The next day is a new chance as we play MP, a team which I got to see Saturday against NF. I learned that they basically run variations on the pick and roll over and over again and who their 3 best players were. It was good information to have.
I had decided that night that after our running out of steam that hockey subs would be the way to go and so that’s what I do. I prepare a group of 4 and a group 5, expecting to have the twins back for the game.
And the first quarter starts off with us really pushing hard, exactly what I wanted to see. And then weirdness ensues. About 45 seconds into the game the ref gives MP a warning about no pressing. It seemed pretty unjustified, as 4th graders aren’t always the quickest to make the transition. I was surprised, but figured big deal. Game goes on. About 2 and a quarter minutes in, with my first group of 5 ready to sub in, one of their players does the MILDEST of presses and the ref t’s them up. Their coach is understandably upset but argues in a completely respectful sort of way. The coach then says something to his players and HE gets t’ed up. Absurd. Fortunately I know my rules and so I get Adam into the game to shoot the FTs. He misses the first two but makes the second two after I tell him that technicals are the hardest free throws to make. For a kid that age having everyone staring at you when you are the only player around has to be unnerving.
The first quarter proceeds with us playing an upbeat tempo and MP just not able to handle us on offense. We are up 12-8 at the quarter. In the second quarter they sort of collapse and we take a 20-12 lead going into half. Their coach does a good job of calming them at half but the rest of the game is essentially a wash with a final score of 28-21. In the end we wore down, we didn’t have the energy in the 4th that we had early on, but fortunately we’d built up enough of a lead that it didn’t matter.
Assorted notes:
Zach had a sudden asthma attack at the end of the WG game. That certainly didn’t help us in the waning moments. Fortunately he’s fine. I told him he needed to let me know if he’s ever feeling the symptoms so I can get him out. He said that it came on suddenly. He played without issue against MP.
We were warming up in the side gym before the game against MP. I went into the main gym briefly to give our official roster and when I come back Gavin’s dad is coaching the team on man to man defense. Gavin’s dad, as you might recall, was very hot to help at the start of the season, however, he was gently rebuffed. Now Gavin was a surprise show up since his mom had said he would be unavailable all weekend. Anyway so Gavin’s dad is in there giving advice about not turning their backs on man. I tell him I would prefer him not to say anything so that there is a clear message. He responds that he wasn’t doing any harm and that the team doesn’t know how to play man defense. Now, this is where I should have been less nice. Here’s a guy whose kid has missed several games, who can’t come to practices on one of our scheduled days, and whose kid had missed several of the practices on the day he could come, lecturing me. And if this had happened after the game I would have realized he was talking about his own kid, who, no surprise considering how much practice has been missed, doesn’t know how to play man. This has stayed with me a bit and I am progressively more upset about it. Ok so maybe I was better off, given this guy’s temper, of being nice. My response simply was that we worked hard at it every practice & we’re getting better. He backed down after this, thankfully.
Jacob finally got some of his shots to fall, thankfully. Next to Gavin, his parents are definitely the highest maintenance so his success combined with team success makes my life easier.
We shot the fewest shots all season that made we wince.
Jack B continues to just sort of disappear out there. He plays great defense, on and off ball, which is worth something. However, his short size means that he sometimes gets scored on because of that. And he’s not been in the right place, as he was earlier in the season, for a good look on offense.
Showing posts with label MP1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MP1. Show all posts
Monday, January 21, 2008
Monday, November 5, 2007
GL vs MP1
Well yesterday started off the basketball season. I first had a game with GL and then a couple hours later one with HP. I will be writing them up in separate posts. Let’s start with GL because that was first chronologically.
A little background on how the games work. We play four 7 minute quarters. Each team gets 5 time outs (3 full and 2 30 second) per game. There is no press allowed in the 1st or 3rd quarter. A team may press in the 2nd and 4th quarter as long as they are not ahead by 10 or more in the 4th grade league and 15 or more in the 5th grade league. Otherwise the games are played according to “real” rules.
Saturday night I was getting the stats sheet ready for the next day and wanted to put players uniform numbers on the sheet. So I got the bag with the uniforms and started writing down the assigned numbers when I realized a problem: there was no uniform for Cameron. He wasn’t on the uniform master list I had either. After doing some matching, I discovered that Lucas had changed numbers, as had Jack M. I call Lucas’s house in the morning and he agrees to bring his uniform from last year which Cameron will use. Crisis adverted.
I arrive at MP’s place a good 45 minutes before the game. I had asked the team to arrive a half hour early, to hand out uniforms, and because MP is a half hour away, leaving some cushion in case there was a hold-up (like there was last game with the H’s and Lucas). As I pull into the parking lot (and having snagged the second best non-handicapped space) I see Dante and his father already walking in. When I arrive in the gym, I see Andrew is also present. Kid can’t show up to practice on time, but he gets there exceedingly early for a game.
The team arrives and we sort out the uniforms. The smallest short size we have is Youth Large, which proves to be several sizes too big for both Jack M and Cameron. Ahh the joys and challenges of having small players on your team.
We end up starting the game early because both teams are ready to go. I start a line-up of David, Dante, Justin, Scott, and Brian. After winning the tip, and David getting an easy lay-up (which he missed) our game goes downhill very quickly. On defense they’re killing us on screens, while their 1-3-1 offense is just tearing us apart. It doesn’t hurt that they’re making most of their shots either. At the end of the first quarter we’re down 10-2. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t more than a little concerned at this point. Mortified at the prospects of being blown out against a team we beat last year would more accurately describe my emotional state.
At the quarter break I stress being patient on offense and coming off the screens on defense, but do so in a low key sort of way. I also prepare them for a press which never comes. And we settle down pretty quickly and start to find our offensive groove. By half we’ve narrowed it to 16-12. At half I stress how we’ve closed the gap, we’re playing better defense and how we’ve always been a second half team. Then just to prove my point, we tear them apart in the third quarter. We do this despite the fact that my weaker players saw extended time on the court together during the quarter. We basically ran them ragged, pushing the ball hard up the court nearly every possession and MP just wore out. When the quarter ends we find ourselves up 30-24. I stress playing solid defense and we’re off for another quarter of play. In the 4th quarter its clear that MP1 is frustrated, though I didn’t realize until part way through the quarter. Two different kids during the quarter take a hard fall and start crying, more out of frustration, I believe than injury. I had put out a group of five of David, Brian, Justin, Jack M, and Scott to start the quarter, though I sub out Jack M a minute in to the quarter in favor of Lucas. This fivesome does a nice job of putting the game out of reach, allowing me to give some end of game minutes to a few players who hadn’t seen the court as much. We close out a very solid 44-31 victory.
Its nice that we struggled so much and then still proved we could win, and in a dominating fashion too. A few of the parents commented to me how they were a little concerned in the first quarter, but it was a fun game to watch. This matches my feelings pretty closely.
I really struggled this game in terms of substitutions. Having 11 players versus 10 makes every bit the difference I expected it to make. Overall, I’m real happy with how the playing time worked out, with most players right in the 11-13 minute range of playing time, giving them a good chance to really get some quality playing time.
Let’s do a player by player break down:
Andrew – Andrew looked a little lost in his time on the court. Which frankly didn’t surprise me. He isn’t used to playing at the level we’re playing at, but I think he’s got the skills to adjust. He saw only about 10 minutes of playing time but I really hope that goes up as the season goes on. He did have the one bad shot of the game. He was in at the end and I had told them to slow it down and take their time. So he gets a pass in the corner, is wide open and takes the shot, just inside the three point line. Two problems with this. One it was hardly slowing things down. But I generally don’t fault kids for taking open shots. More troubling, was that he was so wide open he’d have been better off taking a few dribbles in and shooting closer in.
