Playing the home team

What a great atmosphere! We are playing at the practice gym of the pro team here. It holds about 3,000 but they put in extra seats and let the fans sit up above us on walkways. Packed, screaming fans everywhere. Very cool! They jumped on us early by pushing the ball and scoring in transition an had a 10pt lead after 1 quarter but we cut it to 4pts at the end of the first half. We came out strong in the second half and got a lead for a few minutes in the 4th quarter but Israel's 3pt shooting got us in the end and we lost 86-82. Omri Casspi the first player from Israel to play in the NBA had a great game scoring 27pts, 4-6 from the 3pt line. Pops Mensah Bonsu had a great game for us scoring 25pts and grabbing 15 rebounds. He wowed the crowd with some unbelievable dunks over 2 or 3 of their players. They were so good even the home crowd cheered for them.

We played our 3rd game in 3 nights next against a very motivated team from the Netherlands. We chose to rest some of our starters, Pops and Nate Reinking and play some of the younger players extended minutes. They played a solid second half but could not overcome a poor first half and we lost by 11pts, 94-83. Although we were only 1-2 on the trip we accomplished what we wanted. We played some combinations of players we wanted to look at, played some of the younger players, rested some of the veterans and no one got hurt.

After getting back to London we got to do something pretty special. We got to take a tour of the 2012 site of the Olympic Games! It was some site. All the work that goes into putting together something like the Olympics is amazing.

Some facts: There will be over 16,000 athletes staying in the Olympic Village during the Olympics. The basketball arena will hold 10,000-12,000 and will be dismantled and moved after the games. There will be 7.7 million tickets available for the London games. 800,000 people expected to use public transportation to the games on the busiest day. Around 260,000 loaves of bread expected to be consumed at the London 2012 Games. they better start baking the bread NOW.

Basketball update

Sorry it has been awhile since my last post. After we played our last game here in London against Finland we had and early 4:30 am bus to leave for the airport to go to Tel Aviv. I thought I would be able to catch up once we got there but when I tried the directions were in hebrew so I had trouble getting onto my blog.

A lot has happened since then, too much to cover tonight. Just got back to London and a little jet lagged. But wanted to share the basketball things that have happened. Then in the next couple days I will fill you in on my visit to the Holy Land. It was powerful and worth the wait.

Basketball update. We lost our last game in London to a good Finland team. They have been together for a long time and play like it. They run their offense like a well oiled machine and they shoot the ball very good from the 3 point line. We played well at times but not consistent enough to win the game. We went to Tel Aviv for three games. Game one was against Belgium. Good team with a player with NBA experience, Hervelle Axel who had 23pts and 7 rebounds. We were lead by Pops Mensah Bonsu with 26pts and our young point guard Ogo Adegboye with 20pts. we got a well deserved 84-80 victory. It was good to see us play well for 40 minutes. The next night we were going to have a big challenge playing the home team Israel in a packet, loud gym.

Game one with British Basketball "Game On"

Our first friendly game against the Canadian National team last night had lots of good and lots of bad. The problem was the bad out weighed the good. We lost the game by four 82-78. We came out ready to play and jumped all over them with defensive pressure and got out to a nice lead in the first quarter 26-12. Then we let down our guard and lost some of our intensity and let them get right back in the game by being outscored 24-12 in the second quarter. Basketball is such a game of runs and shifting momentum and not many players realise how important every possession is. Silly turnovers or not blocking out and giving up second chance points at ANY time in the game matters. Even in the first or second quarter. It all adds up. Well, like what happens so often in basketball, a big lead and a chance at a blow out was gone and we were now in for a tough game. The game went back and forth for the rest of the game and then Canada (Casey Archibald) hit two back to back three pointers and sealed the game.

Both teams are very young and playing without some of their "star" players but over all it was a well played game. We are without Pops Mensah-Bonsu a very good player who has played in the NBA and with top overseas teams and Luol Deng the Chicago Bull. They both got into town today. We are excited to have them both in camp! We had one of our young players step up. Matthew Bryan-Amaning who plays at the University of Washington had a solid 17pts. We will look to build on the good things we did in the game and have a better showing against a very good Finland National team tomorrow night in game two of our friendly games. I watched them play Canada and beat them by 24pts. They are a very good outside shooting team that executes their offense all game long. We will have to be at the top of our game to get our first victory.

The weather here has been outstanding low 80's during the day high 60's in the evening. Feels like fall. Found another sport to watch on TV last night........lawn bowling. lol

Sports in England

Got a chance to watch the end of the British open today in between practices. Tiger is driving the ball better but man he just doesn't have that swagger he had for all those years. Golf is a big sport here in England but I also found myself watching some other popular sports.........Rugby, Cricket and believe it or not darts. Yep a couple thousand people watching two dudes throw darts. On national TV with slow motion replays and everything. What is scary is I kind of liked watching it. The dart flying through the air in slow motion then hitting the bullseye, kind of cool.

