patrickanderson.ca

I’m going to try to resist a few urges tonight. Yes, those ones too – we have a big game tomorrow, after all. I was referring though to the urge to editorialize last night’s game. Maybe after it’s all over.
For now, just a brief recap and a few comments.

We showed up at the stadium at halftime of the Australia/GB semi. The Aussie’s were up big and going away with it, so it seemed. I hit the warmup court right away, but kept one eye on the TV. GB did manage to put a run together to get the deficit down to single digits, but they ran out of time. Little did I know that we’d be in a similar situation before long.

The US came out with all guns blazing. They were hitting shots and they were disrupting our offense. Remember what I wrote about the US pressuring you to reinvent yourself on the fly? That didn’t take long. They were picking on me quite a lot, so I abandoned my usual role of inbounding the ball and just tried to get up the court without the ball to relieve the pressure. Big mistake. But once we made that adjustment, and a few others, we stopped the bleeding and prevented the game from getting completely out of hand. We were still down double digits, but by midway through the second quarter, I felt like the worst was over, and we court really start to claw back.

And that we did in the second half, slowly but steadily. If you want to see how it all played out, you’ll have to watch the tape or read Stouty. He’s the king of details, most of which are at least partially based on true events. I guess we did just enough to win. Just enough free throws, just enough stops. We watched video today, and it was gratifying to see us executing some fairly simple but essential skills well, especially down the stretch. You don’t appreciate those things as much as the big turn of events, makes and misses, that kind of thing. But those little details kept us in the game, and eventually brought us back.

Not that we were perfect. Speaking personally – and painfully – I had a few atrocious junior ball turnovers, that would have racked my conscience with guilt had we lost. And though I made a few of the biggest shots of my career, I also made at least one of the biggest bonehead plays of the decade. In OT I got a rebound off Joey’s missed free throw, and found myself in the paint, facing him, back to the basket. It’s not often you have the chance to look a teammate square in the eye, consider his squared up scoring position 8 feet from the basket, and then firmly decide that your backwards 6 footer is the safer bet. That kind of opportunity does not come around every day.
I have to admit though, one of the more discouraging features of the blind backwards shot is that it’s hard to spot the American player who’s about to block it and take the ball away. Tough to see him coming.

But we survived it, though barely. Now we can laugh. If we’d lost, I wouldn’t find it quite as funny. Like I wrote a while back, winning heals all wounds. So does time. I know this because back in 2002 at the World Championships, the shoe was on the other foot. The similarities are eery. Canada vs the USA. Semifinal of a major tournament. Big halftime lead. Second half comeback capped by a tying basket in the dying seconds of regulation. Two OT’s. In the end, one euphoric winner, and one crushed loser. Except that time, the roles were reversed. They were the ones celebrating, and we were the ones wondering what went wrong.

Now it’s six years later, and if anything, I appreciate the experience, for two big reasons. The first one is that it motivated us to kick ass in 2004. The other is reason is that late in the game, I had a chance to take a wide open layup to put us up by four points, which might have iced it. But I turned it out. (And a few seconds later turned the ball over, leading to their tying hoop). I did it partly cause I was trying to be clever and kill clock, and partly because I didn’t have the kahonas to go in and take a pressure layup with my left hand (I was coming in on the left side and this was back when Frog would all but threaten to chop off our left hand if we didn’t use it on the left side. Ahh, the good old days, when everything was black and white…). Anyway, I felt like a real failure afterwards. But I had a good chat with Jerry at the Tokyo airport on the way home, and he told me never to do that again. Take the points. I said ok.

So good came from bad, and we benefited in the long run. I have no doubt that the US will learn and rebound from last night’s loss, both as a team and as individuals. They have time.

Incidentally, the US went on to win the Worlds in ‘02. So let’s hope the similarities continue.

Ok, time for bed. I guess that turned into something of an editorial after all. Oh well. Some urges just can’t be resisted.

ps. Apparently, I didn’t have my details straight wrt the Iran situation. Here’s the official story – the Iranians boycotted their quarterfinal vs the US because the organizers changed the game time at the last minute ie. the day before. They filed a protest and refused to play. Why would they come so far only to give up over so little? Did they not want to play the US? Did they anticipate a politically unsavory matchup with Israel after the quarters? Draw your own conclusions. I’m staying out of it. I just wished they’d stuck around and played it out. They were fun to watch.

pps. Should I write something about the Aussies? What should I say? Same cast of characters from 2004, with a couple new faces. Same intensity. Same aggression. They’re playing well. Many of their top guys play competitively year round, in Europe, then in the Aussie league. So they look fit and game ready. That’s about it. Oh, and God help the referees.