Brian – He played quite well in a mostly unnoticeable way. He had 6 points, 1 assist, and 2 good rebounds. Rebounding (as I’ll talk about more in a second) was an area I was happy with overall, as we didn’t give up too many 3rd and 4th chances to MP. He also made another comment about David being the best player out there. I had forgotten to talk with him about this before the game, but am going to make sure to do so on Wednesday.
Cameron – Cameron’s first sport is soccer, and he’s got a lot of the accompanying skills there. Like Andrew, the pace and nature of the game seemed to take him by surprise. While Andrew has a wellspring of basketball talent to draw on, Cameron has more athletic talent to draw upon. Cameron has the problem of being a guard, and a guard who I don’t really trust to bring the ball up. This lack of role makes it harder for me to really find a time when I think “Oh it’ll be great to have Cameron out there”. I hope that he develops a strength as the season progresses. For our first game he was pretty much a non entity besides picking up a couple of quick fouls in the third. Cameron’s mom remarked to me after the game that she can see why Cameron enjoys basketball so much since I am a positive coach. It’s always nice to hear this, as it’s certainly my goal.
Dante – While Dante has been rough and really going at it in practice, that same level of intensity didn’t carry over to the game. He’s did an OK, though not great job of guarding some big men. He was fairly soft last year, and I’d grown optimistic that he’d toughened up some. I hope that he too was just finding his bearings in this game and will be more of a presence for us inside in the games to come.
David – Showed again what a remarkable talent he is. Where he was sullen about his playing on Thursday, he worked through a rough first quarter to really help us explode in the second. At one point MP’s star point guard was shouting out that David had no left hand, after David had gotten fouled. I called a 30 second time out before he went to the line, pointed that out to him, asked him if that was true. He smiled and said no, and showed the next possession his left hand. When he’s relaxed and having fun (which go hand in hand) he’s just pure joy to watch. What was especially nice was that, for only the second time, the triplet’s father was there to watch and so he got to see David perform well.
Jack M – Served as our point guard when David wasn’t in and even at times while David was in. I liked how he moved the ball overall, though his stats (0-2, with 3 turnovers and 1 foul) suggest he was more harm than good. However, I think that’s not totally representative of what he did for us. He saw lots of short bursts of playing time, which I have a feeling will be fairly typical for him this season, having subbed in at 5 different points. I will say that his attitude this year has been very positive and I will likely be remarking on it to him at our next practice.
Jack P – He scored points on fairly efficient shooting (2-5) along with drawing 2 fouls. He played point for us at a couple of different points. This kind of performance is a HUGE step up from last year when he would regularly go something like 1-8, or worse. He is, after David, the best player on our team at penetrating, but his missed shots were driving me batty. If he’s turned that around, a big if and one I’m not willing to commit to after one game, my job will have only gotten that much harder as he will deserve to play substantial playing time.
Justin – When talking about the team, I had talked about how we had a new enter. And boy do we ever. Justin, who along with David, played the most minutes at just under 21, came up huge with 12 rebounds and 8 points, with most of those points being on put backs from rebounds. Having a true inside presence, combined with our fabulous guard play really takes us to a whole new level.
Lucas – Lucas played a solid game, seeing playing time at every position but 2, something that’ll be happening with him a lot this season. And by solid I mean 2-5 shooting, 2-2 at the free throw line, along an assist and 4 rebounds against 2 fouls and 2 turnovers. We lack size to have a true #4, especially if Dante continues to play soft, and so as much as I would like to take advantage of his guard ability we’re going to need him inside and guarding those big kids.
Scott – Scott is pretty similar to Lucas. The kid is as tough as nails and while I think he’s got even more ability than Lucas to play point, I wonder how much I’ll actually be able to find him time there. He had 3-7 shooting 1-1 from the line, along with 4 rebounds, 2 steals, against 3 turnovers and 1 foul. His rebounding numbers are going to suffer this year because there are only so many rebounds to be had and Justin is gobbling them up. It’s a problem I like having.
Tom – Tom didn’t play a whole lot for us, but played real strong in the time he played. Tom is frequently not inclined to shoot open shots, but he had an open shot in the game and he made it which was great to see. He also had a steal. In other words in limited minutes he played real well for us. Tom’s a good basketball player, but he’s not someone who can make things happen, for the most part and this effects how I use him. I have to be careful with Tom, since he’ll never complain about his playing time, which sometimes makes it easier to pick someone else when it’s a choice between two players. My goal is to not fall in this trap this season.
So I’m feeling good about where we’re at heading into our LN game. Look for the write-up of the HP game to appear sometime tomorrow.
A little background on how the games work. We play four 7 minute quarters. Each team gets 5 time outs (3 full and 2 30 second) per game. There is no press allowed in the 1st or 3rd quarter. A team may press in the 2nd and 4th quarter as long as they are not ahead by 10 or more in the 4th grade league and 15 or more in the 5th grade league. Otherwise the games are played according to “real” rules.
Saturday night I was getting the stats sheet ready for the next day and wanted to put players uniform numbers on the sheet. So I got the bag with the uniforms and started writing down the assigned numbers when I realized a problem: there was no uniform for Cameron. He wasn’t on the uniform master list I had either. After doing some matching, I discovered that Lucas had changed numbers, as had Jack M. I call Lucas’s house in the morning and he agrees to bring his uniform from last year which Cameron will use. Crisis adverted.
I arrive at MP’s place a good 45 minutes before the game. I had asked the team to arrive a half hour early, to hand out uniforms, and because MP is a half hour away, leaving some cushion in case there was a hold-up (like there was last game with the H’s and Lucas). As I pull into the parking lot (and having snagged the second best non-handicapped space) I see Dante and his father already walking in. When I arrive in the gym, I see Andrew is also present. Kid can’t show up to practice on time, but he gets there exceedingly early for a game.
The team arrives and we sort out the uniforms. The smallest short size we have is Youth Large, which proves to be several sizes too big for both Jack M and Cameron. Ahh the joys and challenges of having small players on your team.
We end up starting the game early because both teams are ready to go. I start a line-up of David, Dante, Justin, Scott, and Brian. After winning the tip, and David getting an easy lay-up (which he missed) our game goes downhill very quickly. On defense they’re killing us on screens, while their 1-3-1 offense is just tearing us apart. It doesn’t hurt that they’re making most of their shots either. At the end of the first quarter we’re down 10-2. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t more than a little concerned at this point. Mortified at the prospects of being blown out against a team we beat last year would more accurately describe my emotional state.
At the quarter break I stress being patient on offense and coming off the screens on defense, but do so in a low key sort of way. I also prepare them for a press which never comes. And we settle down pretty quickly and start to find our offensive groove. By half we’ve narrowed it to 16-12. At half I stress how we’ve closed the gap, we’re playing better defense and how we’ve always been a second half team. Then just to prove my point, we tear them apart in the third quarter. We do this despite the fact that my weaker players saw extended time on the court together during the quarter. We basically ran them ragged, pushing the ball hard up the court nearly every possession and MP just wore out. When the quarter ends we find ourselves up 30-24. I stress playing solid defense and we’re off for another quarter of play. In the 4th quarter its clear that MP1 is frustrated, though I didn’t realize until part way through the quarter. Two different kids during the quarter take a hard fall and start crying, more out of frustration, I believe than injury. I had put out a group of five of David, Brian, Justin, Jack M, and Scott to start the quarter, though I sub out Jack M a minute in to the quarter in favor of Lucas. This fivesome does a nice job of putting the game out of reach, allowing me to give some end of game minutes to a few players who hadn’t seen the court as much. We close out a very solid 44-31 victory.
Its nice that we struggled so much and then still proved we could win, and in a dominating fashion too. A few of the parents commented to me how they were a little concerned in the first quarter, but it was a fun game to watch. This matches my feelings pretty closely.
