Reminiscing the good old days

By reading my old blog posts

My shooting has been so bad since my basketball court got shut down for reconstruction that i had actually forgotten how good i used to be. I actually told one of my bball frens the following exact words recently: Some people just don't have the knack for shooting, and i think i'm one of them.

Of course my shooting is crap now. I'm not even practicing at all. Every shot i take is in a game. I used to shoot like 500 a week when i had my court, now i'm barely doing 50 a week.

But i remember now. I remember because i blogged about it in the past. And reading it, makes me remember it like it happened yesterday. It has only been a year plus, so i can still see it. All i needed was this to spark my memory.
There were 2 kids watching us. I had seen them play before. One girl and one guy. The girl was school team, even though she was just in secondary school. I decided to go for broke: hey, wanna join in? the girl immediately nodded and smiled, like she was actually excited to join in and see if she could help the 3 guys make a difference.

delightful.

so, for the first time in my life, i managed to wrangle a 5 on 1 game.
I had no idea how it would go, afterall you don't exactly get 5 on 1s usually. just ask around. ask your friends who play bball often. it.just.doesn't.happen.
5 on 1s don't happen in anywhere except on tv, in dramas.
It was a total unknown, even for me, someone who is used to 3 on 1s or 2 on 1s because i like to ask for these kind of games.
but 5 on 1?
that doesn't happen. period.

So i told the two kids, we'll play to 11. But since its 5 on 1, we'll continue the score, which is currently at 7-3. so i only need 4 more to win. they agreed without hesitation. I could tell they were excited, although i wasn;t sure how they would handle playing against me, and if they would end up giving up also. well not exactly giving up, but not giving 100%.

I started out with a standard long range jumper after checking the ball (thats when you pass the ball to the opponent and they pass it back to you, to signify starting the game. In real games you do that with the referees, but there ain't no refs in streetball.)
it went in. the girl was guarding me at this point.
i was interchanging driving and shooting (i like to mix up my moves) with the previous guys, but I wanted them to get the ball so that the two newcomers who were only 14-15 years old, probably, could get the ball and get into the game more.
So, i took another casual long range shot.
Well, it went in again.
I tried to get them the ball again; took another long range shot.
Usually, when i train, i dribble with my left and shoot the ball. I'm used to shooting with the ball in my left hand initially. It feels natural. Sometimes I get forced to the right, but my percentage for right handed shots is wayy below my left handed shots. (i don't mean i shoot the ball with the left hand, i mean i dribble the ball with my left before going into the shooting motion. so by right handed shots, i mean i dribble the ball with my right; ie i drive to the right with one dribble and then go into my shooting motion).
This shot, was a right-handed shot. it didn't even touch the net. hit the rim and bounced right through the net without touching. insane. 10-3.
and get this. the best part. the girl KEPT ON GUARDING ME TIGHT. she wasn't even close to giving up! i guess thats part of the school team training, people who play sports competitively never give up. and it was actually good defence, with her hands in my crossover lane, and with the hands staying active. i could also tell her feet were on their toes and shuffling, not rooted to the ground since she was keeping up with me. well, she was school team so she obviously knew how to play. but i just didn't expect her to still have that level after the 3 jumpers. it was great, because usually against grown-ass men, after draining 3 jumpers in their face, (10% of them get even more serious, and i won't be able to shoot after that) 90% of them just slack off and sorta give up. So i end up taking a wide open jumper. its like training. but after 3 jumpers, she was still getting up into my shooting space and trying to make the shot uncomfortable for me. yea, grown-ass men, that's how you defend shooters. (which is why i always make it a point not to guard a shooter since it is FREAKIN tiring) take a leaf from the kid, guys!

I reallllly wanted them to get the ball at this point so i took a right handed crazy shot with a little bit of sideways fade.
Those shots literally never go in for me. they usually hit the rim.
Its just not a shot i practice. my usual shots require me to go straight up. my body has to be straight. i'm not a fadeaway kinda guy, except when i'm nearer, then i fade nearly on every shot. but outside the paint, i gotta go straight up for the shot to have any reasonable accuracy.
so that was a pretty crazy shot for me. i could take it 10 times and probably miss 10 times. it was a little further than my usual range (one step behind the free throw line) too, it was close to the 3 point line.
Swish.
Went right through the net without touching the rim this time.

Satisfying? Not quite. I felt bad for the 2 kids who i asked to join. they were so nice in agreeing to this egoistic douchebag who thought so highly of himself he wanted to play 5 on 1, and they didn't even get to touch the ball!

So i offered another game. first to 5. they all agreed!!! WHOOP DE DOOOO
and that was when the real game started. to their credit, they went into a great formation immediately.
the two kids were skinny and light but quick, so they came out and kept constant pressure on the ball.
and i mean CONSTANT pressure. it was awesome. one kid (the guy) was going for steals every single moment, and the other kid (the girl) was keeping her defensive position well. And i wasn't going to bash them away with strength (i'm not an asshole, wtf) so it WAS tough just to keep the ball and stop getting pressured into half court.

