Stellar he may be, Kobe Bryant is infamous for being buwakaw (greedy) in ball handling. Although I’ve been a basketball fan for quite sometime now, I haven’t known the ‘truest’ sense of the word buwakaw until recently.
We had the opening of our Inter-colors sportsfest last Tuesday. In yesterday’s basketball game, it was Red vs. Yellow Team. In the first half of the game, Red was struggling against Yellow. The latter, in my perspective are at an advantage because of their height. Red’s defense is no match against their opponent.
When the second half came, Red managed to catch up with Yellow’s score by implementing zone defense. That time they had bigger players than the previous ones. However, while they were scoring at par with the Yellow, this player (who’s an officer) ruined the play by substituting himself for a larger player. Note that he’s one of the ’small ones’.
The advantage with these small players is speed. They easily get past the defense and deliver the ball into the hoop faster than anyone else could. They become a liability once they start feeling like they’re the only scorers of the game.
The player I observed was no exception. He’s not bad as an individual player. In fact, he is the strongest among the team. What he lacks however is team playing skills. He may be fast but he couldn’t see his teammates around him. He rushed with the plays, and instead of passing the ball to his them, he alone drives the ball to score and fails to shoot repeatedly. At least, Kobe Bryant makes up for the greedy moves with scores. Moreover, our player failed to realize the importance of defense, which he unfortunately couldn’t provide.
In the game, the time was already nearing 6:00pm and the players were nearly groping in the dim outdoor court. The game was tied at 62 with 4 seconds left. A foul was called on one of the Red players. They were on penalty for having more than the allowed number of personal fouls so the Yellow as given two free throws.
Yellow makes the two. And with 4 seconds left, Red’s ball, an inbound pass was given to player I mentioned. He drives and yet, fails to shoot (again). The unhappy ending for the Red team.
