learning curve

We had our first league game of the year last night against last season's conference champs the sligo all-stars. we lost 98-90, we easily coulda beat the life outta them but we were missing 2 players that are significant contributers so there was always a scrub on the floor as our fifth player, the other team took advantage of that and forced us into a grip of turnovers. My ankle is still hurting but i still managed to have a good game except that i got 3 fouls in the first 8 minutes. the other team had 6 guys over 6'5" so i couldn't come off, until i fouled out with 5 minutes to go. we still didn't have that cohesion required to sustain significant runs throughout the game from lack of experience playing together. i had 20 pts and 9 rebounds, dra had 28 and 17 rips and sam had 27 and 8 assists, but we got nothing from our other players. our guards couldn't even get us the ball. i hit a nice 20 ft fadeaway at the halftime buzzer off an inbounds play and threw in a lil shimmy shake as i was going back. i call it the silencer. the gym was packed and it was a good atmosphere, i like playing on the road, but it was tough to lose, knowing coulda had the upset. me and refs get along like pakistanis and earthquakes. after the game back at the house we watched the dvd of the game, which was a trip cause i've never watched myself play on film before. the three of us stayed up talking, arguing and at times yelling at each other till early in the morning about changes we gotta make. in a lot of ways i think it was good we lost that game because it was a wakeup call and helped to show our weaknesses and to define what our various roles should be because we are all so different as players, both by position and style. this is going to make us very dangerous as we learn how to use each others strengths and minimalize the exposure of our weaknesses. we're gonna be a bad team.....1988 michael jackson bad