Braves 81 Giants 59

This past Sunday we played the first game of the second half of the season. We played at home and were looking to get some revenge on the Giants who beat us in our very first game of the season. Both teams looked a lot different than they did at the beginning of the season. The Giants have been struggling this season but did pick up standout Giordan Watson a few weeks ago to help them at the guard position. We have one new player in Maik Zirbes, besides that our roster is exactly the same.

I felt really good about the game because for the third week in a row we had a very focused group of players every day in practice. We worked hard and played together in pracice all week and we did the same thing during the games. I felt as long as we played defense with good pressure and played strong help defense we would win the game, even if we didn't shoot particularly well.

Well our defense was even better than I thought as the only scored 17 points in the first half. We went into halftime up by 21 points. The third quarter was the only quarter they scored over 20 points in 10 minutes. All in all they combined to shoot 38% from the field for the entire game.

We on the other hand didn't shoot much better. Walt Baxley had another great game pouring in 34 points and shooting at a high percentage. However, most of us didn't shoot particularly well, 41% as a team for the game. I shot terrible just 2-9. Bad shooting nights happen everyone knows that and those are the nights where you still have to play good defense. As I indicated, if we played good defense we would win no matter how we shot the basketball.

We ended up outrebounding them by 18 causing 21 turnovers and attempting 16 more shots than the opponent and also attempted 7 more free throws than the opponent.
All in all your probably going to win if you do all of those things.

This was a big win for us because it put us in a three way tie for 3rd place. Something we are excited about. Our next game takes place at Jena, on the eastern side of Germany. I hope that we can continue to play well and stay focused, because when we do I know we can win against any team in the league.

Until next time...
Our next game we play across the country on the eastern side of Germany in Jena.