GL vs MP2

Well I just got home from GL’s game against MP2. The good news was that before our game, NF was playing MP in 4A. MP is HP’s 4A opponent tomorrow so I got some scouting time in.

Before the game I decided to go with “hockey subs” for the first half. I figured that MP2 shouldn’t be as good as us and so I wanted to make sure that all of my players got some quality playing time. I decided I was going to sell it to the team as the idea that we didn’t play all that intensely last weekend and so this would give them the chance to be intense for 2-3 minutes. I wanted to see all out ball for the time.

The first quarter went well with our team scoring numerous transition baskets. However, we were fouling like crazy. In the second quarter we didn’t do well responding to their press at all, turning it over numerous times which lead to a lot of easy baskets. After being up virtually the entire first quarter we entered half time down by 1.

At half time I talked about how in MP couldn’t keep up with us and so that the second they got the rebound or the ball they should be thinking about getting it up court. It was the 3rd quarter that made all the difference. They couldn’t sink a shot nor could they ever seem to setup on defense before we’d gotten back. They only scored 1 in the quarter but that was due more to misses than our being good. Our 14 points, however, was not luck. I felt real good entering the 4th up now 29-17.

I gave lots of playing time to Cameron, Tom, Andrew, and Jack M who’d gotten less playing time than they deserve in other games. David only saw about 1 and half minutes in the 4th yet still managed to score 4 points. They made a nice little mini-comeback in the last minute of the game, narrowing our lead from 10-7, but even then I had one of my weakest 5 out there.

All in all a good solid victory. In fact it’s our game all season where I felt like we were in control, except for the second quarter. And I think a big part of that was the hockey subs. In the 3rd when we made our run, we were fresh and ready to go. They, however, had exhausted themselves with their press in the second. If I’d wanted we could have won a lot more, but like I said I gave lots of playing time to players who hadn’t played as much.

This was the sort of solid victory I wanted, and expected, heading into tomorrow’s must-win against LV.