Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five

players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, usually indoors. Each
team tries to score by tossing the ball through the opponent’s goal, an elevated
horizontal hoop and net called a basket.

A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point
line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or
designated to shoot a technical foul is given one or more one-point free throws.
The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play
expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (overtime) is mandated.

The only major sport strictly of U.S. origin, basketball was invented
by James Naismith on about December 1, 1891, at the International Young Men’s
Christian Association (YMCA) Training School, Springfield, Massachusetts,
where Naismith was an instructor in physical education.
For that first game of basketball in 1891, Naismith used as goals two half-
bushel peach baskets, which gave the sport its name. The students were
enthusiastic. After much running and shooting, William R. Chase made a
midcourt shot—the only score in that historic contest. Word spread about the
newly invented game, and numerous associations wrote Naismith for a copy of
the rules, which were published in the January 15, 1892, issue of the Triangle, the
YMCA Training School’s campus paper.

While basketball is competitively a winter sport, it is played on a 12-month

basis—on summer playgrounds, in municipal, industrial, and church halls, in
school yards and family driveways, and in summer camps—often on an informal
basis between two or more contestants
Originally, players wore one of three styles of uniforms: knee-length
football trousers; jersey tights, as commonly worn by wrestlers; or short padded
pants, forerunners of today’s uniforms, plus knee guards.
 Clara Baer, who introduced basketball at the H. Sophie Newcomb College
for Women in New Orleans, influenced the women’s style of play with her set of
women’s rules, published in 1895. On receiving a diagram of the court from
Naismith, Baer mistook dotted lines, indicating the areas in which players might
best execute team play, to be restraining lines, with the result that the forwards,
centres, and guards were confined to specified areas. This seemed appropriate
because many felt that the men’s game was too strenuous for women.

Each team of five players consists of two forwards, two guards, and a
centre, usually the tallest man on the team. At the beginning of the first period of
a game, the ball is put into play by a jump ball at centre court; i.e., the referee
tosses the ball up between the opposing centres, higher than either can jump, and
when it descends each tries to tap it to one of his teammates, who must remain
outside the centre circle until the ball is tapped. Subsequent periods of
professional and college games begin with a throw in from out-of-bounds. Jump
balls are also signaled by the officials when opposing players share possession of
the ball or simultaneously cause it to go out-of-bounds.

The Moldavian national basketball team is the basketball side that

represents Moldova in international competitions. It is governed by
the Basketball Federation of Moldova (FBRM)

I have chosen this sport because besides being interesting, it is also very
beneficial for health. I played this game both in gymnasium and high school and
I liked a lot it. I think it was so because I had a very good physical education
teacher who taught us all the rules of the game and practiced it very often.