British Basketball "GAME ON"

London this time of year is very nice.......... so far. Sunny and clear, nice fall weather, the opposite of what we had in the Dominican Republic (hot and humid). We are staying about 30 minutes from downtown London in a nice old hotel that looks like what you would picture a country hotel would look like. Big brick structure outside, cozy lobby complete with big fireplace and rustic furniture inside. The first day while waiting in the lobby I got the opportunity to observe a classic afternoon tea time shared by a group of older couples. Just relaxing, drinking tea and having great conversation.

We are practicing at a private High School about 10 minutes away. Nice gym, good floor and space to practice. It's similar to many High Schools in the US. After day one we threw alot at the team. We have to play our first friendly game in only four days. We are a young team that will be tested early. We will be working a lot on our defense as that is something we will hang our hat night in and night out. We have 5 games to help prepare us for group play. we will play Canada, Finland, Belgium, Israel and Holland. then we go into group play. In group play we will play 4 teams, 2 times (home and away). The other teams in our group are Hungry, Ukraine, Macedonia and Bosnia. we must finish top 2 in our group to qualify to move on next summer, 1 step closer to the Olympics!

Learned that the best was to get over jet lag is to not sleep the first day. The time change will really get you if you give in and take a nap that first day. I left Dallas at 5pm and arrived in London at 8:30am. I have trouble sleeping on a plane so I only got maybe 2 hours of sleep. I forced myself to stay awake until 10:30pm and got a great night sleep and felt rested today.

Heading across the Pond

Phase 1 of the summer schedule is over now on to phase 2. I am in the Dallas airport waiting for my flight to London in 3 hours. Getting my last "American" meal for the next 6 weeks. Nachos and a cheese burger.

Looking back to the CenroBasket Tournament is very frustrating. Even though we were a little depleted as a team I still feel that we could have played a little better and made the next step for Jamaican basketball, qualifying for the Tournament of Americas. It is tough to look at the standings of the tournament and seeing us tied for 4th place. Losing that tie knocked us out of qualifying. Down by 2pts with 29 seconds left Panama takes the ball out of bounds. We need one good defensive stop, grab a rebound and we have 5 seconds to set up a play for the tying or winning basket! But no! Some how the 24 second shot clock is turned off. They inbound the ball and now we are forced to foul. 5 missing seconds and no chance to get a shot to win or tie. Wow! You know it is bad when you are on the 6:30am bus to the airport and a coach from another team say "coach I saw your game yesterday, you got screwed". Feel bad for our players who played their hearts out.

Well, life goes on. Getting on a plane for the 9 hour flight to London. Looking forward to the next 6 weeks of international basketball. I can't wait to get back with head coach Chris Finch and try and help the British National team qualify for the Olympics!

When I get back maybe all the NBA teams will be done moving and shaking and have their rosters set so I can talk about how I see next years NBA season shaping up.

Team Jamaica

Team Jamaica has best showing ever! Doing it with more than a few of our best players not here is even more amazing. But it was not enough to qualify for next summers Tournament of Americas. What a week. After going 1-1 in the first two games we played our best game of the tournament beating US Virgin Islands and taking control of second place in our group. One step closer to making Jamaican Basketball history by qualifying for the Tournament of Americas. The team was dealt a big blow when Roy Hibbert hurt his knee in the first game and had to go back to the States to get an MRI. It turned out not to be that bad, but he was done for the tournament. Losing a 7'0" NBA center is tough to overcome. We did just that, winning the next two games but it really took it's toll when we played a very physical team from Panama in the third game in three days. Losing the Panama game put us in a tie with them for second place in our group but because they beat us (4pts) they won the tie breaker, qualifying for next year's Tournament of Americas and the right to play Puerto Rico in the medal rounds. Which is an Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

It's heartbreaking. Being so close to doing something that no team in Jamaica has EVER done. We seemed to just run out of gas at the end. It really hits home how important it is playing for your country when you see the tears of grown men who have given their all on the court in a dead silent locker room. Sports can bring such adrenaline highs and such gut wrenching lows. But life goes on. The players will go home and look for their next team. they will being playing basketball all over the world, China, Germany, Mexico just to name a few of the places these players will call home for the next 8 month season.

And coach Mo? I will be getting on an early morning flight to Orlando then getting in my SUV and make that 2o hour drive back to McAllen, Texas. Then I get 2 days to do my laundry and catch my breath before I get on a flight to London and join the British National team for 6 weeks.

