Today concluded a super busy weekend for me. I formed a team to play in a Easter basketball tournament and we played two games Saturday and two games Sunday. In addition, I met up some friends for dinner after the tournament Saturday and I attended an NBA game after the tournament on Sunday.
Overall, I felt the tournament was a success. My team consisted of two separate groups of people who I played with previously and we meshed together pretty well. We won two games and lost two games to finish in 3rd place.
My team was really a middle of the road team in this tourney and it was reflected in the games we won, the games we lost and how we finished. My team had plenty of guys who have played league basketball before but not at a super high level. We also had a couple of guys who didn't play much organized basketball before but we were able to make up for it.
In first game we won Saturday, we beat an older but somewhat inexperienced team. This team was pretty tough inside but struggled with their shots and our team played solidly enough to pull off the win. In the second game we won today, we played a young and inexperienced team. My team didn't play particularly well but had enough in the tank to knock off the young kids.
However, the two losses reflected many of my team's weaknesses. In our first loss on Saturday, we played some early to mid 20's guys who just ran circles around my team offensively and defensively. Their youth and athleticism was just too much of our team to overcome.
In our second loss this afternoon, we played a mixed team with vets (over 35), guys in their prime (25 to 30) and young kids. The story of this game? Defense. The mixed team came out in their man to man defense and suffocated my team. We were just not used to the level of defense that was being played. The older guys used their experience to clog all our passing lanes and contested all of our shots. The younger guys took advantage of our tired legs on offense. This was a tough game and showed why defense is so important in basketball.
In both cases, if my team had played more together and got more time to gel, we might have a better chance against the more organized teams. Alas, my team was just playing on the fly and that was why we struggled against the better teams. As it turned out, the two teams we lost to this weekend ended up playing the championship with the mixed team beating the young kids in overtime.
My days of competitive basketball are winding down but it was fun play in the tournament with my team.
No comments:
Post a Comment