I really struggled this game in terms of substitutions. Having 11 players versus 10 makes every bit the difference I expected it to make. Overall, I’m real happy with how the playing time worked out, with most players right in the 11-13 minute range of playing time, giving them a good chance to really get some quality playing time.
Let’s do a player by player break down:
Andrew – Andrew looked a little lost in his time on the court. Which frankly didn’t surprise me. He isn’t used to playing at the level we’re playing at, but I think he’s got the skills to adjust. He saw only about 10 minutes of playing time but I really hope that goes up as the season goes on. He did have the one bad shot of the game. He was in at the end and I had told them to slow it down and take their time. So he gets a pass in the corner, is wide open and takes the shot, just inside the three point line. Two problems with this. One it was hardly slowing things down. But I generally don’t fault kids for taking open shots. More troubling, was that he was so wide open he’d have been better off taking a few dribbles in and shooting closer in.
Brian – He played quite well in a mostly unnoticeable way. He had 6 points, 1 assist, and 2 good rebounds. Rebounding (as I’ll talk about more in a second) was an area I was happy with overall, as we didn’t give up too many 3rd and 4th chances to MP. He also made another comment about David being the best player out there. I had forgotten to talk with him about this before the game, but am going to make sure to do so on Wednesday.
Cameron – Cameron’s first sport is soccer, and he’s got a lot of the accompanying skills there. Like Andrew, the pace and nature of the game seemed to take him by surprise. While Andrew has a wellspring of basketball talent to draw on, Cameron has more athletic talent to draw upon. Cameron has the problem of being a guard, and a guard who I don’t really trust to bring the ball up. This lack of role makes it harder for me to really find a time when I think “Oh it’ll be great to have Cameron out there”. I hope that he develops a strength as the season progresses. For our first game he was pretty much a non entity besides picking up a couple of quick fouls in the third. Cameron’s mom remarked to me after the game that she can see why Cameron enjoys basketball so much since I am a positive coach. It’s always nice to hear this, as it’s certainly my goal.
Dante – While Dante has been rough and really going at it in practice, that same level of intensity didn’t carry over to the game. He’s did an OK, though not great job of guarding some big men. He was fairly soft last year, and I’d grown optimistic that he’d toughened up some. I hope that he too was just finding his bearings in this game and will be more of a presence for us inside in the games to come.
David – Showed again what a remarkable talent he is. Where he was sullen about his playing on Thursday, he worked through a rough first quarter to really help us explode in the second. At one point MP’s star point guard was shouting out that David had no left hand, after David had gotten fouled. I called a 30 second time out before he went to the line, pointed that out to him, asked him if that was true. He smiled and said no, and showed the next possession his left hand. When he’s relaxed and having fun (which go hand in hand) he’s just pure joy to watch. What was especially nice was that, for only the second time, the triplet’s father was there to watch and so he got to see David perform well.
Jack M – Served as our point guard when David wasn’t in and even at times while David was in. I liked how he moved the ball overall, though his stats (0-2, with 3 turnovers and 1 foul) suggest he was more harm than good. However, I think that’s not totally representative of what he did for us. He saw lots of short bursts of playing time, which I have a feeling will be fairly typical for him this season, having subbed in at 5 different points. I will say that his attitude this year has been very positive and I will likely be remarking on it to him at our next practice.
Jack P – He scored points on fairly efficient shooting (2-5) along with drawing 2 fouls. He played point for us at a couple of different points. This kind of performance is a HUGE step up from last year when he would regularly go something like 1-8, or worse. He is, after David, the best player on our team at penetrating, but his missed shots were driving me batty. If he’s turned that around, a big if and one I’m not willing to commit to after one game, my job will have only gotten that much harder as he will deserve to play substantial playing time.
Justin – When talking about the team, I had talked about how we had a new enter. And boy do we ever. Justin, who along with David, played the most minutes at just under 21, came up huge with 12 rebounds and 8 points, with most of those points being on put backs from rebounds. Having a true inside presence, combined with our fabulous guard play really takes us to a whole new level.
Lucas – Lucas played a solid game, seeing playing time at every position but 2, something that’ll be happening with him a lot this season. And by solid I mean 2-5 shooting, 2-2 at the free throw line, along an assist and 4 rebounds against 2 fouls and 2 turnovers. We lack size to have a true #4, especially if Dante continues to play soft, and so as much as I would like to take advantage of his guard ability we’re going to need him inside and guarding those big kids.
Scott – Scott is pretty similar to Lucas. The kid is as tough as nails and while I think he’s got even more ability than Lucas to play point, I wonder how much I’ll actually be able to find him time there. He had 3-7 shooting 1-1 from the line, along with 4 rebounds, 2 steals, against 3 turnovers and 1 foul. His rebounding numbers are going to suffer this year because there are only so many rebounds to be had and Justin is gobbling them up. It’s a problem I like having.
Tom – Tom didn’t play a whole lot for us, but played real strong in the time he played. Tom is frequently not inclined to shoot open shots, but he had an open shot in the game and he made it which was great to see. He also had a steal. In other words in limited minutes he played real well for us. Tom’s a good basketball player, but he’s not someone who can make things happen, for the most part and this effects how I use him. I have to be careful with Tom, since he’ll never complain about his playing time, which sometimes makes it easier to pick someone else when it’s a choice between two players. My goal is to not fall in this trap this season.
So I’m feeling good about where we’re at heading into our LN game. Look for the write-up of the HP game to appear sometime tomorrow.
Friday, March 23, 2007
End of Season Wrap-Up
After our double header our next game is against MP2. We completely dismantle them and based on their poor showing of sportsmanship at the HP tourney, I let the team score 50 for a final score of 50-31. Not sure what got into me, but there you go.
We then have a weekend off, because of President’s Day. That is when a bit of drama arises, though it could have been far more disastrous than it was. Our next game is against NF1. While we are waiting there, I learn that David won’t be at the game due to conflicts with another team from his caregiver. As we’re standing around I learn from Brian who sort of lets it slip that this might not be a one time thing but instead he might have to quit the team. As I have heard nothing along these lines I don’t let it bother me.
The game against NF is unexceptional. We go out do our thing and win. This was the first game where I went with what I called hockey subs. We had only 8 players (Tom had gotten very sick and was basically out for a month) so I divided the team into two groups of four. Every half a quarter I would yank a group and put in a new group with one player from the other shift. This was done as a way to give players equal playing time. Well David showed up from his other game just before the 4th quarter. I call him over to sit on our bench. He asks if he could play and I say of course, since I can understand his need to miss a game because of conflicts. At the end of the game their coach’s weren’t happy about this. My response simply was that I wanted every player on my team to have a chance to play. I had even alerted them ahead of time that I normally wouldn’t play him in the 4th in a game like that, but it was an unusual circumstance. Their moaning was a bit unjustified considering that he scored all of two points.
That game was on a Saturday. However, MP needed us to reschedule our Sunday game and after a lot of emails it got set for the last Sunday of the season as a double header.
We end up having a couple of weeks off then with-out a game as our game against WK has to be canceled as there is no time when we can reschedule the game. As they were the ones unable to play they have to forfeit to us, but I still rather would have played the game. Instead, the WK coach and I setup a scrimmage after the official end of the season between our team and his A team. His A team who is dominating the division. During this time it becomes clear from Scott and Brian that David will not be playing for us again. Does David or Dad ever bother to contact me? Not until March 10th, 3 weeks, essentially after it has been decided that David will quit the team, does their Dad bother to call me to let me know about this decision. I am more upset by this lack of communication than anything.
On March 11th we have our end of season double header after having been out of action for a couple of weeks. Our first game is against LS. I go with hockey subs again. After the first quarter we gain a lead and hold onto it. It is a great game to watch as we can’t quite ever put LS away but do manage to hold on for the win.
