Napheesa Collier

To me, it wasn't a cost.

To me, it was great because the foundation of it was that freshman summer going to my sophomore year of college where I was just so determined to not feel like shit anymore when I played that I wanted to be in the gym.

I was doing two days every single day.

I would do skill work in the morning.

I would shoot in the afternoon every single day.

And so learning that, and then when you start seeing the reps go down and it feels good, you're playing pickup, you're playing one-on-one, I'm like, I am scoring every single time.

Like it builds your confidence and after that becomes natural in the way that you add it to your game.

But yeah, I mean, you have to do so many reps for things to become second nature.

Um, yeah, it was awful.

I mean, I felt a lot of anger.

I've not been, you know, quiet about like how I felt about the finals.

So I was riding on anger for a really long time.

And it's still something that like I used to motivate myself even now.

I mean, I feel like it has pushed me to be honestly a better player because I in the way that I play, I feel like I never want to be in that situation again where I'm having to complain about the rest, which everyone is saying, you know,

I want it to be where we're winning by so much it doesn't matter what the refs are calling.

And so I think it's changed my mindset and the way that I see the game, honestly, and it's made me a better player because of it.

I think it's changed my mentality honestly it's made me more mentally strong and so during the games I feel like sometimes I would like coast a little bit where you have you know quarters or a couple minutes where you're like you don't need to be involved and you know you're kind of like LeBron at the end of the game like swinging the ball stuff like that now I just feel super locked in like I want to make sure that I'm contributing to the team it doesn't even have to be scoring but like

I need to be going out there and I need to be playing great defense.

I need to be getting rebounds, whatever it is where I'm locked in.

And just, I would just say it just, it just gave me an edge to when I play and how I play.