I have wanted to do this for some time now - learn to play basketball! After talking to G, Yushi, and others, we created an intramural basketball team - Team Infinity. What better way to learn than to play (and play with the spirit of competition!)
We had out first match last week. We practiced before the match - we did some dribbling, shooting, and layup practice; and also had a 3-on-3 game. After the 1.5 hour practice session, we had food and then went to the gym to play the real match.
We played against Rock-a-fellas. G was telling me that the pace we played in at the practice and the pace of the real game would be different, but it was a little more than expected. After 5-10 minutes into the game, I switched out (haha...speaks of my poor stamina). We had 7 players, we kept rotating the players, as they tired out.
By half-time we had accumulated 5 fouls by us and 1 foul against us. We had no fouls in the second half (an interesting note, we did all the 5 fouls in the first 10 minutes, if my memory is correct). The game ended with 25-55... a clear defeat, but I still enjoyed the game - I had fun playing with the guys and it gave me a lot of opportunity to learn =).
The next game we play, I hope we score at the same level as our opponents if not better!
We did some informal post-game analysis (not as a team, but talking to individual people). Here is how I sum it up:
- We did not have a clear plan of defence; at one point we decided to mark man-to-man (the way we had played in the practice game; and pretty much the only defence "technique" we - lowest common denominator with the team as a whole - knew). This was too strenuous considering 3 of us have barely done anything physically exerting in the past some time!
- Ash's suggestion was that we use a zone-defence in the future (as a starting point)
- Personally:
- I have to increase my stamina - my strength during the second half was pretty low
- I have to increase my jump height; when I was defending guys my height, they could jump higher than me
- I think I can do well in defence; during the game, I feel like I was able to say where the ball would be passed to (with a pretty good success rate). I was a bit slow to block all of the predicted shots (in fact I barely blocked any of it effectively...thats how I feel)
- 2 players from our opponent team told us after the match that we have to move in more. True, I guess other than the 3 regular basketball players in the team, the rest of us, at least at a subconscious level felt that we cannot take/hold the ball in successfully. So, we would try to shoot to the basket to score. We need to improve our game play in (under) the net area. To me this would personally mean, improve my ball control and defence skill (defending the ball from being stolen)
We have to deal with these issues and go back next week and win the game! We are playing "ballin", lets see how it goes.
Labels: basketball, team infinity
