Kainan: CHAMPIONS!!!

Friday
I had a sentence on, one of Bec's old matters, but in the morning the barista from the other side calls me up and says he made a mistake and didn't put this in his diary, so he has another matter out at Parra. He reckoned he could get here by 2pm and do it, so I went to court and mentioned it.

I got a copy of the report and saw that the report was asking for an adj, so at the morning tea break, just as the judge was going to leave, I stopped him and told him, hehe.

At 2pm I watched another matter before mine, where this girl from the State had really aggressive body language, putting one hand on the lectern and the other on her hip. She kept speaking over the judge, and he let it go for a while, but then he said something like "look, I'm fair game, if you listen to me I'll listen to you". Most people would get the hint right? But she still kept doing it! Finally he took his glasses off and let off at her, and she apologised.

My matter got adj, and after all that waiting around during the day, I was tired and wasn't really prepared to do any work for the rest of the day. Close to the end of the day, however, I went to ask Mary a question. She didn't know the answer and asked me to ask Moira, which ended up being a group conversation in Moira's room with her, Mary and Ogre.

Nunjo walked past a few times, looking in, until Mary stopped her and filled her in on my question. She talked a while and then left the office early.

I hadn't spoken to her much during the week. I just didn't feel like it. I didn't feel like being friends with someone who had rejected me.

After work I went to the gym. I was looking forward to having a quiet Friday night gym session. Again, I did my weightless workout. I noticed this tall blonde chick there. I have seen her before, but I think this is the first time I have really 'noticed' her.

The reason I 'noticed' her was because we were both in the small stretching area. We alternated using the dips machine. I'm not sure if it was a silent agreement, or if she thought I was a prick for jumping in between her sets.

Saturday
I was content to have a quiet day before the Finals. I didn't go shoot around in the morning, and I didn't go to Ele's bbq thing. However, around 1pm Jim messaged me asking me if I wanted to meet up for lunch as he was at work in the city. I said yes and he came to pick me up at about 2pm.

We called Bo and collected him as well as he was studying at the uni near me. We went to a Japanese restaurant at Chinksford. Bo had already eaten, so he just watched us eat. I think Jim and I had a bit of a miscommunication when checking out the menu. I was going to order a main for myself and share any entrees we ordered, but he seemed to think we would order anything and everything and share it all. That resulted in a lot of bloody food, and about $30 each. Sheesh.

We talked about the game obviously, but also about the NBA and stuff. There was a bit of a 'debate' between them as to Jeremy Lin. I was content to sit back and watch, not wanting to stir anything up. I was surprised to see Jim didn't back down. Good for him.

Sunday
Although the game was at 2pm, I had agreed with Bo to meet him at 11:30am at the station so we could get there early to shoot around. That still gave me plenty of time, so I bummed around on the computer for a bit, and then finally got around to getting ready, like ironing out my uniform and packing my camera.

I still had some time to kill. I kinda felt like those early moments just before a uni exam. I kept asking myself if I had everything, knowing that what would happen later that day was very important. It was really creating history. Despite us being the favourites and Bo and Jim having confidence we'd win it easily, I kept asking myself "what if?"

I caught a bus out to the city and when I got to Town Hall, I saw that a train was coming in three minutes. I called him and he wasn't answering. I knew he wasn't drunk because he had posted on facebook about an hour ago, but it was annoying nonetheless.

I hopped on the train and sent him a message. He called and said he was running late and asked me to get off at his station to wait for him. That annoyed me, but at the same time I remembered all those times I was late and he and Nick waited for me.

So I met him at his train station and then we caught the next train together. I didn't really feel like talking much, because I was thinking about the game. Call it mental preparation if you will. I went to Subway with him when we got off, and walked to the courts together.

When we got there, the courts were more packed than I had expected. One court was occupied by an external competition. I would've thought Court 3 would be free for a shoot around but it wasn't. We sat around and watched a game on Court 2, and then watched the external comp on Court 1.

Finally, at around 2pm, the court was free and we started shooting around. I got to working on my threes almost immediately. I was getting the gist of it and felt like I could hit a few in the game. I was feeling a little nervous. As we shot around, I realised that this was my first Finals in this comp. Bo, Nick and Jim had already been here. I know it's cliche and you hear it a lot, but I always just thought "who cares about the experience, it's just another game".

But it really isn't. Knowing that this game matters more than anything else changes everything. Knowing that each and every shot is precious changes everything. Knowing that one slight mistake can have a serious impact changes everything. I almost felt like I wanted to ask them what it was like in their Finals and how they dealt with it. But that would've been ghey.

