Finals recap

It's not everyday you get to play in the finals with over 200 people supporting you. The feeling I used to get from playing in front of a crowd was nerve wrecking and I would feel like a boiling kettle about to explode before and during the game. However, many games of this large a scale, wins, losses, have weathered me to become the player that I am and was when I played today. Even though I did feel a hint of nerves during the warm up (who wouldn't?), I forced myself to stay focus and not worry about the crowd. This definitely helped with my emotions and prevented me from having an extremely anxious start which could have led to me making more disastrous turnovers. Thankfully, my turnovers were limited to about.. 3 in Q1 and about 5 or 6 overall (Maybe more)? As I waited in my position for the match to commence, for the whistle to be blown and the jump ball, I heard my name being shouted from the stands, twice or thrice. It brought a smile to my face, thank you Kenji/Izyan/Bridgette. It means the world to me knowing that I've got people backing me up.

We lost. Yes, you read that right. 26-32 to be exact. At first I was devastated upon the discovery of my horrible free throw attempts. I made one out of four. If I had scored three more, we could've possibly won! I felt so bad, I felt responsible for this outcome, I shed a tear knowing that I could've stopped  this from happening. I got over it though by beginning to feel neutral about the loss. It's just a game, right? It's not that important anyway, it's just the East Zone finals. It'd be nice to win but losing the final isn't a big deal as well. Looking at the loss from this angle made me feel better. We are so lucky to be able to experience this only in the east zone where the games don't matter as much as the nationals do. I would rather lose in the final of the east zone than in a crucial match in the nationals, who wouldn't? It's one part positivity, one part practicality. This is a game we can learn from, definitely. We were given nineteen free throws, NINETEEN! And of those, we missed twelve.  We have no excuse to be losing by 6 points, in fact we could have won the game easily if we had scored the foul shots. But let's just put away all these could-have-beens and would-haves, we lost and that is the hard truth. Let us remember this as a lesson and not repeat this in the future!

Personally, I have gained something from this match. I have learned that I need to work on my free throws, badly. I need to get used to shooting the ball when I'm panting like crazy and gasping for oxygen to the point where I have to muster the strength of my entire being to grab air into my lungs. Anyway, during the game I thought my performance was average. I scored 6 or 8 points, which was... alright. I got extremely fatigued in the third and fourth and I shut down. I forced myself to focus, which I did, but I wasn't as alert as I was in the first half and my defence was getting sloppy. I thought I played hard defence throughout the entire game though. Hard, solid defence that helped the team. I did my part and followed instructions, and I'm glad. But I could have been of more help on the full court press, I felt like I was shying away from the ball. I absolutely did not want to dribble the ball up because I was afraid of losing it in the pressure defence. I did dribble it up a few times though but I caused a few turnovers which depleted my confidence. I decided to just run up to the three point line and camp and I felt so confident I was going to score all my threes, but of the 4-6 attempts I made only one. It's alright though. Still, I was kind of pissed off with my teammate for not passing the ball to me when I was open about three times, and that was AFTER I had scored my three pointer. After I scored the three I just knew that I would be on a roll and I desperately needed my teammates to give me the ball, but oh well. I did drive in thrice, lost the ball once as it dribbled off my foot but I sprinted back on defence. I'm so proud of my defence, I managed to stop a fast break from happening by sprinting back the entire length of the court, much faster than the rest of my teammates and opponents, and trapping the girl. Overall, defence was good, I was hardworking as I sprinted back a few times, but I slipped out of it in the third quarter due to fatigue which I will work on.

I felt that my game was average, I guess, even though many of my friends and classmates thought that I played like a 'beast'. I still can't wrap my mind around the thought of people thinking I played so well, calling me their 'MVP' and what not. It's surreal! I've never had such a large support base before! It's so flattering and I can't get enough. It's my high. I love it, I love it so much!  All my hard work and effort, all of my challenges, it feels like I'm finally being rewarded for everything I've done. I feel so rejuvenated that all of it is finally being recognised and I'm loving the attention and praises. I do it for myself mainly, but having that support from everyone and receiving the flattering remarks is just icing on the cake. Even as I type this out and reflect on what people have said about me, I still can't believe it! It's like a dream to me! I think the reason for this is because throughout the previous seasons I rarely had a remark or two from my friends telling me how cool or how great I can play, but now it's coming in bulks, a huge twelve foot high wave of compliments enveloping every inch of me. I. LOVE. IT. Thank you Declan, Dzul, class 4E (Yoke Kaye, Mifdhal, Hisyam and all) and others who called me a 'beast' and that I looked cool. Thank you Bryan for checking up on me after the game to see if I was doing alright and then beginning to tell me your tales of my dropping of '3 point bombs' and 'beastiness' and 'monster blocks'. Again, Thank you Bryan for venting your frustrations of the team to me and telling me I played great. Thank you Hanisah for also checking up on me 'five hours after the game' to see how I was feeling, I appreciate your concern for my well being even though it was only a minor setback for me! Thank you to Izyan and Kenji who only focused on me throughout the entire match and nothing else, thank you guys for cheering more for me than my team, haha. You guys are awesome! Thank you Veronica for recording the amount of time I played (38 minutes and 48 seconds) and for comparing me to Kuroko, one moment I'm there and in another, I'm not. I love you. Thank you Redsports for taking a picture of our team. Thank you all the supporters who were there cheering for us and keeping the school spirit strong even when we lost.