2 Games/ Same Team

This past week on Wednesday we concluded our regular season. We already knew that we were not going to make the playoffs so it kind of makes for an anticlimactic end to the season. Not what I had envisioned when I got here to Bratislava.

We played at Dolny Kubin, which was currently in last place. They have a very small gym and a very loud crowd. The noise seems to echo off of the walls and there are times when the referees blow the whistle and nobody hears it. It is a great home court advantage and they alwasy seem to play better at home.
To make things worse we were without three of our main players for the remainder of the season. This left us with myself at the guard position, and a center and power forward who were used to getting quality minutes. The rest of our guys were introduced to a lot more playing time and doing it for the first time in a tough gym.

Needless to say the game didn't go well. They are known for playing a very difficult zone defense. One where you can't really pass to the wings. They like to trap on the sidelines and we couldn't seem to figure it out. The game was within about ten most of the time in the second half and we cut it to about 6 with a couple minutes to go but that was as close as we got it. I shot very well and scored 21 points on only 12 shots. Pretty good percentage. Vince also did well but for anyone watching it was easy to see that our team was not used to playing like this together and that was our biggest struggle.

Unfortunately we finished our regular season with a loss. Part of me thinks that the Dolny Kubin team so us and thought they were going to destroy us but they didn't. The only good news was that we got to play them again. In the bottom four playoff they were the team that we matched up with first this past Saturday and we got a chance to avenge them at home.

They continued to play their difficult zone the whole game and it led to a lot of bad turnovers. Neverthless they weren't playing as well as they did at home and we hung around in the first half down 33-29. The third quarter was a crawl but we outscored them 19-15 and were able to have a tied score going into the fourth quarter.In the last quarterf we were able to cause some turnovers which allowed for us to score some easy baskets. This was much needed since we continued to have trouble with their zone. I even had a great one handed dunk off a pass from Vince where I dunked over their point guard. He didn't jump but it was still really fun. We outscored them by 11 in teh final stanza and we came away with a win somehow. I think the turnovers were a big reason why we won the game. Thomas Bauer who barely plays had a great game defensively and that really helped. He really gave us a spark off of the bench. We were also able to score in the half court a bit more with some passing from Dejan our center into Vince Polakovic, our power forward.

Personally it wasn't one of my better games. I shot only 4-15 from the field for a total of 14 points. Not good.
However I am not discouraged as I know games like that happen and if I can play like that and we can still win, well I will take that any day. It truly was a team victory and hopefully this is something we can build on for the remainder of the season.

Our next game is this Wednesday at home against Handlova. They are perhaps playing their best basketball of the season and it should be a large challenge for us to beat them, but I know if we play hard, play smart and defend well we can do it.

Thanks for reading