Game:

Warm Up! (2000)

Duration: 28:13

27 views

1

We were hosting tryouts for the squad the other night and Joe's homie Kennedy joined us for a couple runs. The score got kind of lopsided in the beginning of the game. The other team's center was a rebounding goblin and we weren't getting back out to the shooters fast enough to contest. I think there was also a feeling out process. But by the second half we settled in and started playing our game. If I'm being honest though, we played our game and also played "Hack-a-5" to put the other teams worst free throw shooter at the line. Hey man, a win is a win.

- Sauce - Suffering through some lag issues and having to deal with a paint beast that just eats rebounds, John battled passed it. One of the subtle things I appreciate about how John plays is the passes he makes when he's on the perimeter. Most players will try and move with the ball and unfortunately that's one of the disadvantageous of being a center in an area of the court where you're surrounded by steal spamming guards. But John doesn't do that, when he gets the pass, he immediately passes it to the closest ball handler to him, and that preserves that ball movement that's so necessary to the way we run our offense.

- Kennedy - I think it's always a tough when you are the new guy on an established team. There's a learning curve on both sides of the ball. Offensively, you're trying to determine where players like to get passes from, or what spots can you be in that doesn't cause spacing issues for the rest of the team. Defensively, you wonder how aggressive can you be in trying to get a steal, and if the team will cover your guy if you lose him,. I thought Kennedy did well, especially in the second half when he ran point for a couple plays. He started finding me, Ronnie and Joe in our spots. From that point it was like a seamless integration into how we hunt for shots. Defensively, you can totally tell he's played 2K before. He sat in passing lanes that opposing players typically pass out to and got some key interceptions, he also understood how to show on the ball handler to keep them contained.

- Joe - We had our small ball line up again. This is where Joe is our PF and sometimes leads to rough nights for Joe. The other team came with a PF and Center combo that was just built to score on the inside and also to leak for open shots on the perimeter. The first half of the game had us falling into that trap. The center was too much for one defender to handle and that allowed their PF to be at the perimeter for open mid range shots or threes. Luckily for us, Rugged decided in the second half to be that dawg on defense. When he helped John guard the center, Joe went for strip steals rather than blocks and when the ball made it out to the PF for shots, Joe was flying out there for the contests. Defensive highlights were the strip steal when the center was backing him down (20:47), and the block he had on the center to prevent a clear dunk (23:25).

- Ronnie - He's just that guy for us now. Scoring, playmaking, defense both on and off ball. I think he's also showing more patience through out the game. During the times we're down, we all have a tendency to speed up our process in trying to score. I think the several nights we were taking L's in Rec play, we wasted those games taking shots after the first or second pass. But there really is a difference when we're true to our process. There's a visual difference in the other teams defense, when we have them scrambling, and they lose track of our shooters, or they completely forget to cover on the interior and he hits them with a YMCA league layup. Ronnie gets it now, and we're more dangerous cause of it.

Other Statistics