Career Night On The Court

There some things that occur during your lifetime that cannot be easily explained.   There might some weird coincidence that happens which causes you to meet your future wife, get a job or something else.

Tonight, something weird happened tonight which I cannot easily explain.  Take a look at the following stat line from my adult league basketball game tonight:

23 Points (11-19 FG's, 1-1 FT)
7 Rebounds
1 Assist
1 Steal
1 Turnover

That stat line was MINE tonight.  There was a considerable buzz around the gym as I put up my 23 points tonight.  The reason was that I am not usually the main scorer for any of the teams I play on.  Secondly, while I am known as a decent mid-range (15 foot and in) shooter,  I can be streaky at times.
Plus, I've only scored 20 points in a game less than 10 times in all the years I played in league basketball (probably more like 3 to 5 times, though I don't remember exactly).

However, if I were to try and explain why I shot so well tonight, here's some possibly explanations....


MY TEAM WAS MISSING TWO KEY GUYS


We were missing our center (injury) and our young guard (illness) tonight.  Between those two guys, they probably would have gobbled up the majority of my 19 shots.  With the two guys missing, the remaining six guys had a chance to get more shots up.  Of course, with more opportunities, you still have to make the shots.  Fortunately, they were going in for me tonight!

I PLAYED IN A WEEKEND BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT


I played in a weekend basketball tournament with some other guys.  My team didn't do too well as we lost all three games.  However,  I played quite a few minutes and got a lot of running in.  So that definitely helped me get in shape.

But the other thing was that I was hitting my shots during the tournament.  My overall shooting percentage wasn't that great because I forced some bad shots during the games.  However, when I was open and shot the ball in rhythm, the shots were going down with good frequency.  In fact, during the second game of our weekend tournament, I hit my first four shots of the game!  Overall, I averaged 10 points a game during the tournament which was solid.

IT'S THE SHOES!


My knees had been aching the past several week while playing basketball.  I thought it was just due to old age.  However, it never occurred to me that it was my basketball shoes.  The shoes I had been using looked great on the outside.  However, I wondered if I had overused it the past year or so with the number of league games I had played.

For my weekend tournament, I decided to break in my Li-Ning BD Doom shoes (Baron Davis's signature shoe with Chinese company Li-Ning).   Surprisingly, the shoes were comfortable and held up well over the weekend.  Of course, I played reasonably well and the trend continued into tonight.  I might need to order up another pair for backup!

IT WAS A HOLIDAY!


It was great to have today off.  I got in plenty of sleep and didn't do a lot during the day.  I went to the mall and CostCo with my mom to get some shopping in.  Other than that, I just chilled and showed up at the gym pretty laid back.

One underestimates how much work stress can have on you for the other activities in your life.  Too bad I can't take days off every time I play basketball!

JUST ONE OF THOSE NIGHTS


I could throw out my possible explanations.  But hey, it could have just been one of those crazy evenings.  Assuming our other two guys come back healthy, I'll probably settle back into my role as a bench player.

I should mention that it would have been nice if my team had won (we lost 64-54).  Career nights are great but not so if the team loses.  However, it was a fun evening and definitely one to remember.