But i loved it. I usually don't get these opportunities to really show off my ball handling, and although most people see me as a shooter, i take far more pride in my ball handling than my shooting. If I were to grade my abilities, I would put my shooting at B and my ball handling at A+. (craftiness at A, mind. Passing is probably an A; i have insane court vision and i can pass with both left hands and right. Ball retention is bad though, I usually average a high amount of turnovers cos some of my passes are risky. kinda like old steph curry.)

I remember. There was a time where i could actually shoot. I actually rated my shooting B once upon a time. I wouldn't even give it a D now. Probably D minus.

I could actually shoot once upon a time.

I know now for sure. Once my bball court finishes construction (and they said they would finish in 2016, grr), i will be back to my old self in no time, i know it!

I'm also ALOT less crafty now on the court than i was in the past. Probably because i'm not really going for the score as much now. That will all change once i get back my shot. There are ways to be crafty other than just under the basket. I know for sure I won't ever lose my craftiness. Unlike shooting, thats not something that goes away with time.

so there were two speedy light little kids, couldn't have been above 40 kg, and i couldn't bully them with strength cos thats being an asshole. (don't get me wrong, if they were adults and 40kg i would totally bully their ass. that would be being smart) i went into full ball handling mode.
thats splitting the D. its super effective against two defenders, basically you pretend to go in one direction, than quickly cross the ball over and go between that narrow space between the two defenders, losing both defenders in one go.

of course, alot of behind the back and bet. the legs crossovers. not very useful in normal games, but highly useful for ball retention, and to prevent your ball from getting stolen.

and then after getting past the two kids which took a HUGE chunk of energy, i had to go up against the 3 guys. they were definitely easier to handle than the two kids, but they had somehow managed to set up their defence perfectly. they were all crammed in the paint (the area close to the bucket), and they were all big, heavy guys, at least as heavy as me, although shorter. thats 75kg, and at 1.7m, thats thick and burly, trust me.

So basically, zero space for me to go to the basket. perfect.
i could take a long range jumper, of course, since i lost the 2 light kids outside the 3 point line, but the 2 kids pushed me to my max speed to get past them, and decelerating from my max speed to zero for a jump shot? Its a low percentage shot at best.

I couldn't score for abit. I drained a couple of mid-range jumpers, but i missed more than i scored.

and now they had 5. at the start, the wrong guys were taking the shots. but after awhile, they wised up, and got the ball into either the 2 young kids (who had obviously practiced shooting before), and the 21 year old guy, who could shoot the ball as well.

it was shaping up to be an amazing game. 2-2.
then i started to pant.
Hard.

i was losing energy from trying to guard 5, and fast. well, technically i was only guarding 3 (the 3 shooters), but that was tough enough for someone like me who doesn't like to play defense much. In team games, i became an master at clever positioning so that I didn't need to move much on defense (which is also why i hate guarding shooters, because even genius positioning aint gonna do shit against someone who can score from anywhere)

I was exhausted. and the kid started to steal my ball. one of the 3 guys was hilarious, he was like: HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?! then after the 2nd steal, he was like OMG its real. we have a chance!!!
i think i got the ball stolen 3 times before i started focusing even when i was dribbling the ball. the first was just being caught off guard. It was a combination of exhaustion and trying to rest which caused the 2nd and 3rd steals. basically the kid wasn't letting me take a moment to break whenever i had the ball. i started resting in the only time i could, on defence.
and they started scoring! in a flash, it was 4-2 to them because i wasn;t defending at all. I was basically just standing under the basket to prevent layups, with my hands on my knees and panting like an ancient fossil. the girl was like are you ok? then she drained the shot in my face.

it was an awesome game, the best ever, because i could drive (AT LAST) and it was actually hard to score (always a plus) and i probably wasn't going to get injured (cos well they were kids; my bones are probably harder than theirs lol. its called old man strength. the older you get, the harder you seem to become. its like if u smash into a kid, the kid is gonna wind up hurt but u won't even feel it. i have no idea why its this case.)

before that, i wasn't exactly smashing into them yet, i was trying to avoid unnecessary contact (which is definitely necessary in a serious game, if u wanna play effectively).

