cos me and fitguy were pretty much the perfect team. Actually no, the perfect team would be me and a big fat monster for me to dribble in and pass to. But fitguy's shooting was so good it was about the same; i would dribble past my guy and drive in. If fitguy's mark didn't collapse in on me den i would shoot the basket and it'll... probably go in. maybe. haha but if fitguy's mark collapsed in on me i would kick it out to fitguy for a nice open shot. And fitguy is one of the few people at the cc that i trust with a long range shot.

The final game was completely epic. We went to 7-6. Den i got the ball and attacked but lifeguard A managed to stop me this time. Instead of kicking it out and letting the play reset, i stubbornly (and stupidly) persisted with the oneonone and went 200% mode again like i did against fitguy on our previous match. But that was the last ball. in this game, we weren't even close. I managed to score the basket to make it 8-6 but i was basically useless after that. Taking all i could just to keep standing. Even if lifeguard B came to guard me i dunno if i could score on him, somemore it was lifeguard A guarding me. I told fitguy to take it on as i was starting to whiteout. And boy did he take it on. Two 3 point shots with lifeguard B's hand in his face to make it 10-6. They got the ball after that and i tried. I really tried to defend but my defence is usually alrdy shitty and i was in 1% hit point mode. They scored 3 to make it 10-9. Missed a shot and the ball fell luckily to me. I kicked it out to fitguy and yelled shoot. Not cos i was super nice and generous, but i couldn't move. he shot it. rolled around the rim... and FELL TO ME! i couldn't miss from 1 foot away. crawled to the sidelines and KO-ed. But freaking fun match it was. although my fitness is far above average, as in the average person. It is definitely below par for an athlete, since i spend all my time studying X.X

After that, we mixed team with some kids there (the lifeguards were the same age as me) and it became the horsing around kinda fun. I went full playmaker mode in preparation for california where i'm likely to be one of the smaller players. V.proud to say that i managed to get at least triple the number of assists den the guy with the 2nd most assists. Didn't really score thou but it was still fun. and chill cos the kids couldn't really stop us but we also didnt really play seriously.

Den we declared one final game and the kids went nuts! hardcore running, pressing and defence. i guess kids have their pride too! either way, it was really fun and i started to get really tired again (rofl). it was 10-9 to us and i asked for the ball and received it. fitguy was guarding me; i dribbled on him and drove in but he managed to poke the ball away. lifeguard B collapsed on me and the loose ball fell between his legs. I dived down and my finger tips managed to tap the ball from bet. his legs to lifeguard A who was luckily standing exactly at the free throw line. (yes, i saw him there.. it wasn't COMPLETELY tyco) he drained the open jumper and we won! Very good game again. (oh forgot to mention when we played with the kids we did random teams, so for that last game it was me and lifeguard A against fitguy and lifeguard B.)

either way, it was bloody fun to play with lifeguard A. if i'm crafty, he has raw power. i love matching guile against talent! i think i may have overstrained myself thou... i'm sore all over now. usually it takes a night before i start feeling sore... i'm in trouble..! hope i recover in time to play with alastair on friday.. my back hurts quite abit; old injury.