I’ve been there.

You feel that you are ready. You have put your hands to work. Hours and hours in the gym putting up shots, training with your friends, doing exercises.

Entire offseasons put into a specific ability and then bam. It doesn’t translate to games.

You can’t translate to games. Somehow, when the time comes, you start to feel the nerves. Everything feels more vibrant, alive. Every move you make slows down in time, and every possible decision races through your mind, making you second-by-second second-by-second second-guess yourself.

It happens at all levels. You see it in the NBA when players seem to get stuck despite claiming to work X, Y, or Z. (Hey, Dion, I’m looking at you, mate).

So what can you do about it? How do you become the guy (girl) who is at his BEST in games, the Timmy T of basketball? Let’s look at some things he can do to improve his performance.

1. Visualize. Visualize and visualize some more. Ideally, every moment and experience you’re going to have in a game feels like you’ve had it many times. When you step on the court, you’ve already imagined it a dozen times. When that ball is going to kick off, you’ve focused on the nervous feelings you might have.

You’ve felt what the ball feels like when your hands are hyperactive and yet somehow unresponsive.

You have imagined your first layup with the defense on your back. You have imagined that first pass before throwing.

By doing this, you’ll lose a degree of that edginess or urgency you feel in games that’s probably a factor in your “shaq-at-the-free-throw” type of play.

Interestingly, you don’t want to feel completely disconnected from the experience, as a little excitement is a good thing, so if you get to the game and you’re so disconnected that you don’t even feel like you care about basketball, start getting excited. and be loud with your teammates like pro players do at the start of every NBA game.

two. focus and confidence. A major factor in fighting syndrome in games is overthinking every action you take and mentally tracking the results.

Am I having a bad game? Am I having a bad game? Where is my mom? What does my mom think? Oh shit, what does my girl think? All my classmates hate me. Kyrie hates me (my worst nightmare).

That good neighbor who says he’s always there is no longer there, that’s how bad I am for this mistake.

And that is the problem. It’s a mistake. By overthinking every missed shot, every mistake, you are guaranteed to make more mistakes and miss more shots. Also, you will be disconnected from the game and not focus as much on things like defense and increasing your team’s energy. Good going, negative nancy.

Instead, focus and trust. You know you’ve worked hard. You know it. You’ve seen your shot snap in practice many times and you’ve seen yourself outplay your competition in games.

So trust your body. Now is not the time to analyze. It’s time to play. Just trust your body and focus only on making the right basketball decisions.

It sounds counter-intuitive: see the forest, not the trees. If you keep making the right decisions and don’t punish yourself for the result, eventually that result will catch up.

So lose your stress and relax.

3. Practice better. If you’re on a real team doing practice games, it’s less likely to apply, but it’s still important for anyone training on their own or playing for fun. You need to simulate what happens in games in practice.

You’ve probably heard this before, and if so, it’s because it’s true. You need to play at “game speed”. In games you get tired; everything feels faster. In a second you’re flipping a screen, the ball is thrown at you, you realize you’re open, and you shoot before the window closes.

There’s no room here for “let’s take a break, have a drink, and listen to the Weeknd.” Take the same shots in practice that you would in games, at the same speed, under the same conditions (tired as hell).

For one last quick tip, get an idea of ​​how you want your performance to be. The feeling you want to have. You know when you do that and one and you feel like you’re on top of the world? Something like that.

Focus on that image and block out everything else.