We have a few hours off before our next game against MP for the regular season championship. I am pretty exhausted as the night before I had a wedding which I didn’t get home from until after 1 o’clock (and could have stayed later). This combined with Daylight Savings means I am not at the top of my game for the first game and by the second game I am extremely exhausted. At the start of the game we’re missing Brian, Scott, and Lucas who are, I later learn, stuck in traffic due to a horrendous accident.
Anyway, we start off the game very strongly. Gordie, who missed our earlier game due to having his house league championships, comes out on fire and scores a couple of early baskets. MP gets their composure back and evens it up by the end of the first quarter. After that it’s a seesaw game until the third quarter when they build up a lead. This momentum carries into the fourth and the game has slipped away from us. This is where my coaching should have been better. One of our biggest problems though, throughout the game, was picking up our men on defense. This led to MANY easy baskets for them and was really pretty inexcusable at this point in the season.
More seriously is that early in the 4th Brian collapsed in absolute agony with his ankle. Normally when a player gets injured I go and see how they’re doing, give them a couple moments to collect themselves and then help them off the court of have them walk off. Despite my being out of it, it was quite clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. I then proceed to literally carry him off the court. Play resumes while I comfort him on the sideline. His mom is there and it’s quickly decided that he should go to the hospital. I write off Brian for the rest of the season at that point considering his past history with the ankles (having broken both of them in the past year).
The next day we have our scrimmage against WK. As predicted they are bigger, faster, and stronger than we are. We get blown-out. However, the team never gives up. Even down by 20+ we’re still scrapping away. The dismantling we faced exposed quite a few weaknesses of ours, most notably against the zone.
We end the season in second place. Overall we’d had a good season and I’m optimistic about our chances entering the play-offs. While MP will likely be a problem for us, I still believe we can take them. Despite the loss of David the team remains upbeat and confident about our chances.
We then have a weekend off, because of President’s Day. That is when a bit of drama arises, though it could have been far more disastrous than it was. Our next game is against NF1. While we are waiting there, I learn that David won’t be at the game due to conflicts with another team from his caregiver. As we’re standing around I learn from Brian who sort of lets it slip that this might not be a one time thing but instead he might have to quit the team. As I have heard nothing along these lines I don’t let it bother me.
The game against NF is unexceptional. We go out do our thing and win. This was the first game where I went with what I called hockey subs. We had only 8 players (Tom had gotten very sick and was basically out for a month) so I divided the team into two groups of four. Every half a quarter I would yank a group and put in a new group with one player from the other shift. This was done as a way to give players equal playing time. Well David showed up from his other game just before the 4th quarter. I call him over to sit on our bench. He asks if he could play and I say of course, since I can understand his need to miss a game because of conflicts. At the end of the game their coach’s weren’t happy about this. My response simply was that I wanted every player on my team to have a chance to play. I had even alerted them ahead of time that I normally wouldn’t play him in the 4th in a game like that, but it was an unusual circumstance. Their moaning was a bit unjustified considering that he scored all of two points.
That game was on a Saturday. However, MP needed us to reschedule our Sunday game and after a lot of emails it got set for the last Sunday of the season as a double header.
We end up having a couple of weeks off then with-out a game as our game against WK has to be canceled as there is no time when we can reschedule the game. As they were the ones unable to play they have to forfeit to us, but I still rather would have played the game. Instead, the WK coach and I setup a scrimmage after the official end of the season between our team and his A team. His A team who is dominating the division. During this time it becomes clear from Scott and Brian that David will not be playing for us again. Does David or Dad ever bother to contact me? Not until March 10th, 3 weeks, essentially after it has been decided that David will quit the team, does their Dad bother to call me to let me know about this decision. I am more upset by this lack of communication than anything.
On March 11th we have our end of season double header after having been out of action for a couple of weeks. Our first game is against LS. I go with hockey subs again. After the first quarter we gain a lead and hold onto it. It is a great game to watch as we can’t quite ever put LS away but do manage to hold on for the win.
We have a few hours off before our next game against MP for the regular season championship. I am pretty exhausted as the night before I had a wedding which I didn’t get home from until after 1 o’clock (and could have stayed later). This combined with Daylight Savings means I am not at the top of my game for the first game and by the second game I am extremely exhausted. At the start of the game we’re missing Brian, Scott, and Lucas who are, I later learn, stuck in traffic due to a horrendous accident.
Anyway, we start off the game very strongly. Gordie, who missed our earlier game due to having his house league championships, comes out on fire and scores a couple of early baskets. MP gets their composure back and evens it up by the end of the first quarter. After that it’s a seesaw game until the third quarter when they build up a lead. This momentum carries into the fourth and the game has slipped away from us. This is where my coaching should have been better. One of our biggest problems though, throughout the game, was picking up our men on defense. This led to MANY easy baskets for them and was really pretty inexcusable at this point in the season.
More seriously is that early in the 4th Brian collapsed in absolute agony with his ankle. Normally when a player gets injured I go and see how they’re doing, give them a couple moments to collect themselves and then help them off the court of have them walk off. Despite my being out of it, it was quite clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. I then proceed to literally carry him off the court. Play resumes while I comfort him on the sideline. His mom is there and it’s quickly decided that he should go to the hospital. I write off Brian for the rest of the season at that point considering his past history with the ankles (having broken both of them in the past year).
The next day we have our scrimmage against WK. As predicted they are bigger, faster, and stronger than we are. We get blown-out. However, the team never gives up. Even down by 20+ we’re still scrapping away. The dismantling we faced exposed quite a few weaknesses of ours, most notably against the zone.
We end the season in second place. Overall we’d had a good season and I’m optimistic about our chances entering the play-offs. While MP will likely be a problem for us, I still believe we can take them. Despite the loss of David the team remains upbeat and confident about our chances.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Spartans vs. MP1
Well yesterday was the day. After essentially a month of anticipation we finally got to have our go against MP and the game was every bit as competitive as I’d expected.
I get to the game a little bit earlier than a half hour and get to see a good portion of the 6th grade girls team getting blown out by another team. It was not a pretty sight. The MP coach arrived early and we chatted a little bit before the game. He seemed like a nice guy and we chatted with each other quite amiably. Anyhow we straggle in, with 9 of the 10 players getting there by the designated time of 5:30. I had been informed we were going to start the game 10 minutes early, which I objected to under the grounds that my whole team might not be there. However, when at 5:35 we had all buy Gordie there I said we can go ahead and Goride arrived just as we were going over to the huddle to talk.
In the pregame huddle I reminded them of some of the highlights of last night’s speech and then explained that our offensive focus would be beating them back. I wanted that ball in bounded quickly, sent to the outlet even quicker. On defense I identified our priority as helping out in our man-to-man defense. And then it was time to send our starting five of David, Tom, Brian, Scott, and Lucas out there. The good news is that this team is not particularly tall. It seems like when the two MP teams were divvying up the players MP2 took the taller players, who were slightly less athletic, while MP took the slightly more athletic players.
They come out and right off the bat run basically the same high screen play that MP2 ran. As they were running this play the third time, (they called it 1) though not on consecutive possessions I shouted out “Watch the high pick. Just like the other MP team ran.” My players adjusted accordingly and we only saw this play one other time during the game. They also ran a double pick play that proved quite effective. It led to numerous fouls being called on us and several baskets as well. They were a good shooting free throw team and we quickly fell behind. I was not surprised that we were committing so many fouls. I didn’t do a good job of calling fouls during the 3 on 3 drill we did and the Animal Rebounding drill is predicated on not calling too many fouls, so our team had gotten a little sloppy.
