Shifting hard into reverse

All forward gears work as expected and when driving around parking lots and such reversing after long city drives is no problem. But when I get to camp and want to transition from forward to reverse, it shifts hard into R and its not a normal shift while in 4H.

I had thoughts of it being fluid temperature related because I just get off the freeway up a big long grade 7% and then in the dirt more grade but in 2nd and 10 MPH. I tried using sand mode thinking there was a lot of torque converter slip and heat build-up and the cooling fans coming on sooner might keep fluid temperature in-check but it doesn't seem to matter what mode its in although I haven't tried 4L because the terrain doesn't require it at all.

I searched and saw this thread https://www.landroverworld.org/threads/tranny-thunk-when-shift-into-reverse.4653/ but the focus was on u-joints. Does anyone think it would be u-joint related? There is play in my drive train for sure but I think all drive trains are like that to an extent? I also get wonder left & right coming off the throttle but I think that is also normal for front wheel drives sometimes. I'm starting to wonder if its transfer case related and not the transmission but it seems to shift fine into R otherwise except off road. The tranny fluid and filter is about 28k miles old, I had the metal pan installed so thinking maybe I could try changing the fluid. Does it sound like a problem I shouldn't ignore? Any ideas?

From first drive of the day shift from Park to Reverse, Neutral, Drive and reverse order while holding it for 5 seconds per gear change. Does it shift hard from each gear? The reverse should be a lot smoother. I wonder if it's low on gender neutral (trans) fluid.

Its all smooth transitions in those cases. Coming back the same path when its at operating temperature instead of command mode I put it in sport mode and sand mode right off the highway. Maintaining normal speed the tranny never left 1st gear all the way to camp traveling less than 10 MPH, there was more fan action too. It went in reverse just fine, the problem didn't reproduce for once. I may have been slipping the converter too much to save gas. I'm going to keep in in 1st now after getting off the highway and see if it continues to shift into R normally when I back into my camp spot.

Sand mode isn't needed. Driving back to camp from the highway offroad in 1st was all that was needed to fix the hard reverse gear change. It was also 10F hotter (104F vs. 92F on last attempt) today and the shift into reverse was smooth as buttah.

It seems pretty clear now I was abusing 2nd gear to save gas. The gas gauge needle moves noticeably more now, but I'd rather pay at the pump and continue to learn the rig rather than to have something break or wear out prematurely.