I have not played organised basketball in around 18-20 months because I told myself I quit the sport. Going into this game I was not nervous as all because I had no expectations in terms of how well I will play. Throughout those 18-20 months I have probably done a little shooting around and I remember it being almost impossible for me to make a three point shot.
I remember right before this first game, even before warm up I decided to shoot around a bit and see where my current skill is at. Most of my basic fundamental skills are still there, I can still dribble the ball with my right hand and somewhat with my left, I can make a basic layup, and still do strong passes, but something which takes a lot of technique and practice such as my shooting has gotten a lot worse. Probably after about 10-15 minutes of messing around I randomly made a three pointer which caught me off guard. I guess the natural muscle memory took control and I made 2 more three pointers which really caught me off guard making me gain confidence in my shooting which I have never had.
In the past, I was known as one of the worst shooters. My form has always been off, in general I was just not the best shooter. It always felt forced every time I would shoot the ball rather than letting it flow naturally so that is mainly what messed my shooting up. Due to the long period of time not actually shooting the ball I guess I went back to how I naturally shot with my body mechanics and so on which caused me to actually make 2 in-game shots which were contested. I did in the end miss another 3 shots very badly which caused my dad to tell me to stop.
I also realised I lost a lot of confidence in terms of getting to the basket and trying to make easier shots such as a lay-up or floater which in the end did cost us the game. Most of the game we were up ranging from 5-10 points but towards the end we lost by 2. Our team was split into 3 groups, the amateur/really good players, those who can play the sport for both fun and recreational, and lastly those who just want to play in the league but don’t exactly play the sport. Each group playing for 4 minutes in a quarter which lasted 12 minutes each. Due to myself still being a student playing against older, stronger full grown men, I am put in the lower bracket and the middle bracket. This caused my team heavily relying on me to carry the lower bracket while being a support player in the middle bracket. My team was heavily relying on me to make some valuable shots, due to me being younger, faster and more skilled compared to my on-court teammates. I mainly was a runner to move the ball up during transitions when playing with the middle bracket and I was one of the scorers in the lower bracket. Because I was in the game for 32 minutes out of the 48, and also being the main runner, I was not exactly conditioned to do a lot of short sprints throughout that amount of time. I am mainly a long distance runner so sprints aren’t exactly my thing. By the end of the third quarter, I was struggling to run and by the fourth quarter, I was lying down and walking every opportunity I had. At one point I felt like I was going to faint out of sheer exhaustion.
I guess I have to work on my conditioning.
