Indoor game today. As it was breezy and chilly this morning, Mando opened the gym for us. The advantages of indoor fives include: no wind, no sun in your eyes, and no tight double rims. The disadvantages are: exerting oneself out-of-doors is its own pleasure, and there's some slippage on a gym floor. Unless it is swept thoroughly, a wood surface is less responsive than concrete. The court was by no means dusty, but you notice those fractions of seconds and inches.
However, the comparatively soft rims were nice. Their presence coincided with solid all-around shooting from everybody. Throughout the morning, Gil drained a bevy of threes, Randy and Rick were swishing j's, and even I filled two bombs. On my team was White Kobe, who scored the lion's share of points as we won the final five games. As I've said, he's a scoring machine, a jumper-hitting automaton. Seldom drives, seldom posts up. Just catch and shoot. It can be disconcerting, because I'm making a cut, look up, see him firing up a corner trey with Brian all over him and I'm thinking, "Is he really taking that sho---nice!" The thing is, when you're playing with someone like that - a legitimate shooter - just feed him, know your role, and it'll all come together. He'll find you on a double team. Our last game went to twenty, and it featured a scintillating duel between him and Brian. As Kobe hit successive hand-in-his-face jumpers, Brian pounded him down low for hook after hook after hook. As for me, nothing special defensively today. In fact, I caught myself not contesting some of Gil's treys, just watched them unfold like a theatergoer gazing upon a developing scene. Ah, this is where he spots up and, well look at that! Pass the Raisinettes! As per the trend lately, most of my points came on layups, although I swished a jumper to win the final game. That felt pretty sweet.
With a new baby due any moment now, you'd think that practice time would shrink. But that's why I bought a Little Tykes rim at a garage sale ($3) yesterday, as well as a Snow White-themed ball from the Walgreens ball-bin twenty minutes later. Sure, it's ostensibly for Little J, but while I'm working with her on her reverse layup and free throws, I'll be getting my reps in, rest assured. Those little balls are actually harder to control, so if you can dribble that, you can dribble anything. When we presented it to her after naptime, she immediately put on a one-girl dunk contest. "Jean's do, Jean's do, Jean's doing basketbaaaaaaaalll." If she will stick with the sport is unknown, but as I observed her catch a pass from her mom on the couch, a flash came to me, a vision of the year 2023 and a high school player nicknamed...LaBlonde J.
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