Meanwhile on our side of the ball, they were running a 2-1-2 defense. I basically let our offense try and work the motion and see if they could create something, but to no avail. I called a 30 second time out, switched Brian and David, and instructed them to run Indiana. We ran it on a few possessions and on one of them it actually resulted in a basket. There were a couple of other times where when we had a look, but the player didn’t take it before the play broke down. MP basically shut down the play by preventing us from making the first pass. Part of this was because Tom and David were going down the court on the same side each time, so the pass was going the same direction each time. Even if that first pass was getting there they were then executing a very high trap leading to a turn over. I think I’m going to make a few minor changes to the play, or rather teach them a variant, that should help us out in that situation. But I’m glad we had a success with it. We’re going to need it against the JCC team in the HP tourney so I’m pleased with our improvement.
Between their offense and defense they had opened up a 7 point lead at the end of the first. In many ways we were lucky it wasn’t 11 or so. During the huddle between quarters I diagramed the double screen play that they were running for the team. David, bless his heart, had already figured out the whole play, and a couple of others in the game had figured out parts of it, which is again a testament to their basketball IQs. There was a funny moment. We were kind of slow getting into our huddle. I heard their coach start to diagram their press break. A kid asked how he knew that we were going to press and the coach just replied that he knew. I smiled since I knew I had no intention of pressing, or even pressuring them at the start of the quarter. I wanted to save it until we were either in slightly more dire straights, or for the 4th quarter.
We come out pretty flat in the second quarter. They don’t have their first string in there and the subs I’ve made didn’t really hurt our quality of player out there much, so the game stays pretty much at a standstill for a bit. However, then the phantom calls started happening. In the first quarter ever call that was made was legitimate. But in that second quarter we were getting called for all sorts of things which simply weren’t there. We quickly go into bonus and then double bonus. At one point Lucas gets called for a foul which was not a foul. In fact Lucas was called for 3 fouls none of which were great calls, not surprising as coming into the game Lucas had committed only 2 fouls the whole season. After this call which was not a call, I asked what the foul was. They said Lucas’s number. I said I heard who it was on. What was the call. I say it in an inquiring tone, but it was my way of asking “what the heck?” During baseball I NEVER question the umpire. And really I hadn’t talked to these refs too much, but the officiating was highly suspect this game and it was too close of a game for me not to grow a bit frustrated.
Anyhow, we’re really out of sorts. They are basically running a trapping defense against us in the second quarter and it had some success. However, our offense FINALLY kicked into gear and we started to create some fast break opportunities. This allowed the refs to call some specious travel violations, but it also caught us up from what had been at one point a 9 point deficit to only 5. Credit for this change in offensive pace really belongs with David and Jack P, though Jack M helped as well here.
During half time I kept the talk simple. I asked what our offensive goal for the day was. I’m met with blank stares. I pointed out that it was beating the other team back down the court. That’s what we needed to be doing and weren’t doing. Then I talked about the fouls. I said that they were calling things in this game that they hadn’t in previous games and we needed to recognize that. I reminded them that basically any contact in the lane was going to be called a foul so if you were playing help defense, which we’d been doing a good job of doing, make sure you tried to meet the man outside of the lane. We talked a little bit about how to take a charge and then I sent them back out there.
The big difference in the 3rd quarter was our defense. They kept going back to the well of the play with the double screen, but it got less and less effective, until finally by the end of the quarter they stopped running it. Meanwhile, their zone started to get sloppy. We were running enough transition offense that they weren’t making their traps work. Plus having David and the Jacks being able to dribble through a lot of them helped. By the end of the 3rd quarter we’d pulled to with-in 2. And then we tied it up. We got the ball back with 9 seconds. I told David, who was taking the ball up the court, that we had plenty of time. Someone on the bench scoffed at this and I pointed out that 8 seconds was enough time for two shots. Sure enough we got a good shot off with about 3 seconds left, but it missed. Lucas grabbed the rebound and put it back in half a second before the buzzer went off and we entered the fourth quarter up by two. After Lucas made that shot, our bench exploded. Honestly you’d have thought that was the end of the game. However, seeing the pure joy of his teammates caused Lucas to flash one of the best smiles I’ve seen in a long time. That moment right there is a big reason I coach sports.
I pulled the team together and said “It’s games like this that make me love basketball. This is fun. Each quarter we’ve been doing better. We started off down by 7, narrowed it down to 5 at half and now we’re up by 2. We’ve got 7 more minutes to play and we’re going to win this game.” And sure enough the 4th quarter was ours. We were still getting called for a bunch of fouls, but they weren’t making as many of their shots, and there were less shooting fouls anyway. More importantly we were doing a great job of moving the ball around on offense. Brian hit a couple of clutch outside shots which made them guard our perimeter more giving us more players open inside. On defense we continued to hold them SO tightly. Lucas drew a key offensive foul that was a big moral booster. With about 2 minutes left we’d extended our lead to 6. Tom had started doing a chant of “Defense” from the bench that was great. Our players were pumped and their side was not. With about 90 seconds their PG, who was a pretty good player, fouled out.
Not too long after that they decided to start fouling us. Now they’d had their own share of fouls in the second half and so when they foul Scott and they went to the line, I thought it was a 1 and 1. Scott missed the first shot, and there’s no jostling or anything, which didn’t even register at the time. Jack P ends up with the ball. I tell him to shoot. At that point one of the MP players starts guarding him. Jack goes in strong for a lay-up, which he makes and there’s a whistle. Looks like it’s going to be a possible three point play.
Their coach starts asking if the foul wasn’t an intentional foul. He thought they did the signal for an intentional foul. I had been talking with someone on the bench, so while I saw the foul, I didn’t pay attention to the call. The two refs conferred and agreed it’d been a called an intentional foul. And let me say that I thought that was an awful call. I mean granted they were trying to intentionally foul us, but it wasn’t like they Scott was in any danger of being hurt. After it was agreed that it was a two shot foul, the coach gets very upset and starts going off at the refs on how they don’t even know the rules of the game. He’s really livid about the poor officiating.
Something I’d never mentioned before is that the refs who typically do our games are a pair of brothers, while the scoreboard operator is a third brother. So as the MP coach is going off on the refs, the scoreboard operator tells him to cool it. They go back and forth for a little and finally the MP coach does quiet down. Since it was an intentional foul, we get the ball back. When the ref comes over, the scoreboard guy whispers to him about the MP coach. The ref then tells the coach not to yell at the scorer’s table. This starts a heated discussion between the ref and the MP coach. At one point the ref had to say, “Coach lower your voice there are kids around.” The MP’s coach was two fold: the scoreboard operator started it, he doesn’t really have the authority to tell me to be quiet, and because of this if he talks to me I’ll talk back. While I think the scoreboard operator did have the authority to say what he said, I otherwise agree with the MP coach. This discussion, which took a minute or two, really took a lot of the good feeling out of the game, which was unfortunate. As it was going on, I even said “this is a shame.” Gordie asked me why and I said that it was taking away from our great victory. Finally that whole discussion finishes.
They keep fouling us and in the end we win by 12, 36-24, though it was far more of a 6 or 8 point victory, just because of the way the end of the game went down. Our bench leapt up with great joy. We were very happy at winning this game, no doubt about it. We went through and shook their hands. At the end I shook the hand of the MP coach and we exchanged a few pleasant words about each others team and agreed that the officiating was horrible. I had been quite pleased with the officiating we’d had up until this point, but this game was just not called well.
This game reinforces a few things. One we thrive off a transition offense. In the 3rd and 4th quarters we did a good job of running a half-court offense, but it was because we’d changed the tempo of the game. My dad, who is obviously biased, feels that the other team was out coached. I’m not sure that’s true at all. I think I’m getting a lot of credit, from not only my dad but the other parents for things that the team did naturally. Now a few of my decisions have been good decisions. So, for instance, we don’t have plays. Instead we work on drills and offense more abstractly. When MP was forced to stop using their plays and go into more just playing basketball, we were more than up for the task. So I guess I do deserve credit for that. At the same time, their coach has taught them how to trap pretty well, both full and half court, and we haven’t done that at all. So I’ll add that to our list of goals of things to do between now and the end of the season.