But i was exhausted. cue the smashing.

well, i wasn't going to smash into the two younger kids, (the girl and the stealer). Doesn't matter. I was rested and ready to have a blast. ball handling. inside out crossovers. hesitations. standard crossovers. it was beautiful to watch and i only wish someone had videoed it all.

i had the ball in my left hand and the stealer went for it. Behind my back to my right hand.
stealer's gone, girl is still there in her perfect defensive position as always. I was exhausted but i'm not low enough to overpower her with my strength just to win yet. no. i was going to do it properly.
faked a drive to the right. she kept up, as expected. but she wasn't ready for what was next. as both our body weights shifted to my right, i pushed my right foot into the ground for the purest and hardest crossover i have had the chance to do all year.

i was past the first barrier. but the 3 burly guys awaited, and there was no space for me to go to the basket. I wasn't going to pull up for a jumper, i had no energy for any more misses. I had perhaps enough for 3 in a row to steal the game, and then i would be all out. 3 serious drives, 3 serious bullets, and i would have nothing in the tank. no. i had to get close to the basket.
i kept going. the burly guys came. two of them. the last stayed closer to the basket as a final defense. didnt matter, i knew i didn't have the moves to reach him. it was now or never. i picked up the ball. no more dribbling, i was all out. it was time for the 2 step. the first one was to the right to fake out one of the burly guys; the guy on the right. it froze him, as it should, because he was in perfect position to stop a drive in that direction. No reason to move.
but my next step was a killer, in the opposite direction. but wait, there's a guy there too, you say.
well that is where the smashing comes in. combined with old man strength. (OMS is a real thing, btw. its the reason why your dad can still destroy you at arm wrestling even though you can do 70 pushups in a minute. the older you get the tougher you get). He gave ground, and i was there. 2-3m from the basket, more than close enough for an 80-90% accuracy shot. shot the ball at the board, it bounced in perfectly through the hoop.

4-3

that was when i realised i didn't have enough for 3 serious drives. i was empty! so i shot the ball, with all my focus and remaining energy into keeping my body tight and releasing with proper form. its harder than it seems to shoot with proper form when you're as exhausted as that.
lo and behold, it somehow went in.

Now, whoever scored, won. But i was empty!

I mustered up all my remaining juices and went for it, fast. i shook the 2 kids and one of the burlys. reached the B section of the ABC line. the 100% shot. I rose up and hit the board at an angle.

it rolled around the rim and fell out, as expected. I hadn't remembered to keep my form proper and my body tight, due to exhaustion. they got the ball out quickly and passed it immediately to the girl at the other B section, on the opposite side. i was whiting out at that point (thats when you start to see stars on the floor, and on the walls too. fun stuff.)

she didn't make the mistake i made. it hit the board perfectly and went through.

i didn't even have the energy to congratulate them, which i wanted to. dragged myself behind the hoop and lay down. it was basically a complete KO.

AND IT WAS THE BEST FUN I HAD IN MONTHS, MAYBE EVEN YEARS!!!

damn it was blooooody fun. after i regained my energy i managed to chat with em and make friends with them. hopefully i can get another 5 on 1 someday. although i'm not greedy. i'd take a 3 or 4 on 1, easily. but a 5 on 1 would be beautiful.

and this time, i will be ready to enjoy it even more. I will be fitter. I will be able to last the whole game!!!

damn, i remember why i loved this game again. its been a shit long time since i enjoyed a game so much that i just HAD to blog about it.

and i'm even more grateful for the opportunity to experience something like this. nobody gets to play 5 on 1 bball as the 1 guy. searching 5 on 1 basketball on youtube gets zero hits. ZERO! 

I just rode a theme park ride that was designed for me alone, and a ride that nobody else in the whole wide world would ever get to ride except for me, and it was AWESOME!!!

Man, I had alot of good times on that court. I was kinda one of the oldest people on the court, we had a very young crowd because our hdbs got built around the time i was born, so i was one of the first batches to grow up on that court. Basically, there were the pschool kids, they were the lowest on the totem pole and had to vacate whenever anyone else stepped on the court, except secondary school kids, in which they would just stay on the court and annoy the sec sch kids. Come to think about it, i think the psch kids are probably sec sch kids now already. Time flies.
Then the sec school kids, thats the point where they start to be able to ball, but its very beginner stage. At least they can shoot, and sort of guard, but its very weak defense at best.

Then you have the poly/ite kids. Thats when the skill starts getting good. I could actually have a decent game with them. I would always win, but it would at least be kinda sorta competitive.

Then you had the ah bengs who were around army age. The oldest in their gang was my age, and games with them were really good. I still always won, because its ahbeng ball. Basically the singapore version of streetball. There was zero help defense, zero passing and everything was isolation. Literally what i was best at in those days; i could score whenever i wanted.

Good times, good times. I know its iso-ball, but i still had alot of fun on that court. I hope it will still be the same when i go back. I had a run in with one of the oldest ah bengs when i destroyed him 7-0 and den my fren got into a fight with him, which soured relations between me and the other ah bengs, some of the small fry don't really dare to talk to me after that. But the kids are still there. They're probably army age now. Maybe i will get to play against them when the court is back up.