Post-game Thoughts - 3rd Game

Unfortunately I wasn't able to play last week (see my Father's Day Irony post), but I did go and watch. And our team looked much improved - confident, composed, patient, and fairly skilled. We still lost by a significant amount, but the opposing team was possibly our toughest opponent yet (they had beat two of our previous opponents). The important thing was that we were heading in the right direction, and although I didn't participate in it, I was greatly encouraged.

Fast forward to this week, in what was undoubtedly (in my opinion) our worst game to date. The opposing team should have been one of our weakest competitors, with a record that is only slightly better than ours. Even if we were to lose against them, it should have at least been a close game, especially judging by our previous game.

But we lacked, well, everything. Dave (one of the players who has also assumed the non-official coaching position) noticed that we had caused about four turnovers for every one basket that was made. Our offense was completely non-existent. No one could shoot for crap, and our passing was purely pathetic. We seemed more stressed, less confident, not having as much fun.

While I made three of our baskets (not a large number, but that's almost 30% of our points), I was still seriously disappointed with my own performance. I had a couple of fast breaks (after stealing the ball and/or rebounding), but instead of driving all the way to the basket, for some reason I shot the ball from 6-8 feet away, even stopping completely on the very last shot of the game. What is my psychological problem with taking it all the way in? WTF me? Needless to say, the next time(s) I practice I'm going to do nothing but layups, from every angle. I will learn from my mistakes - oh yes, I will learn.

So it sucks to have lost again, but worse than losing is two things 1) the frustration of our team back-sliding in our performance, and 2) even worse, my own performance. While losing is a bummer, I can handle it ok. I have a really tough time though dealing with personally playing poorly.

As an afterthought, I can't help but think that the biggest difference between the last game and this one was - ME! I was playing in this one, but not in the last one. Maybe that's baloney (I hope and pray), but either way I wonder if there is anything that I can do to help everyone to feel more relaxed and confident out there - maybe I should dial down my own intensity and try to goof off and have more fun, in the hopes that it could calm everyone else down and help them relax more too. Any suggestions?