One of the things I regret over the last six months has been not getting out to play basketball. Right, now it’s a good time for it too, temperatures around 60 degrees F, but a combination of a heavy/tiring workload and getting used to not playing has got me stuck in this rut of no ball.
Haven’t really played since I came back from the US in May, and before that I had been going to Cong Vien Lenin to practice my handles a decent amount. Now, it looks like I play again when I return to the US in two week’s, but after that…I don’t know. I can be hopeful, but I’ll need to find a way to get out and make it a habit again.
A couple of weeks ago, right before my birthday, played in a 3 on 3 tournament with Vinh and Hung, 3 out of shape Viet Kieu, over at Dai Hoc Hanoi. Waking up at 7:30 AM after a Thanksgiving Friday dinner (I do not wake up at 7:30, period), heading out to the school, 5 hrs later (that’s when we left the school, play actually finished much earlier) we had 3 games under our collective belts, 2 wins, and a 3rd place finish, all of which earned us a prize of nothing.
But we just wanted to play.
Game 1: HMV vs Bach Khoa Killers (BKK) (Maybe score of 9-4?)
Favorable matchup, basically a gimme. We were pretty scared actually, before the game. We were facing Bach Khoa killers, and we were convinced we had the tallest team (all over 6 feet). Instant elimination meant we’d be going home after 1 loss, and they seemed like trouble. Think of 3 Vietnamese Yi Jianlian’s on 1 team.
Instead, we lucked out and faced a team of 2 guys and a girl. I think the girl was from EAP. Jon and EAP 2007 organized the tournament but I had been told we didn’t really need a girl, it was only encouraged. But when we played BKK, I knew it’d be only fair to pick a girl in and have Hung sub, and luck for us, Hien, a girl I used to coach, was around, so we picked her up.
BKK turned out to be a weak time. Nice kids, but just not skilled. Gave them a lot of moving violations (travels, carries), but we won in the end. The difficult part was we played losers (ball goes to the team that gave up the previous score, not the one that scored), and you can’t go on hot runs like that. We took forever to pull it out, us being slow and out of shape.
Game 2: HMV vs (3 x Yi Jianlian) (Maybe 9-15?)
Ah, so we escaped the first round, but lost this one. It was not a blowout, but we couldn’t really face up considering the out of shape-ness and lacking polished skills. They, on their end, were reasonably athletic, but played more of a finesse game. They were tall but sloppy, more fancy than legit. I started slow, and I’ve always had trouble playing height, especially if the taller man is not too slow. I got cruelly rejected on a reverse due to 1) lower rims- because of the angles lower rims give taller people a bigger advantage 2) not quick as I would if I were in shape.
Vinh tried his best, Hien, I’m not sure, she may not have played because they played 3 guys, and Hung made some nice shots. Overall, we could man up 1-1 but on rebounds and put backs, couldn’t get there. They killed us on those, and I didn’t do squat all game. Couldn’t handle well enough to do anything with the ball.
I challenged one of the Yi’s to take me on 1 on 1 with a Keanu to Agent Smith wave and he tried. And I picked him. And I felt good about it. So good that I am writing it here. I think even in my shape and no practice, I could consistently defend them 1 on 1 on drives and kill them. He wouldn’t try to drive on me after that.
All during the day, I kept slipping on any kind of move (go for a loose ball, a cut, a stop, etc.). It must have looked like I was Charlie Hustle the way I hit the ground. And this is blacktop mind you, so my legs were messed up after everything. It really hurt us though and I couldn’t do much of quick movements without losing the ball.
Vinh thinks that if we normally played the Yi’s 10 times, we’d win 4. I agree. They’re truly all height.
Game 3: HMV vs. (Lebron-wannabes and Ha) (Maybe 15-12?)
I call this team the Lebrons because they were wearing some Lebron-branded mesh jerseys. Ha is one of my friends who was another student I coached back in the spring. Hung started with Vinh and Hien, Vinh was really tired, so we actually got behind 7-2 or so. I switched with Vinh, and we started to make our big run. I tried to play good defense, and we slowly made our way back to a 8-8 tie. One of the Lebrons tried to take me 1 on 1, but I owned him. PWNED him. One time, I stuck with him the whole time an delivered a vicious block as soon as he tried to shoot on the drive. Disgusting, I mean. It is potentially one of the top 2 blocks of my life. And yes, I do remember fantastical blocks. It was one of those blocks where you should feel so embarrassed as to never try to drive on X person again.
But he did not learn his lesson. I suppose no fear/stupidity can be commended. The Lebrons were big on fancy dribbling that got them nowhere (many kids are) and 3’s. What was silly for them is that all shots were worth 1 point, but they shot 3’s anyway.
Later on, when the same Lebron from before drove on me, he got by me, but I came back for the catch-up block.
And there it was. He went up for the layup, I blocked it.
On his head.
I did not mean to do that, but he was going up, and I had to go down with the block. I ended up hitting up on the head, but the block came first and was clean. I tried to say I was sorry, but he was pissed. Because he sucked. I like to think that anyway. To me it was no big deal but another sign he should not try to test me.
Ha told me later that they (not her) felt we were cheating because we were so physical, but I call BS to that. They kept slapping at us, trying to push away, and we were just physical in order to protector ourselves and the ball. Hung got hit a lot, he told me, and we definitely gave them a lot of calls. I definitely do not play physically (see a picture of me and you will understand), but I made an effort to protect the ball and not let them mess with me.
Around 10-10 or so, I was trying to get us to pull away, but I was getting tired, they were making some of their 1 pt 3’s, and having loser’s outs was really slowing us down. We switched Hung with Vinh, and we made a last push to finish the game out. We knew we could win, but we just needed to get those last points. I really, really, did not want to lose.
Conclusion! (This post is done!)
All in all, a painful experience (took me a week to recover, and two weeks later, I still have scabs from the falls). But fun! I’m pretty happy with how everyone played, and the effort, I wish I had not slipped so much and been able to do more. I think we could have taken 1st.
Hmm, maybe we had home court advantage because Gerard and I paid for the whole thing, but get no credit for it. Unappreciative DH Hanoi bastards. (joking)
Also, no pictures yet. Hoping Jon will get some from the EAP kids and send them over.
Tags:
Basketball,
dai hoc hanoi,
eap,
hanoi,
Vietnam,
yi jianlian
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I personally recommend the Better Basketball DVD series and Bobbito Garcia’s Basics to Boogie. The Better Basketball series is heavily advertised in Slam Magazine, and I own the Shooting DVD but have watched parts of some of the others. The hard part with the Better Basketball series is that it requires a lot of work (surprise!) and dedication to really understand and be able to execute on the lessons. The series is also quite expensive at $30 a DVD, and is not easy to find pirated (they’ve done an amazing job stopping people from doing so). It’s not so non-English speaker friendly either.
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