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Hoopin’ it up

Last time I played here in Dallas was almost a month ago. I played really well that day, but my outside shot was hurting and I ran out of gas after about the third game. Today was a lot different, but I mostly played better. Last time I played, we played about 5 games and I finished the day 0-fer from the 3-point line. One thing that contributed to my abysmal 3-point performance was that once of my own teammates was counting (sort of) every time I missed a 3. First, he would moan that I was shooting, then when I missed, he’d add another one to a number that he basically made up (by his count, I missed about 15 3-pointers, but I and my friend only remembered me taking maybe 6; I don’t shoot a lot of I’m not hitting and I can make good passes).

That was all a setup for this: Guess who was guarding me for most of today? That’s right, my good friend with a knack for ficticious counting! And guess who freakin’ lit it up from the 3-point line? Right again! I did, and mostly over this guy. The first couple games we played, he wasn’t guarding me, but he was on the other team. Every time I caught the ball at the 3-point line, he’d encourage his teammates to let me shoot: “Oh yeah! That’s what we wan…”, but then I’d drain it. This happened 3 or 4 times before he stopped encouraging me to score. What I never figured out (and this goes for the rest of the games we played, too) was that no one ever really closed-out on me at the arc. I mean, all in all, I probably hit (conservatively) 7 or 8 3’s today. I did have one blocked (by my counter friend), but that just wised me and my team up to the fact that I was taking too long to load up before I shot. He didn’t get any more blocks and I realized that he was so eager to block me (when he did come outside) that I could head-fake and go in for the easy 10-footer.

Anyway, when the counter was guarding me, I really caught on fire: I had several 3’s (all long-range), a few mid-range jumpers and some good fastbreak points on him. In fact, I had at least 1, maybe 2 game-winners over him. He wasn’t encouraging me to shoot anymore by the time we were done. I think in 6 games, I had at least 2, maybe 3 game-winners. So, that’s the good.

The bad: My defense was sort of weak, but that was mostly because of mismatches. In most of the games I played, I was guarding a guy who was significantly bigger than me and always wanted to post up. I can play decent post defense, but it’s tough when the guy’s got 20 to 30 pounds on me and at least 3 or 4 inches. The good news was that my team was doing a great job with help defense and they were talking me through exactly where they wanted me: “Front him now, I got your back” or “You take his back, I got the front.”

The ugly: This ain’t really for me so much as some of the other dudes I played with today… There was some of the most sissy foul-calls I’ve ever seen. These are a couple that I was either in the play or standing close enough to see what actually happened: Once, I was guarding a guy who plays very physically, but also likes to call “ghost fouls” to bail himself out sometimes. He takes forever to set up for a jumper, so when I see it comin’, I can get my hand up and cause him to change his shot almost every time. Once, he shot it and, after the ball was well gone and the follow-through had ended, my finger tapped is elbow… he called foul and no one could believe it. The play was practically over and he had just shot an awful shot. Second, my friend–the counter–tried a crossover and tripped himself up. His defender was backing away and never touched the guy. I picked up the ball (which he’d unsuccessfully tried to recover), went the other way and had an assist on the fastbreak. Well, the counter decides–well after the ball is gone and we’re about to score–that he, in fact, was fouled on the play. I mean, people have already started walking back to get the ball, so they could inbound at the other end and everything. Anyway, they somehow ended up with the ball after the counter made a 3-pointer (see my last basketball post on the silly methods of conflict resolution they use out here).

So, all in all, I had a great day on the floor. That’s encouraging since our league starts up in a little over a month and I want to be ready to go when it does. My ankle is doing really well and I haven’t had any trouble with it in several weeks. Unfortunately, I have a heel spur (there’s some fancy-pants medical name for it that starts with “plantar fasc…”) that I’m nursing, but I’m thinking it’ll be good to go by the time we start playing in about 5 weeks.

I think this is officially the longest post I’ve written on playing basketball. I’m even boring myself this time.

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Sparsely blogging

I’m house-/dog-sitting all week, so I’m not in my apartment much… that means the blog is going to be neglected for a few more days. Things are good: I had another very solid acting lesson last night, work is ok and I had dinner with some friends to celebrate a birthday tonight. All in all, things are going smoothly and I’m enjoying myself.

Off to the other house.

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I feel like I’m back in school

This week, I was to find and memorize a new monologue (I part of a scene from Ferris Beuler’s Day Off), continue working on last week’s monologue from Good Will Hunting (it turned out to be almost 4 minutes) and I continued reading How to Get the Part…. So far, this acting thing has been pretty intense and that’s exactly how I was hoping it would be. I feel like I have a lot of free time since I only work till around 4 and it’s good that I have something to fill it. I mean, I would be reading a lot anyway–I’m working through The World According to Garp and a few other books–but it’s nice to be learning a craft. I just hope I continue to improve from week to week.

Another low-sleep Sunday night

I probably got around 3 hours of sleep last night and I don’t have a good reason at all. I was in bed by 12:15 and then I spent the next six hours tossing and turning. I’m sure I got a little sleep, but I could remember looking at the clock at least once an hour during the night and I’m not a light sleeper, so it takes me quite a while to get back to sleep once I wake up. Anyway, I’m going to bed early tonight for sure.

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Love Actually

A fantastic film. Of course, I coulda’ gone without all the naked people, but that was the only part of the film that I didn’t love. The writing was superb, the acting was fantastic and the story was fun to watch. I guess this would be considered a “chick flick”, but it’s excellent regardless. I feel that it transcends strict genre and represents a creative, well told story about love of different kinds and by and for people in different stages of life. Often, a romantic comedy (which is the single genre that this film most resembles) different types and aspects of love are explored, but all forms are generally portrayed in a shallow way until the payoff when the couple falls in love and lives happily ever after. This film covers platonic love, unrequited love, characters choosing a greater love in lieu of a less personal, less necessary love, and even love that simply must not be expressed due to circumstances and poor timing.

A great, great movie.

Mondays are always so rough…

…because by Sunday night I’m used to being up late, getting up late and sleeping a lot. I don’t need bunches of sleep, but I tend to take advantage of extra sleep time if it comes my way. That kinda’ time comes my way once a week in the form of the weekend and it only takes me those two days to become totally used to the luxuries of sleeping however long I want and napping at any time of the day. Of course, it won’t be long until I’m thrust back into sleepy reality as my alarm clock drags me out of bed and throws me in the shower at 7 tomorrow. I should be getting ready for bed, only I’m not tired. It’s going to be a long, short night.