Centobasket Championships 2010

We are now 1-1 in the tournament. We opened up the tournament playing the home team Dominican Republic, in a packed, noisy, HOT gym. We will get back to the heat. We played a solid first half and ended up with an 8pt lead that should have been 12 or 14pts but we made some silly turnovers at the end of the 2nd quarter. Basketball is such a game of runs and momentum that how a team ends quarters and the half is so important. When you are playing a team on their own home court with a wild crowd it is even more important. We learned that the hard way that night. We played a below average 2nd half (that's putting in mildly) and ended up losing a game that we could have very easily won. In a tournament like this losing the first game really puts a team behind the eight ball. It was so hot in the Arena that players where slipping all over the floor. The 4th quarter was like playing basketball on ice skates. It's 90 degrees outside and 100 degrees in the Arena. No air conditioning! It's crazy that a big FIBA tournament has NBA players and European players that make millions of dollars that are now representing their countries slipping and sliding around risking injury!

On day two we had the second game at 3:30pm in the afternoon against British Virgin Islands a team we beat last year on their home court in the gold medal game to win the Caribbean Championships. I went to scout the first, 1:00pm game, US Virgin Islands vs Panama and as the night before it was very hot in the Arena and the floor was getting worse. It was so bad that with 4:47 left in the game and players sliding all over the floor the Panama coach with his team down by 17pts stopped the game and gave the other team the victory. We had been waiting in our locker room to take the court when I saw something I had never seen before in over 35 years of playing or coaching basketball. They brought buckets of saw dust out on to the court and spread it over the key areas which were the slickest part of the court. Then they wiped it off and we waited on the court or in our locker room until 6pm while the reps for all the teams met with the FIBA reps and finally decided the floor was not safe for the players to play on and the remaining games of the day were postponed until the next day. BUT not until they made the Panama and US Virgin Island teams get off their buses, get their uniforms back on and play the last 4:47 minutes of their game on an unsafe floor! Which Panama ended up still losing but only by 9pts.

SOOOO, They got some big movable air conditioning units today and piped in cool air into the arena through huge tubes that looked like clothes dryer vent tubes and rigged up a make shift air conditioning unit. We ended up playing British Virgin Islands at 3:30pm and played a very good FULL game and came away with a rewarding 17pt victory! We play US Virgin Islands tomorrow at 1:00pm to try and get to 2-1 and closer to our goal of qualifying for next years Tournament of Americas.

Oh, by the way King James made the oh so tough desicion of going to Miami, living in South Beach, playing with Wade and Bosh and making millions of dollars today in case you haven't heard yet. The only way you have not heard yet is if you don't watch TV, use the internet or read a paper or a magazine. Finally the wait is over.

Heading to Dominican Republic! Centro Basketball Tournament

We leave today and tomorrow for the Centro Basketball Tournament. You would think it would be easy to get to Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic from Orlando Florida but it is not as easy as it looks. There are only 2 direct flights out a day. The other flight end up with one or two connections with usually a 10-14 hour layover. Not good. As a result the whole team could not get on one flight. We will be taking different flights starting tonight Friday at 11:55pm with a 3:00am arrival. Guess who is on this wonderful flight? yep, yours truly. We do what we have to to get it done. The rest of the team will be going in shifts, 3-5 at a time. When we get there we should have a couple days of practice before we play our first game on July 6th against the home team, Dominican Republic. We will not know who is on the teams we play until we arrive and we get to scout the first day of games on July 5th. National team rosters fluctuate a lot from year to year. Even more than NBA Development team rosters. Our roster has changed in the 2 weeks we have been training here in Orlando. Samardo Samuels, a very good forward from University of Louisville is not coming. He was not drafted in this years NBA draft but it looks like he going to summer league with the Chicago Bulls. He should have a good chance to make that team. Patrick Ewing Jr. will not be coming. He is going to summer league with two teams. The Orlando Magic and the NY Knicks. We will miss them but will do our best to finish top four and qualify for the Tournament of Americas next summer!
The Lebron James sweepstakes. 2010, what a free agent class! With all the rumors and talk of who is going where, it starting to look like a lot of the free agents are going to take the more money and more years and stay with their teams. Rudy Gay staying in Memphis, looks like Joe Johnson will stay in Atlanta and I don't see Paul Pierce leaving the Celtics or Dirk leaving the Mavs. Have a feeling that Bosh will leave Toronto and Stoudamire will leave Suns for greener pastures. And King James......... Only time will tell. It must be nice to have so many teams begging you to take their hundreds of millions of dollars to play for their teams! Lebron, don't make this all about the money. A lot of players say they want to go to a winner and do "whatever it takes" to win but very few players really back that up with their actions. No matter where you go you will make enough money to have you, your kids, your kids kids and their kids kids set for life. Take this opportunity and take less money and go to the team that gives you the best chance at winning a Ring. Take it from a guy that played 12 years in the NBA and came close but never got there. Talk to Karl Malone, John Stockton, Bob Lanier or Sidney Moncrief. All great players who never got a ring. Ask them what is more important, Money or a championship! Pick your team wisely.