One thing I did, and it was a pretty conscious decision, was weight the playing time in favor of certain players. I don’t think I did as good of job of balancing our need to win with players having the right to play as I did in some other games. I’ll talk about those specific cases as we look at individual performances.
Brian – Talked with him before the game. The conversation went well and he had a great game. Took four shots and made them all. He is definitely our best jump shot player. He will be getting the start again today against WK.
Dante – Only saw 7.5 minutes of play and did much better in that time than he had in the last couple of games, pulling down 4 rebounds, a block, and a steal in that time. He’s going to start as well today. Scott and Lucas were having good games as well, and so I felt bad at the time that Dante wasn’t getting more time, but was reluctant to pull the trigger in getting him more time.
David – Another excellent game. He and Jack P helped get our game going. My dad thought he’d only sat like 3 or 4 minutes, but really he played about 21 minutes, or ¾ of a game. I don’t feel bad about that at all and David could easily be seeing that kind of playing time again in our games. Everyone is a better player with David on the court. He leads our team in points, but is also second in assists. He’s a true team player and doesn’t act like a star, so I don’t feel bad at all about giving him the chance to shine.
Gordie – Gordie got into serious foul trouble which limited his time to only 6 and a half minutes. Once again his turnovers killed us. He also lost time since I yanked him earlier than I would have in the 4th after he put up an atrocious shot while double teamed. He knew it was a bad shot, but claimed he was open when he started to take it. I responded that if he’d said that and had used good form, I would have been ok with the shot. But the shot was with awful form and in a bad spot. What was interesting was that even after this conversation he said after Lucas drew the offensive foul, “I’ve never had a coach who is nice and good before.” That was a really nice thing to hear and shows how if you’re fair and respectful to a kid, you can impose consequences (you shoot bad shots and you come out) and they won’t hold it against you.
Jack M – Here was another player I’d like to have played more in the end of the game but for whom there wasn’t a spot and so he too will get the start today. He did have 12 minutes on the game, and played well in that time. There was something slippery on the basket by our bench and so a couple of times Jack turned the ball over when it wasn’t his fault. I was pleased with how he played and feel good about giving him the start today.
Jack P – He had a great first half, as mentioned. While he missed a lot of shots in the second half, which is typical for him, I felt he was key to our victory and he was the only player I named specifically in our post game talk. He’ll start again today.
Lucas – While he didn’t rebound particularly well in his time (only 3 in 15 minutes of play) he made the basket off our zone breaker, on a nice feed from David, and was clutch when we needed it. Not his best game, but he’s an important piece of our puzzle.
Noah – A continued nothing in his 8.5 minutes of play. He’s a really nice kid and I told him that if he will go a whole continuous motion without walking or stopping that I would start him, he doesn’t really bring much to the game either offensively or defensively. Gordie, has some play making instincts, but Noah is pretty much over matched on the court. I really like him, but he just hasn’t progressed as much as a player as I’d like.
Scott – He continues to play big. He came in second on the team in minutes, with 21. In reality we’d likely have been OK if some of those minutes had gone to Dante/Lucas, but he works well with David (in other words he’s excellent at finding David as an outlet) and you’ll rarely have anything but positive energy from him.
Tom – Tom is a crucial member of the team. I played him the whole first quarter and he only saw 3 minutes of play after that, at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th. When I took him out in the 4th he said “I stink”. I was not pleased to hear him say this, as Tom is the one who will start us cheering, as he did here. Or provide that comic relief. While he gets frustrated with himself he never is anything but positive and supportive of his teammates. While I think he’s slightly under achieving for his basketball skills, so the frustration is somewhat understandable, I don’t think he’s as bad as he thinks he is. I hope that he can have a break out game one of these games to give himself some confidence.
Today we play WK. They’ve put up a lot of points lately and I think that they’re going to upset someone soon, despite their 1-4 record. I don’t want it to be us. In my pregame talk I’m going to focus on not having a “let down game”. We’re a superior team and if we play like it, we’ll win easily. However, if we don’t play our top game we could be in trouble.
Let me just close with this: the best thing about this victory was that we were behind the whole first half. I talk about the difference between a good and a great team. And I knew they had it in them to come from behind. However, they didn’t know that. Now they do. While over confidence was starting to become a problem, and will likely rear its head again depending on how we do in the HP tourney, we needed to know that not only could we get out to a lead and hold it, but that we could come back. We didn’t believe it when we played the JCC team last time, but this team we should believe it. If we can win well today, in what could be a potential pitfall game, we’ll be in a good place for the HP tourney, which I’ll talk about more in a post tomorrow or Tuesday.
I get to the game a little bit earlier than a half hour and get to see a good portion of the 6th grade girls team getting blown out by another team. It was not a pretty sight. The MP coach arrived early and we chatted a little bit before the game. He seemed like a nice guy and we chatted with each other quite amiably. Anyhow we straggle in, with 9 of the 10 players getting there by the designated time of 5:30. I had been informed we were going to start the game 10 minutes early, which I objected to under the grounds that my whole team might not be there. However, when at 5:35 we had all buy Gordie there I said we can go ahead and Goride arrived just as we were going over to the huddle to talk.
In the pregame huddle I reminded them of some of the highlights of last night’s speech and then explained that our offensive focus would be beating them back. I wanted that ball in bounded quickly, sent to the outlet even quicker. On defense I identified our priority as helping out in our man-to-man defense. And then it was time to send our starting five of David, Tom, Brian, Scott, and Lucas out there. The good news is that this team is not particularly tall. It seems like when the two MP teams were divvying up the players MP2 took the taller players, who were slightly less athletic, while MP took the slightly more athletic players.
They come out and right off the bat run basically the same high screen play that MP2 ran. As they were running this play the third time, (they called it 1) though not on consecutive possessions I shouted out “Watch the high pick. Just like the other MP team ran.” My players adjusted accordingly and we only saw this play one other time during the game. They also ran a double pick play that proved quite effective. It led to numerous fouls being called on us and several baskets as well. They were a good shooting free throw team and we quickly fell behind. I was not surprised that we were committing so many fouls. I didn’t do a good job of calling fouls during the 3 on 3 drill we did and the Animal Rebounding drill is predicated on not calling too many fouls, so our team had gotten a little sloppy.
Meanwhile on our side of the ball, they were running a 2-1-2 defense. I basically let our offense try and work the motion and see if they could create something, but to no avail. I called a 30 second time out, switched Brian and David, and instructed them to run Indiana. We ran it on a few possessions and on one of them it actually resulted in a basket. There were a couple of other times where when we had a look, but the player didn’t take it before the play broke down. MP basically shut down the play by preventing us from making the first pass. Part of this was because Tom and David were going down the court on the same side each time, so the pass was going the same direction each time. Even if that first pass was getting there they were then executing a very high trap leading to a turn over. I think I’m going to make a few minor changes to the play, or rather teach them a variant, that should help us out in that situation. But I’m glad we had a success with it. We’re going to need it against the JCC team in the HP tourney so I’m pleased with our improvement.
Between their offense and defense they had opened up a 7 point lead at the end of the first. In many ways we were lucky it wasn’t 11 or so. During the huddle between quarters I diagramed the double screen play that they were running for the team. David, bless his heart, had already figured out the whole play, and a couple of others in the game had figured out parts of it, which is again a testament to their basketball IQs. There was a funny moment. We were kind of slow getting into our huddle. I heard their coach start to diagram their press break. A kid asked how he knew that we were going to press and the coach just replied that he knew. I smiled since I knew I had no intention of pressing, or even pressuring them at the start of the quarter. I wanted to save it until we were either in slightly more dire straights, or for the 4th quarter.
