Hope shines eternal

Thank the heavens i didn't hurt myself today

Was playing bball with yl (who's developing into a really solid power forward) as usual and an angmo dude and a girl challenged us. At first i thought can relax, then the girl stole my ball on the first possession i got it. (later i realized she was rj AND smu school team. jiaxuan. hope i meet her again she was cute! but for basketball, can tell shes easily a starter. im not sure how good rj bball is nowadays but she might be one of the better players)

Her defence was really good, best i've faced since my surgery. Although she relaxed abit after yanlong told her about my surgery, it was already in my head and i missed a bunch of open shots from PNR. Badly too, there were airballs in the bunch. the only buckets i could score were when i was wide open, usually when the ang mo guy was guarding me cos it was obvious she had ALOT of experience defending against PNR.

so we ran our usual stuff, yanlong scored a few, i scored a couple of open jumpers after they collapsed onto him in the paint. den it was match point for us and suddenly yl told me: dude i'm blacking out. so i told him its ok just defend ill score. in hindsight, an extremely stupid thing to say since i hadn't done anything except take open jumpers since my surgery.

so he got a rebound, passed to me, i was dribbling with my usual relaxed stance (which is probably why i commit so many turnovers) and got too close to jx. She saw her chance (and it WAS a chance. my relaxed dribble is DAMN SLOW and HIGH which are the two ingredients for an easy steal. I literally stand straight up and i'm 6 feet.) and went for the steal.

Somehow, my instinct from the good old pre-acl days awoke, and i instinctively went behind the back. And its not the noobish quick bounce kind, its the controlled curl around the back kind. the ang mo dude was in the vicinity and saw his chance also, and came straight for my left hand (my weaker off-hand). The aomine in me awoke from his slumber and a quick bounce from my left to right resulted with both defenders behind me. and finished with a nice layup without any help from my left hand (one handed all the way which always looks smooth). In hindsight, i'm thankful neither of them undercut me from behind which would have been nasty. for me.

Although i could tell she was being careful with me (the ang mo certainly was not, he went barrelling into me on one play), it was still the nicest move i managed to pull off on the bball court since my acl tear. its nice to know i can still do stuff aside from take jump shots.

but still gotta be careful. need to stop playing with cute girls. sentosa was a different story, since sand cushions alot of the impact, but the concrete of a basketball court is a totally different ball game. no more showing off and no more fancy moves, i'm still in mid-rehab for crying out loud! ill do all those stuff in 9 months.