How can these young men learn how to put an opponent away in crunch time when they are schooled by the coach to stop playing their game and wait for the clock to run out?
I put the game on pause and walked away at the commercial break with about 4:20 left. Paid some bills, loaded the dishwasher, walked around the condo putting stuff away, checked e-mails. Was about to take the dogs out. Then I decided to take a deep breath and force myself to watch the ending. I had a bad feeling from the moment I pressed “Play” again.
I’m no basketball genius, but it seems to me that when everyone KNOWS the Cats haven’t figured out how to close out games some player(s) might just plead with the coach to “let us keep playing, we’re doing okay… let us run our offense, PLEASE”.
They play their butts off for 90% of the game and then for the last 4 minutes we have one guy dribbling on the perimeter and four guys imitating statues along our baseline. Sure, if we bluff a drive, pass once, and make a corner three, we preserve the margin and perhaps stagger across the finish line with a lead, but I don’t like our chances in that scenario.
CCC is going on with post-game coachspeak about how the guys have to keep fighting all the way to the end. So, coach, answer me this: Why ask them to wave the yellow caution flag with a lead and minutes to play? Let them play for God’s sake. They have to be wondering why they have not earned the right to keep playing aggressively all the way to 0:00.
I put the game on pause and walked away at the commercial break with about 4:20 left. Paid some bills, loaded the dishwasher, walked around the condo putting stuff away, checked e-mails. Was about to take the dogs out. Then I decided to take a deep breath and force myself to watch the ending. I had a bad feeling from the moment I pressed “Play” again.
I’m no basketball genius, but it seems to me that when everyone KNOWS the Cats haven’t figured out how to close out games some player(s) might just plead with the coach to “let us keep playing, we’re doing okay… let us run our offense, PLEASE”.
They play their butts off for 90% of the game and then for the last 4 minutes we have one guy dribbling on the perimeter and four guys imitating statues along our baseline. Sure, if we bluff a drive, pass once, and make a corner three, we preserve the margin and perhaps stagger across the finish line with a lead, but I don’t like our chances in that scenario.
CCC is going on with post-game coachspeak about how the guys have to keep fighting all the way to the end. So, coach, answer me this: Why ask them to wave the yellow caution flag with a lead and minutes to play? Let them play for God’s sake. They have to be wondering why they have not earned the right to keep playing aggressively all the way to 0:00.