Mandatory Basketball Rant - Week 14

It's down to the nitty-gritty, playoff time is here!

But first, let's talk about taking foul shots and eating pizza.

While the playoffs affect grades 3 and above, Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades get their Hot Shots tournament. 

With Hot Shots, all the teams in that grade get together with multiple rounds of different variants of foul shooting.  It's a team event, and with revised rules to give the weakest kids a chance at making a shot and a difference for their team's chance, it gets to be an exciting event.

This year, we were able to have a coordinator/commissar/commissioner of the 1st and 2nd-grade basketball, and he's been great at handling all the issues that come up with those age children and their parents.  It came to no surprise to us that he took the bull by the horns and got the 1st Grade Hot Shots tournament set up with military precision.   Rules were reviewed, updated, and distributed to all coaches to review with a week to go... then cleaned up more revisions.

Tuesday that tournament took place and it was a rousing success.  In a best two-out-of-three two-minute periods, most battles were sweeps, but each period was a nail-biter, decided on only one or two points.

In the end, a winner was declared, pizza was fed to all, medals and t-shirts distributed, and nary a parent had a complaint.

Friday was supposed to be the Kindergarten edition, but thanks to an early dismissal by the school district and full closure of the campuses, we were forced to reschedule them for Monday, with 2nd Grade the next day.   On top of this crazy schedule for the board, the core practice time open up by K-2 seasons ending is being negated by the one elementary school's play getting affected by the early dismissal, and getting rescheduled for Wednesday.  No one is amused by the situation.

The early dismissal also affected Millie's Friday game in Hazleton, but thanks to the dreaded storm petering out early, we managed to snag some hockey tickets and relax before a pressing Saturday.

Saturday started in Hazleton with Maja's team.  They easily overwhelmed their opponents with their 3-1-1 zone (Three on the perimeter, one waiting to pounce on anything getting through the perimeter, and Maja, guarding three players all by her lonesome.  It wasn't the greatest game offensively for her, but the boys had it well in hand from the smothering defense and with the score 18-0 in the third, we left early to make it to Maja's next game with time in hand.

For the twelve minutes Maja was gone, the score titled slightly to 23-8, so there was an impact.

Maja's second game was the opening round of the playoffs for them.  Her Bucks had drawn a bye in the first round, and a win would guarantee them a week off.

But fate cast its die for the hapless Lakers. Winless during the regular season, I was alerted to their newfound purpose with a simple text message alerting me of a sizable upset against the 5/6 Girls Celtics.  Maja's team was unprepared for an aggressive defense, coordinated passing, and one tall girl that had a devastating mid-range jumper.

Bucks fall 22-12 and their chance for a bye next week turns into one possibly two games next week, if they get their act together.

Game three for the day was actually driving the girls and their friend to the local high school girls game.  It was the annual Pink Out for Cancer and they were playing, ironically, Hazleton.  This is the fourth or fifth time I've seen them play this season, and perhaps it was a lower level of competition, but those girls executed much better, even if shots weren't landing.

And then we come to game four.  My playoff debut as a coach, and a first time for Millie, the Spurs opened our playoffs against our arch-nemesis the Celtics.  

Our bigger opponent before the game was the variant strain of influenza that's filtered its way through Northeast Pennsylvania.  I got word just before Thursday's practice that one player had been suffering the entire week with the flu, obviously wouldn't make practice, and was a maybe for Saturday.  The following morning I got another email from a different player who was a no-show for practice, announcing that girl had just contracted the flu and was out through Monday.  

That left us with five girls, and perhaps not the preferred arranged I would want.  Against the Celtics.  

With a final confirmation that my #2 guard was still weak at home, I repositioned the line-up, made sure the girls were hydrated, and that they remained vigilant on defense.  

It was a messy slobber knocker of a first half that I think ended in a whopping 2-2 tie.  Offense on both sides was getting instantly enveloped by the defense.  

The second half opened with a flurry of offense to 4-4, and then, a series of unfortunate accidents occurred.  

My one forward, the girl who just started playing basketball got walloped in the face with an errant shot, forcing her to come off the court to compose herself for the last three minutes of the third quarter.  While she was recovering, Millie tripped during a jump ball and took a glancing blow to the head.  Before I could grab an ice pack, she shook it off and turned around to go back in.   Once she got in to start the fourth, she drew a crucial shooting foul.  

First attempt..... miss

Second attempt... miss

But wait!  A lane violation by the defense allowed for a third attempt, and after a few precarious bounces, it finally fell through.  

Then absolute armageddon felt like it was pressing on my shoulders as my usual forward turned guard for this game fouled out. 

And we were playing 5 on 4 basketball for the last six minutes of the game.  

If you had told me at the beginning of the season that I would need to play the last six minutes of a playoff game with four players and two would be my best players, but the other two were a first-year player and the tiniest girl on our team, I might dread the result.

FINAL:  Spurs 5, Celtics 4 - The girls played lights-out shutout defense and the offensive futility came to end.

But for the first time ever as a coach, I could offer to buy ice cream for the five that made it through that trial.

I'm wiped.  Thank God we have a bye week to recover from that insanity.

Of course, as scheduler for the league, I'm compiling scores and adjusting brackets for next week.