We come out pretty flat in the second quarter. They don’t have their first string in there and the subs I’ve made didn’t really hurt our quality of player out there much, so the game stays pretty much at a standstill for a bit. However, then the phantom calls started happening. In the first quarter ever call that was made was legitimate. But in that second quarter we were getting called for all sorts of things which simply weren’t there. We quickly go into bonus and then double bonus. At one point Lucas gets called for a foul which was not a foul. In fact Lucas was called for 3 fouls none of which were great calls, not surprising as coming into the game Lucas had committed only 2 fouls the whole season. After this call which was not a call, I asked what the foul was. They said Lucas’s number. I said I heard who it was on. What was the call. I say it in an inquiring tone, but it was my way of asking “what the heck?” During baseball I NEVER question the umpire. And really I hadn’t talked to these refs too much, but the officiating was highly suspect this game and it was too close of a game for me not to grow a bit frustrated.
Anyhow, we’re really out of sorts. They are basically running a trapping defense against us in the second quarter and it had some success. However, our offense FINALLY kicked into gear and we started to create some fast break opportunities. This allowed the refs to call some specious travel violations, but it also caught us up from what had been at one point a 9 point deficit to only 5. Credit for this change in offensive pace really belongs with David and Jack P, though Jack M helped as well here.
During half time I kept the talk simple. I asked what our offensive goal for the day was. I’m met with blank stares. I pointed out that it was beating the other team back down the court. That’s what we needed to be doing and weren’t doing. Then I talked about the fouls. I said that they were calling things in this game that they hadn’t in previous games and we needed to recognize that. I reminded them that basically any contact in the lane was going to be called a foul so if you were playing help defense, which we’d been doing a good job of doing, make sure you tried to meet the man outside of the lane. We talked a little bit about how to take a charge and then I sent them back out there.
The big difference in the 3rd quarter was our defense. They kept going back to the well of the play with the double screen, but it got less and less effective, until finally by the end of the quarter they stopped running it. Meanwhile, their zone started to get sloppy. We were running enough transition offense that they weren’t making their traps work. Plus having David and the Jacks being able to dribble through a lot of them helped. By the end of the 3rd quarter we’d pulled to with-in 2. And then we tied it up. We got the ball back with 9 seconds. I told David, who was taking the ball up the court, that we had plenty of time. Someone on the bench scoffed at this and I pointed out that 8 seconds was enough time for two shots. Sure enough we got a good shot off with about 3 seconds left, but it missed. Lucas grabbed the rebound and put it back in half a second before the buzzer went off and we entered the fourth quarter up by two. After Lucas made that shot, our bench exploded. Honestly you’d have thought that was the end of the game. However, seeing the pure joy of his teammates caused Lucas to flash one of the best smiles I’ve seen in a long time. That moment right there is a big reason I coach sports.
I pulled the team together and said “It’s games like this that make me love basketball. This is fun. Each quarter we’ve been doing better. We started off down by 7, narrowed it down to 5 at half and now we’re up by 2. We’ve got 7 more minutes to play and we’re going to win this game.” And sure enough the 4th quarter was ours. We were still getting called for a bunch of fouls, but they weren’t making as many of their shots, and there were less shooting fouls anyway. More importantly we were doing a great job of moving the ball around on offense. Brian hit a couple of clutch outside shots which made them guard our perimeter more giving us more players open inside. On defense we continued to hold them SO tightly. Lucas drew a key offensive foul that was a big moral booster. With about 2 minutes left we’d extended our lead to 6. Tom had started doing a chant of “Defense” from the bench that was great. Our players were pumped and their side was not. With about 90 seconds their PG, who was a pretty good player, fouled out.
Not too long after that they decided to start fouling us. Now they’d had their own share of fouls in the second half and so when they foul Scott and they went to the line, I thought it was a 1 and 1. Scott missed the first shot, and there’s no jostling or anything, which didn’t even register at the time. Jack P ends up with the ball. I tell him to shoot. At that point one of the MP players starts guarding him. Jack goes in strong for a lay-up, which he makes and there’s a whistle. Looks like it’s going to be a possible three point play.
Their coach starts asking if the foul wasn’t an intentional foul. He thought they did the signal for an intentional foul. I had been talking with someone on the bench, so while I saw the foul, I didn’t pay attention to the call. The two refs conferred and agreed it’d been a called an intentional foul. And let me say that I thought that was an awful call. I mean granted they were trying to intentionally foul us, but it wasn’t like they Scott was in any danger of being hurt. After it was agreed that it was a two shot foul, the coach gets very upset and starts going off at the refs on how they don’t even know the rules of the game. He’s really livid about the poor officiating.
Something I’d never mentioned before is that the refs who typically do our games are a pair of brothers, while the scoreboard operator is a third brother. So as the MP coach is going off on the refs, the scoreboard operator tells him to cool it. They go back and forth for a little and finally the MP coach does quiet down. Since it was an intentional foul, we get the ball back. When the ref comes over, the scoreboard guy whispers to him about the MP coach. The ref then tells the coach not to yell at the scorer’s table. This starts a heated discussion between the ref and the MP coach. At one point the ref had to say, “Coach lower your voice there are kids around.” The MP’s coach was two fold: the scoreboard operator started it, he doesn’t really have the authority to tell me to be quiet, and because of this if he talks to me I’ll talk back. While I think the scoreboard operator did have the authority to say what he said, I otherwise agree with the MP coach. This discussion, which took a minute or two, really took a lot of the good feeling out of the game, which was unfortunate. As it was going on, I even said “this is a shame.” Gordie asked me why and I said that it was taking away from our great victory. Finally that whole discussion finishes.
They keep fouling us and in the end we win by 12, 36-24, though it was far more of a 6 or 8 point victory, just because of the way the end of the game went down. Our bench leapt up with great joy. We were very happy at winning this game, no doubt about it. We went through and shook their hands. At the end I shook the hand of the MP coach and we exchanged a few pleasant words about each others team and agreed that the officiating was horrible. I had been quite pleased with the officiating we’d had up until this point, but this game was just not called well.
This game reinforces a few things. One we thrive off a transition offense. In the 3rd and 4th quarters we did a good job of running a half-court offense, but it was because we’d changed the tempo of the game. My dad, who is obviously biased, feels that the other team was out coached. I’m not sure that’s true at all. I think I’m getting a lot of credit, from not only my dad but the other parents for things that the team did naturally. Now a few of my decisions have been good decisions. So, for instance, we don’t have plays. Instead we work on drills and offense more abstractly. When MP was forced to stop using their plays and go into more just playing basketball, we were more than up for the task. So I guess I do deserve credit for that. At the same time, their coach has taught them how to trap pretty well, both full and half court, and we haven’t done that at all. So I’ll add that to our list of goals of things to do between now and the end of the season.
One thing I did, and it was a pretty conscious decision, was weight the playing time in favor of certain players. I don’t think I did as good of job of balancing our need to win with players having the right to play as I did in some other games. I’ll talk about those specific cases as we look at individual performances.
Brian – Talked with him before the game. The conversation went well and he had a great game. Took four shots and made them all. He is definitely our best jump shot player. He will be getting the start again today against WK.
Dante – Only saw 7.5 minutes of play and did much better in that time than he had in the last couple of games, pulling down 4 rebounds, a block, and a steal in that time. He’s going to start as well today. Scott and Lucas were having good games as well, and so I felt bad at the time that Dante wasn’t getting more time, but was reluctant to pull the trigger in getting him more time.
