How a 25-Minute Period of Hooping Taught Me a Variety of Lessons
Life lessons learned after a 4-on-4 pickup basketball game
The score of the basketball game 17–16. We were trailing, and were about to blow the game.
This happened last Friday at the gym that I play at. It was a typical 4 on 4 game with my friends until the end of the game.
The team that I was on was rolling from start, going up 11–2. In streetball, two-point field goals count as only one point and three-point jumpers count as two points.
The other team started to mount a comeback.
An at one point took the lead.
It was crunch time and things were getting intense.
The beauty of streetball is that when the games become close at the end, both teams lock in.
At the end of the day, players hate to lose to their friends — or anybody else for that matter.
The game was to 15 points, but there is a rule where you have to win by two points. While the game wasn’t do or die, for us we were giving it our 100% because we didn’t want this long grueling game to end in a loss.
I wasn’t having my best shooting performance. I had some nice assists, I played solid defense, but my scoring was not there.
I missed open-look jumpers from long range, shots I usually make around 40% clip. I probably missed between five to ten of those in a row.
In fact, my first points of the game came when it was 15–15. Both teams had been sluggishly scoring as both defenses were determined to not allow a point.
The score was 17–16, and we were trailing. This is a tricky predicament. If the other team score from anywhere it won — whether that be a layup or a fluke shot, we would lose.
We could not win no matter what we did on one possession, so we would at need to score, get a stop, and score again.
On defense, one of their players put up a shot, and it clanged off the back of the rim. I grabbed the rebound and raced back out to the three-point line to clear the possession.
I grabbed the rebound around the corner left block. That means the fastest way to clear was to run straight to the corner.
The problem was that I was under the basket, so if I ran in a straight line to the corner, the ball would be 180 degrees in relation to the backboard.
That meant that if a shot goes up, it will have to sort of curve to avoid the backboard and go into the basket.
If I am not making wide open threes with a good angle to the basket, there would be no reason why my luck would change now.
To make things even worse, one of their defenders was closing out on me. That meant the release was going to have to be lightning quick or it would be blocked.
For whatever reason, I still shot it.
The ball took the trajectory of a rocket as it soared through the air. The ball swished through the basket — it touched nothing but net.
When it went in, I was elated.
I didn’t really celebrate because that would be stupid to do in a meaningless pick up game. I high fived my teammates and then the game went on.
While that shot didn’t technically win us the game, I still feel like that was the biggest shot of the game.
It put us in a position where we could win the game and put the other team out of a winning position.
On the next possession we scored to end the game. Without that three-pointer shot going in, the other could have grabbed the rebound and scored to end the game.
As I thought of this game later on, it hit me that this 25-minute period exemplified many of life’s most important lessons.
The first lesson this game taught me was never be complacent.
We were up 11–2.
This game should not have even been so close, much less being put into a losing position.
Whether on the court or in life, there should be no reason why in whatever one is doing, one cannot slack off and not be determined to work hard.
Remember, things can change in an instant.
No situation is ever safe. So do what you can do to put yourselves in the best position possible.
The second lesson I learned in the game was that it is never too late to better yourself. The complacency cost us our lead that does not mean we just give up, and let them win the game.
Just because mistakes are made does not mean that you cannot try to make improvements and fix those mistakes.
The game was so close we decided to lock in and gave it our all on defense, and tried our best to find a good shot on offense. Ultimately, if we did not try at the end of the game, we definitely would have lost.
The final lesson learned was that there are always going to be hard days wherever you go to school, work,etc.
At the end of the day, you cannot change your mindset based on one day where your emotions were out of swing.
What If someone is playing football for the first time, and they have a bad day catching the ball. And after that one bad day, the person quits football.
I am not saying in this hypothetical scenario that this made up person would have made the NFL, but since that bad day caused him to quit, we would never know how good he could have been if he didn’t quit.
Relating this scenario back to the game, if I had stopped shooting the ball, we might have lost that game.
I did not, however, let the bad shooting day get in my head. Everyone will have problems in their life no matter who they are. The way they try to overcome those problems sets those people apart.
While basketball is a simple sport where the goal is to put a ball in a hoop. It can teach many lessons as long as a player is open to improving themselves in the game and also in life.
Thanks for reading my story.
