Monday's BIG Game

There were 7 games tonight, a relatively quiet night for the NBA, so I'll go ahead and discuss some of my thoughts during my brother's junior high basketball game (idea by Tibs). I will post my NBA games in the next entry.

I drove my brother, Mason, to his basketball game at Taylor Middle School (TMS), which was at 5:55 pm (pacific time). I got there after only seeing one of his games before this one (an away game about a week ago) so I wasn't that sure what to expect. I did remember this little Asian kid (about 4'4", no joke - remember, my brother's in seventh grade) on his team who dominated with the ball in his hands. The kid had handles (even though he's so short, I don't understand how he gets the ball between his legs for crossovers), getting into the paint at will and was a creator for his teammates every play. He played the entire game, taking the ball up every time. Anyway, onto this game I just saw. The beginning of the game was horrendous, unwatchable really. The home team, TMS, couldn't buy a basket in the 1st quarter (they play 4 quarters, 9 minutes in each quarter). This is no exaggeration either, they went to score a total of zero points in the first frame as their opponents were on fire to score 15 pts. So, 15-0 after one and I'm just thinking about how much my ass hurt sitting on the old wooden bleachers. Well, at least it can't get any worse, right? I mean, you can't actually score less than zero points in a game. Thankfully it did get better, TMS got on the board in the second with a couple of free throws by their big man in the middle off an offensive rebound (I didn't say it was pretty). The away team (I'll just call them "them" from here on out) was basically cruising throughout the game until mid-way through the third quarter. It was then, when "they" went on a cold streak and a few possessions went TMS's way. They got a couple of steals (one by my bro) and a finally started getting on the glass (my bro part of that as well). They hit some jumpers en route to only a 19-13 deficit going into the last quarter. By the way, if you were wondering about the midget extraordinaire, he was doing his thing getting into the lane at will, but no layups were falling, no teammates were finishing and no calls were going the right way. So begins the fourth quarter and until now, the crowd didn't have much to root for, although middle school students are real obnoxiously loud, but I realized there are a few things that get a crowd riled up. A bad call against the home team, an opposing player complaining about every call and being a complete douchebag (difficult to comprehend adults getting mad at a little kid pre-puberty, but I found that it is possible) and that player eventually feeling the karma. If you couldn't guess, these crowd-pleasers were in full effect. My brother got taken out of the game at the 5:33 mark in the fourth quarter, which was fine since he wasn't really in the game (0-1 shooting, 4 rebs and 2 stls). The score was getting pretty close at that point, shortcake hit a three and made a reverse layup to bring the score to 21-18. Then the dwarf got smacked, he was driving the lane when #3 on "them" basically leveled him with the body. The parents didn't think much of it, but then the kid got irate at the call. Until now, the kid had been complaining about a lot of calls too, but now the game was actually close. Little Asian boy missed both free throws to the dismay of the parents watching, but on the very next drive, blondey (#3) drove the lane and was tripped down to the ground by one TMS's bigs. This got the entire place going (all 50 parents and peer students in the gym) and the home crowd was cheering the cheap shot. I almost started laughing at the irony behind parents rooting for an injury to a little kid, but I didn't. "He" hit one of two free throws to bring the game 22-18. He also eventually put away the game at the end with 2 more free throws, but that was the end of the scoring. Final score: 24-18, "them". Even though my brother didn't play that well or intense, the game was decent and I wasn't disappointed i went.