Love for the game : Hustle

Hustle:

Stop a guy in the street and ask him, what are the skills involved in basketball. Depending on whom you ask they will either utter a derisive snort, swing an imaginary bat in a graceful forward drive and point the said imaginary bat at you and scream “Basketball! Shmasketball! Cricket rules bitches!”, or “Basketball? Skills? No room for skills here bro. All these rules and fouls. So much simpler to just kick a ball. Joga Bonito!!”. Or scratch their chin and reply “ Hm. Lets see. Shooting, dribbling, passing, rebounding, and...defending. Yeah, that’s about it”. That’s the one I was looking for, thank you.

The sharp readers will notice the absence of the article title among the skills mentioned above. Hustle. The basketball readers will point out that hustle is a all encompassing intangible which involves defense and rebounding. Sure, but it is a skill of its own, with a strong correlation to desire. It means diving for loose balls, leaping out of bounds to keep a ball in play, diving into the stands and whipping the ball behind your back to keep it alive, not giving up on a play, returning quickly on defense to snuff out a fast break opportunity, chasing the ball all over the place, and more of all round effort which makes the opposition want to punch the guy in the face so hard. Ginobili, Iverson, Wade, Steph Curry, and a host of other players are famous for this. Throw a ball across a street and the chances are good that one of those guys will materialize from nowhere, swoop down on it with a whoop, and drive across the lane dribbling it along the way. They can’t help it. Following is a ballad of a victim of intense hustle, in honour of Ostertag’s 9 blocks in a playoff game:

As I drove towards the lane,
Whistling a merry tune.
I discovered to my shame,
My celebration was a tad too soon.

A no look behind the back pass that was unseen by all
Including the intended recipient, Greg Ostertag, he who’s obscenely tall
(Height is might, right? Not when you have uncoordinated eyesight.)
His inadvertent slipup, led to a fast break opportunity
My first uncontested layup, I thought with impunity.
I merrily skipped away, my form a treat to the eyes.
Away, far away from the other 9 guys
No way this lay ends with a block, right guys?
/* lay here meaning layup/story. Shakespere’s got nothing on me */
Yea, verily, I was on a fastbreak.
They, at the very least, were left quite far away.
But as I learned, to my dismay.
One player had never learned to give up on the play
One player endeavored, yearned, to swat the ball away.

As I soared to the rim, with my arm extended.
The crowd roared, out on a limb, it wasn’t for me their cheers were intended.

Chased me down like a cheetah
(How did he catch up. Oh! My shoelace was loose on my feet, yeah)
Jumped like a monkey
(Dude just got lucky)
Soared like a hawk
(Hey! I was in shock!
I swear this is not an act.
He came way too fast for me to react)
And batted the ball off the backboard,
But what made my shoulder sag,
Was the fact that my shot was blocked by Greg Ostertag.
To top it off, he commemorated the block with a Mutombo finger wag.
Thus he finished with 9 blocks in a game,
Putting his name in the NBA Hall of Fame(?)

Here is a mix of hustle plays:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9o6t0-4pCQ

On a side note, here is a vid of Steve Nash doing what I’d dreamt of, Bball conquers soccer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjguNTV3A2c