The early shell shock and perhaps stage fright of never-before starting players got to us early and perhaps held us back from ever getting ahead.
Remarkably, we were without FOUR starters, got down 17, were down around 10 for the first three quarters, and STILL got it to OT. But we made some dumbfounding mistakes - Rudy's late in OT after we got possession which left everyone from Pop on out to the last fan in the stadium incredulous and mystified.
I talked about our not boxing out two games ago. On a live play like that we didn't even look behind us. Tough way to lose, but after the previous game, I LOVED our fight in this one. We had a lot of reasons to lay down and given in but we kept pushing.
Some inexperience by Tre and Devin hurt us. For those calling for all young guys all the time, these are the steep growing pains we'd have to live with. I'd rather they come along without the pressure for it to be solely on their shoulders. We NEED vets and we've only got three for goodness sake.
Anyway, I though Lonnie was terrific, and he managed to finish beautifully at the rim after he blew by everyone time and again. His handles were confident and assertive as he found his spots with and without the ball. Great outside shooting once again. When he has that bounce to his step, he is very dangerous. You can see the game has slowed down for him and he's taking advantage of it. Frankly, when he isn't sharing the court with DeMar (and at times Rudy) he is flourishing. We will need all of what Lonnie has to unleash the rest of the way to be successful.
I thought Dieng was a revelation, too. Great touch, solid D given the weight disadvantage, and Drew held his own more as the game went on.
I don't understand Patty's scoring drought. It it really hurting us. If he averages just below his average we win the last two games, all things being equal. But you can pick a number of what-ifs- like the FT's we missed last game and this game which would have put us over the edge. We will also need Bala Patty to dig deep and find his shot for us to be successful down the stretch.
I think we start too tentatively when we have new guys, just waiting to take an opponent's first punch and see how much we have to take before we start imposing our game. Tougher to do with four new starters, but we did, for example, miss several chances throughout the game to push the ball in transition even with Pop on the sidelines motioning for us to push it. We allowed a good D team to set up time and again rather than trying to impose our game.
Those are the two main impressions - we have to believe we can play with any team when we lock in, and despite the result, hopefully it instills some confidence to start strong. Whereas we started strong last game and wilted, we started too tentative and had sequences where we didn't push hard enough, gave up some shots to pass it to a team mate for them to step up, only to fight hard to stay in the game. Confidence from the start, and fundamentals from start to finish.
You can't teach height, but you can remember and use fundamentals. Despite the mistakes, there is a lot of good to take from this game. I'd be more disappointed if we just mailed this game in, but that we kept fighting and finding ways to stay in it is a positive. I hope we come out fighting like the hungriest dog for the last piece of meat tomorrow.
