Last night featured two things that I have never been a part of in coaching- the first involved our offensive ineptitude and the second with the environment and behaviors of the fans and players at the game.
Our opponent last night was a team we played and beat last year. The thing I remember most about that game was the loud crowd they had and how much I enjoyed the atmosphere from a coaching/competitor standpoint. This year it was just as loud, but not enjoyable.
We started the game out by missing our first four shots, all 3 feet or less away from the hoop. We managed to get past that, though, and score a couple baskets and jump into our 3/4 court press- and we had our press working! We had their offense totally disrupted and were getting easy lay-ups on our way to an 11-2 lead at the end of the first quarter.
We started the second quarter where we left off the first scoring a quick easy bucket, and then our shooting guard (and focal point of our press) picked up a cheap second foul. As soon as he came out of the game we lost the momentum we had built through our press and our offense became stagnant. The rest of the quarter was ugly and we lead 16-9 at half time.
We felt good about things because we would put our shooting guard back in the line-up to start the half right back in our press and we should have been able to blow the game open just like in our first game. However, the SG picked up a quick third foul and came back out immediately. The rest of the third quarter was more of the second with our offense resembling more of a lunch time game than one we have been working on for four weeks. Defensively, our guys were unable to stop their guards from penetrating and our big men have not fully grasped the concept of help-defense we have been preaching and working on for almost a month now. Our opponent had the ball for the final possession of the quarter and could have taken their first lead, but we managed one good stop and found ourselves up by only one point, 20-19, heading into the final quarter.
Even with our full line-up on the floor, the momentum we handed to the home team was proving a lot for us to overcome. But, our SG played smarter, our bigs came up with a couple good rebounds, and our PG was able to get to the basket for a couple easy buckets that propelled us to a 12 point lead with under 2 minutes left. The last minute was a series of desperate shots from them and missed free throws by us, but we held on for a 37-27 win.
When I got the scorebook from one of our assistants I saw that our PG and our SG were the only guys to score! Those two guys had scored all 37 of our points. In retrospect, nobody else on the squad (of the seven that played) even came close to putting the ball in the basket.
The good news was that we won in a hostile, rowdy environment and we learned who our real on-court leader is. On the negative: Our big men were absolutely absent. No points, a couple rebounds, and zero real defense. Only one guy truly was unfazed by the environment, two that were able to function productively. The other guys were in over their heads in regards to having poise in pressure situation- which actually was a very good experience for them this early in the season. This, hopefully, helps us out later (even this weekend) when we have tense games trying to win trophies.
2 comments:
Hey dude,
I am glad to see your team off to a good start. My high school coach would never play kids who had picked up too many fouls in the first half during the first two or three minutes of the second half, because he was convinced refs were a bit jumpy and were watching those kids closer to see how they responded. Thought you might find that interesting, also have you heard Van Gundy call any games on TV this year? He's been talking a lot about how coaches use players with fouls. Interesting stuff. Congrats and keep up the good work.
I like that thought... hmmm... hafta run that one by the staff... ha! I have a staff this year!
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