David – Another excellent game. He and Jack P helped get our game going. My dad thought he’d only sat like 3 or 4 minutes, but really he played about 21 minutes, or ¾ of a game. I don’t feel bad about that at all and David could easily be seeing that kind of playing time again in our games. Everyone is a better player with David on the court. He leads our team in points, but is also second in assists. He’s a true team player and doesn’t act like a star, so I don’t feel bad at all about giving him the chance to shine.
Gordie – Gordie got into serious foul trouble which limited his time to only 6 and a half minutes. Once again his turnovers killed us. He also lost time since I yanked him earlier than I would have in the 4th after he put up an atrocious shot while double teamed. He knew it was a bad shot, but claimed he was open when he started to take it. I responded that if he’d said that and had used good form, I would have been ok with the shot. But the shot was with awful form and in a bad spot. What was interesting was that even after this conversation he said after Lucas drew the offensive foul, “I’ve never had a coach who is nice and good before.” That was a really nice thing to hear and shows how if you’re fair and respectful to a kid, you can impose consequences (you shoot bad shots and you come out) and they won’t hold it against you.
Jack M – Here was another player I’d like to have played more in the end of the game but for whom there wasn’t a spot and so he too will get the start today. He did have 12 minutes on the game, and played well in that time. There was something slippery on the basket by our bench and so a couple of times Jack turned the ball over when it wasn’t his fault. I was pleased with how he played and feel good about giving him the start today.
Jack P – He had a great first half, as mentioned. While he missed a lot of shots in the second half, which is typical for him, I felt he was key to our victory and he was the only player I named specifically in our post game talk. He’ll start again today.
Lucas – While he didn’t rebound particularly well in his time (only 3 in 15 minutes of play) he made the basket off our zone breaker, on a nice feed from David, and was clutch when we needed it. Not his best game, but he’s an important piece of our puzzle.
Noah – A continued nothing in his 8.5 minutes of play. He’s a really nice kid and I told him that if he will go a whole continuous motion without walking or stopping that I would start him, he doesn’t really bring much to the game either offensively or defensively. Gordie, has some play making instincts, but Noah is pretty much over matched on the court. I really like him, but he just hasn’t progressed as much as a player as I’d like.
Scott – He continues to play big. He came in second on the team in minutes, with 21. In reality we’d likely have been OK if some of those minutes had gone to Dante/Lucas, but he works well with David (in other words he’s excellent at finding David as an outlet) and you’ll rarely have anything but positive energy from him.
Tom – Tom is a crucial member of the team. I played him the whole first quarter and he only saw 3 minutes of play after that, at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th. When I took him out in the 4th he said “I stink”. I was not pleased to hear him say this, as Tom is the one who will start us cheering, as he did here. Or provide that comic relief. While he gets frustrated with himself he never is anything but positive and supportive of his teammates. While I think he’s slightly under achieving for his basketball skills, so the frustration is somewhat understandable, I don’t think he’s as bad as he thinks he is. I hope that he can have a break out game one of these games to give himself some confidence.
Today we play WK. They’ve put up a lot of points lately and I think that they’re going to upset someone soon, despite their 1-4 record. I don’t want it to be us. In my pregame talk I’m going to focus on not having a “let down game”. We’re a superior team and if we play like it, we’ll win easily. However, if we don’t play our top game we could be in trouble.
Let me just close with this: the best thing about this victory was that we were behind the whole first half. I talk about the difference between a good and a great team. And I knew they had it in them to come from behind. However, they didn’t know that. Now they do. While over confidence was starting to become a problem, and will likely rear its head again depending on how we do in the HP tourney, we needed to know that not only could we get out to a lead and hold it, but that we could come back. We didn’t believe it when we played the JCC team last time, but this team we should believe it. If we can win well today, in what could be a potential pitfall game, we’ll be in a good place for the HP tourney, which I’ll talk about more in a post tomorrow or Tuesday.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Looking Back and Ahead
As I setup this blog it was interesting to see how my impressions have stayed the same or changed since the tryouts.
For instance, I successfully nailed Brian (who I had spelled Bryan) as a kid with a bit of an attitude after the first tryouts. So far this seems accurate. I also predicted I would need to use Tom as a guard/forward simultaneously and this too has proven correct, however I proved to be overly pessimistic about how successful this would be . I thought more highly of Noah during tryouts than I do now. I also foresaw some of the problems with Gordie that have cropped up (as I’d completely forgotten how borderline he was in making the team). Fortunately, I made the right call there as Gordie has not really been a problem even if there have been problems (if that makes any sense).
I so foresaw the idea we’d only have 7 players at some game. Of course I thought it would be in February. Does that mean in February we’re going to end up with 5 or 6? Please let that not be true.
I had an opinion of Jack M that more closely resembles how I feel he plays during games than how he practices. Seems like he’s a kid who really needs stress to play as well as he can.
I did not work on zone busting as early as I had originally planned to.
I completely conflated Gordie and Noah in my mind at the time, though reading back on it I was able to put the right name to the right kid.
I haven’t done as good of a job of reinforcing some of the skills we did that first week through-out the season. Working on the proper grip, for instance, or doing the jumps, or wrist flexes, are all activities I should do for 30 seconds here or there. That’s one reason for the scavenger hunt, which was a successful solution to this problem.
I also now know the results of all of the weekend’s games. First, HP won two games on Sunday, including one against a team that had won the previous week. I thought they were a fairly good team, and they showed it, as playing two games on one day is not an easy feat. MP1 defeated MP2. MP2 is our next opponent and has scored more points then our previous two opponents. I really anticipate it should be a good game. If we can win that by a decisive margin of victory I am going to start to believe we have something special. In particular, I’m looking forward to seeing how our defense does. It was “easy” to defend against NF2 and HP, neither of whom have shown that they score points (HP won its game 19-18 and 19-13, while NF2 had only scored 8 points the previous game). If we can limit MP2’s points, as they have scored 40 and 24 in their first two games, I will grow very encouraged about our prospects.
For instance, I successfully nailed Brian (who I had spelled Bryan) as a kid with a bit of an attitude after the first tryouts. So far this seems accurate. I also predicted I would need to use Tom as a guard/forward simultaneously and this too has proven correct, however I proved to be overly pessimistic about how successful this would be . I thought more highly of Noah during tryouts than I do now. I also foresaw some of the problems with Gordie that have cropped up (as I’d completely forgotten how borderline he was in making the team). Fortunately, I made the right call there as Gordie has not really been a problem even if there have been problems (if that makes any sense).
I so foresaw the idea we’d only have 7 players at some game. Of course I thought it would be in February. Does that mean in February we’re going to end up with 5 or 6? Please let that not be true.
I had an opinion of Jack M that more closely resembles how I feel he plays during games than how he practices. Seems like he’s a kid who really needs stress to play as well as he can.
I did not work on zone busting as early as I had originally planned to.
I completely conflated Gordie and Noah in my mind at the time, though reading back on it I was able to put the right name to the right kid.
I haven’t done as good of a job of reinforcing some of the skills we did that first week through-out the season. Working on the proper grip, for instance, or doing the jumps, or wrist flexes, are all activities I should do for 30 seconds here or there. That’s one reason for the scavenger hunt, which was a successful solution to this problem.
I also now know the results of all of the weekend’s games. First, HP won two games on Sunday, including one against a team that had won the previous week. I thought they were a fairly good team, and they showed it, as playing two games on one day is not an easy feat. MP1 defeated MP2. MP2 is our next opponent and has scored more points then our previous two opponents. I really anticipate it should be a good game. If we can win that by a decisive margin of victory I am going to start to believe we have something special. In particular, I’m looking forward to seeing how our defense does. It was “easy” to defend against NF2 and HP, neither of whom have shown that they score points (HP won its game 19-18 and 19-13, while NF2 had only scored 8 points the previous game). If we can limit MP2’s points, as they have scored 40 and 24 in their first two games, I will grow very encouraged about our prospects.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
