JCC2 Game

Whoops! I forgot all about our game against the other JCC team. This was the Monday after President’s day and would be the last full game David would play for our team. The team was looking forward to it since there were 4 or 5 kids on the JCC team that live in the same city as our team. One of the kids on the team was even a kid who tried out for our team and didn’t make it.

We get to the gym and who should be practicing with this team but our old friend Luke. Turns out that a couple of players normally on the team couldn’t make it, so the coach (not Luke’s father but the other one) imported these two players to play for them. Now granted Luke didn’t play the whole time (more like 2/3-3/4) like he would in a normal game, but this other kid did play a great deal of the time. Meanwhile I was playing my whole team. This was noticed by the parents in the stands on how I played my whole team for quality minutes while their coach did not. I was further made to look good by my positive style of communication compared to their team’s coach (an example of this shortly).

It’s a close game, but they are slightly in front of us for most of the game. Of course, as always, I have an embarrassment of riches in that I have seven players who I wouldn’t mind having on the court during these crucial final minutes. Anyhow the fourth quarter starts to wind down and we’ve significantly closed the gap, from 5 points down with a couple minutes left, to now just 1 point down with 30 seconds left.

Coming in from a time-out we have our press on and they break the press. A kid ends up with a fairly open lay-up, from a standing position, which he misses. The coach explodes. We drive down and get fouled and so another time-out is called.

The coach explodes again at the player who had taken the shot saying how he said not to shoot. I understand the strategy here (kill the clock). However, if one of my kids has an open shot there and shoots it, I'm not going to be upset with him. I even posted this on a coach’s bulletin board and most agreed that the kid should take the open shot. Even beyond that I would never treat one of my players with so little dignity.

We end up gutting out the victory. It was great. After the game their coach said to me “Why don’t we just play the last couple of minutes against you guys?”. It made me smile. No doubt he believes that his team is better (even though they brought in ringers in order to have a chance) but can’t beat us. Like it’s bad luck. And there is no question there is some bad luck involved there. But then again our team doesn’t fold under pressure and there’s a reason we’re always with-in striking distance the whole game.

Looking at the players on their team, there was one player who I’d LOVE to have next year. He was tall (taller than Dante) and quick. That works quite well in the system I’m promoting. I’m hoping he was one of the kids who was noticing how much more fun it is to play for me :). I also was glad to see that I hadn’t made a mistake and was correct in not taking the kid who played for them and who I’d cut.

It was another great game, and it was nice to go into their gym (with their biased refs) and beat them, especially when they resort to using ringers.