Game 11: when the going gets tough

We reached the midpoint of the season on sunday. we now have played every team once. We travelled to copenhagen to play against herlev. they haven't lost at home for 2 years and sit in second place in the league. Playing away on the road after a 4.5 hr bus ride is always tough, i was rusty from not practicing all week due to my knee injury and we came in riding a 3 game losing skid. as you can see alot of factors were working against us.

We started off slow, somewhat due to a lacksidasical warmup and sloppy early play, we got down by 17 at one point. they were hitting from the outside and we were not taking care of the ball and blowing layups. we closed it to nine by halftime with some good play by endre inside and a few fastbreaks. the third quarter we played them about even, our foul trouble hurt us because they got in the penalty real early and got alot of freethrows as a result.

I always believed we would make a comeback though, we just needed to play solid and execute after getting some stops. in the fourth we buckled down on defense, got some hustle points off of rebounds and inbounds plays and close the gap to one point in the last few minutes. we were right there but couldn't execute some designed plays and made some bonehead mistakes. we fouled them down 2 with 3 seconds left and i got off a half court shot at the buzzer to tie the game but it missed a little to the left. final score 83-80. a tough loss again.

we just lack the guys with the ability to maintain their mental focus at the end of games and to focus on the small things required to finish games out. they had the same problem last year, losing five games by four points or less. i didn't play great but was serviceable, my knee limited my mobility so i took a step back on offense and ended up running the point for most of the second half. i had 11 points, 12 boards and 5 or 6 assists. they seemed pretty happy on their website about how they "contained me" but if i wasn't fucking injured i woulda cut up that defense bad.

endre powered us inside with 23, corrie was driving and dishing with 16pts. niels played a solid first half and sorensen played a good second half. diedler struggled a bit, but needs to keep being aggressive. but as usual the burden of the loss fell heavy on all three of us imports... its hard to come thousands of miles to come and produce and fall short in getting these wins. the danish dudes were all laughing and joking around after the game in the locker room and a few of us lost it. it just seems like they don't care as much as they should. but thats the divide between the two mentalities and the reactions to adversity is handled two separate ways perhaps misunderstood or interpreted improperly by the other side. now i'm just speculating on this because i have no other way of looking at it that makes sense to me.

i'm used to complete silence and introspection after a loss. i would like to say the idea of losing is never openly expected but a culture of easily dealing with it has been fostered and thus leading to vastly lowered expectations. i have now seen every team in this league and i don't think that there is any team that we can't beat out here. i just don't see day in day out striving by some of our players to be more accountable and to improve. sure everyone works hard in practice most of the time but outside of that, where the real individual gains happen, nothing seems to be occuring. then they say they wanna get better; this and that but i never see the actual doing of it..... no staying late after practice shooting or working on their handle.

i hate to say it and see it but its accepted mediocrity in alot of circumstances. i don't ever want that to rub off on me. i really try to hold in my feelings and keep positive but i feel i am bursting at the seems. i can't wait to get to the xmas break and take a step back from things mentally. all my days are filled with analyzing the team, myself and the situation, trying to figure out keys to success or changes but now i feel at a loss. i feel so much responsibilty all the time and i try to point things in the right direction but i just don't see the action coming from the transition from the understanding or instructions or coaching to the carrying out. too often things go in one ear, hover for a second, then go right out the other ear of alot of these guys. trying to hold them to a higher standard doesn't seem to be an effective motivational thing for them...... maybe beer would work better