Lakeside Lightning 2-0

Well we finally had a real game this past weekend, actually two. The first game was a home game on Friday night. I'll start off by talking about the atmosphere at our stadium/gym. Our home games are played at a rec center (Lakeside Rec Centre). The main court has one side of stadium seating, probably 20 rows high and the length of the court (not as big as the seat side at Upstate). On game days a removable grandstand is put up on the court adjacent to the main one, so this gives a little bit of extra seating. Obviously, it's not a very big arena, but once the game got started the atmosphere was very good. I was impressed actually. Very loud and involved crowd, and I noticed that it was just standing room only. We played a team that would probably be about 25 minutes away called the Eastern Suns. Throughout the game it was very close and I don't believe either team led by more than double digit points at anytime. We ended up winning 93-90 as the Suns hit two three pointers with under 20 seconds left to make it even more interesting. Some thoughts on the game; this was my first experience with a longer game (games are four 12 minute quarters) and the 24 second shot clock. The biggest thing I think this does is obviously lengthens the game, and the game is played at a faster pace than the college ball I'm accustomed to. The funny thing tho, is that we played at such a fast pace anyways the shot clock didn't even matter. Speaking of the length of the game, I think this had an effect on several of the players including myself. There were three or four of our players who had trouble with muscle cramping. Keep in mind that it is also summer at the moment here, and even tho it's not 90 degrees at night (like many daytimes) it is still pretty hot in the gym. Interestingly enough, I still managed to play about 40 minutes. With regards to team play a lot of times we took seemingly ill advised shots or tried to force plays. Some of this is probably that it was the first game, the team we played was pretty good, and also this doesn't really bother Andy (coach). I think we'll get a better feel of the offense that we run and improve in these areas, but overall I think we did pretty good job anyways. Always helps to start with a win anyways. As for me, I think I played a pretty good game. I didn't shoot the ball particularly well but finished with 19 points and feel it was a good start. 

Our next game was less than 24 hours later against a team called Perth Redbacks. This was an away game but here in the city of Perth, so didn't take but about 20 minutes to get to the facility. After a physically difficult game the night before, it was quite nice to have an easier game. We won this one easily with a score of 120-85. The game was actually about a 10 point game late in the second quarter but we went on a 24-3 scoring run and never looked back. This team wasn't as good as the one the night before, but we still did a better job offensively and got whatever we wanted. I am a little concerned about our team defensively, it was even visible in a game like this. It could come back and haunt us against a better team. Once in the half court I think there are some deficiencies especially guarding screens and such. However, this doesn't really surprise me as we don't do any defensive breakdown drills in practice. Whatever tho, seems pretty apparent we are going to try and outscore people. I had a very good shooting game and finished with 38 points and 7 threes. Hopefully, the team and I will be able to continue to play well and win in the upcoming weeks. Our next game is at home this Friday night.