Practice vs. Game

That first game you play in, you don’t know what to expect. You’re teammates think they know
what’s going to happen, but they’re wrong. The first game, you think you’re prepared, but you never
are. Practice and a real game are different. You may be making every shot in practice, you may be doing
all the drills correctly, but in a game situation, doing a drill correctly won’t help you win a game. Players
and athletes can tell the difference as soon as they step onto the court.

I remember my first game; I had only attended a couple of practices. My teammates felt pretty
confident in winning. They kept saying, “How much should we win by? 20? 30?” And I kept quiet. I had
no intention of becoming part of this nonsense. It’s the first game, how do you know what’s going to
happen?

As the first game came and went, we lost by 28. All I could think of was, Who knew? My
teammates felt out-of-place when they changed out of their uniforms in the locker room. I had a pretty
decent game, but it had not felt like anything we did in practice, except maybe the running. The drills we
had practiced came into play here and there, but ultimately, it’s about chemistry, about your own game
when you play. So before you think you can win a game because you had good practices, think twice.
Don’t let talk get in the way of what you know that you can actually achieve.

Joseph P. (12)