Start of the game was the usual - sorta. I got my camera set up and can't remember the period betweeb then and finding myself in centre court shaking hands with the other team. When did I take those steps onto the court?

I was tense in the first half. I think both teams were. I missed a three and then basically played "safety" apart from taking a shot here and there. The only thing I could have any claim on was when I released on a three and Mike threw an outlet to me down the court. He passed it a second too late so there was already a defender there. I gathered the ball and bumped into him fairly hard then put up a shot and missed.

We were only up by six at half time and I seriously thought there was a real chance we could lose. I felt...real.

But we came out of halftime scoring, and more importantly, they were not. That allowed us to slowly increase our lead. I was happy when we got our lead to double digit. They seemingly started to panick, throwing up rushed and wild shots. That was a good sign for us.

We were supposed to do the 1-3-1 but I forgot a few times, and then when I remembered, some others had forgotten (probably thinking I wouldn't be doing it). This is what the Finals atmosphere did to me.

Towards the end of the game, when it was pretty much sealed, I released on a three and ran smack bang into this other guy who seemingly was doing the same but in the opposite direction to crash the boards. I thought he'd think I ran into him on purpose, so I apologised and he thought the same so he was apolosiging. Problem was, Court 2 was so loud, we both had to yell, and so you had two guys going "I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!" haha.

When the buzzer went, I was so relieved! I couldn't believe it. I had won! We had won!! I didn't know what to do, but was shaking the hands of the other team. I had scored zero points, but I didn't care. We went to our bench and I got my camera to take a photo.

Jim had a female friend arrive and I had her take the photo for us. I later found out her name was Olina. She started shooting around with us after as we played around the world. I was shooting with my left hand. Mike said I was only doing it as an excuse if I lost. Usually that'd be right, but I seriously thought I'd do ok with my left given my practice in recent times.

Anyway, we were waiting on the presentation ceremony which was at 4pm. We kept shooting around until we were called in a tone that was like "hurry up and stop mucking around". I jogged to the middle of the court to collect my trophy. I'm sure no one knew who the hell we were but I was a little shy. I got my trophy and we got some extras for MJ and Bert.

We then went off to the side to take photos with them, Mike doing stupid poses and shit. I didn't think using the trophies collectively to make a penis for him was very classy, but whatever.

There was one trophy for the team, and I kinda wanted it. I mean, I was the captain after all. I let Carter hold it for a photo but don't think it ever left his hands. Oh well, I was happy for him to have it anyway, because we wouldn't have won it without him. Mike did, however, pull me aside and say I should take it because I paid for Carter, but I was being the bigger person and said not to worry about it.

Nick missed the ceremony because he had to meet someone for work, so that sucked that he wasn't in any of the photos.

After more photo taking, we packed up and decided to go to the Outback Steakhouse. I went in Mike's car with Bo and when we got there, only Jim had arrived. His friend Olina and Alex and Nick arrived later and we all went into the restaurant.

I was excited to try this place as I thought I'd be really hungry after the game. But despite skipping lunch, I wasn't too hungry. I ordered a small steak and got to choose the entrees which were very nice.

I sat opposite Olina and didn't get to talk to her much. I wanted to because I felt like most of the times we were excluding her by our team talk, but Jim was sociable and would talk to her so that was cool. I didn't think much of her when I first saw her, but as the night went on, she grew on me a bit. I think the fact that she joined in our basketball shoot around and her being able to get along with the team kinda pushed me over the line.

After dinner we went bowling next door. We decided to play in teams, and I was quick to team up on Olina's side with Jim. I was afraid I'd totally suck at bowling, but actually didn't do too bad. We made a bet that losers of the first game had to do push ups and losers of the second game had to buy ice cream.

We won both games, hehe, but they didn't want to do push ups. I got along with Olina a bit better during bowling, not really talking, but just laughing and being part of a team. Afterwards we wandered around looking for ice cream but couldn't find any so we decided to go home.

Jim went one way towards his car and we all went the other. So I got to talk to her a bit and found out she;s in pathology at a hospital. She asked what I did and I told her. Then it was time to part. After she left, the guys asked if I'd go out with her and I said yes. Mike said my main issue was to see if Jim was interested. I don't think he was because I overheard her say she was coming to the game but he didn't tell her the time, and he was just like "I posted it on facebook". Bo was trying to come up with ideas on how I could see her again. As much as I appreciated him for that, I didn't really feel comfortable talking about it, but they kept wanting to talk about it and we stood there for 20 minutes talking about it, interspersed with me trying to change the focus to the girl Bo likes from bball.

After that Mike drove me to the station, and I caught the train back to the city with my trophy in tow. If anyone was going to try to steal my bag, I was going to smash them.