Tuesday, December 16, 2003
BRUUUUUUUUUTAL
Quick question: what do you get when you have a basketball team that shows a combination of the following?
No defense, no rebounding, no penetration into the lane, a ton of turnovers, its best player (who is tall) camped out on the wing most of the time when he should be parked under or near the basket most of the time (much like good things happen when Todd Bertuzzi is parked in front of the net), missed rotations on defense leaving shooters wide open, players getting lost in screens on defense, etc etc
You get what the Bremerton Knights did at home against Central Kitsap tonight. I don't want to be too harsh here, but as both a sports fan in general AND as a former B-town Knight, I was almost ashamed that I had paid $5 to watch that game. If you can sum it all up in one word: sloppy. In one phrase: no defense. One more phrase: no rebounding.
Simply put, Central Kitsap executed much better as a team, played a lot more cleanly, could rebound, played superior defense, and took advantage of B-town turnovers, of which there were many.
Bremerton...I felt like I was watching the bad version of this year's Sonics out there in this way -- they were settling for the perimeter shot -- is that something you do when you've got a 6'9" future North Carolina player who's three inches taller than anyone else on the court? I think not. Marvin was guilty of a couple turnovers and racking up three fouls in the third quarter, but other than that, his supporting cast was racking up the turnovers left and right. Bad passes, lost dribbles, double dribbles, traveling, you name it. You can't execute on offense when no one can hold on to the ball. There were also stretches of quick shot plays which didn't involve Marvin Williams, and instead involved point guards who probably shot 5% from downtown.
Defense. None on the Bremerton end. CK's guys were blowing past Knight defenders on the way to the rack all night. Even Marvin got blown past by CK center Brice Brooks on an occasion or two.
Rebounding. Ugh. I can't even begin to tell you how many second- and third-chance opportunities that CK got off of their missed shots. Boxing out was nonexistent. If it was December 26th in Canada and this game were held, the Knights would be deported for spoiling Boxing (out) Day.
What did the Knight fans and alums get to cheer for in this game? Two of the first three baskets were Marvin Williams dunks. The first was an alley-oop and the second was a Marvin solo effort.
From there, it was all downhill as the sloppiness set in. CK opened up leads of well over 20 points in the second half. The 20-point lead was in full effect in the fourth quarter when the offense suddenly adopted what appeared to be its only clear plan of the night -- have Marvin Williams launch a ton of threes. This worked a few times, but CK knew full well that all they had to do was keep hanging on to the ball and playing keep away -- that or wait for the Knights to turn the ball over again. At one point in the fourth quarter, Marvin looked at coach Casey Lindberg and said "I'm not passing the ball anymore, coach." That's how bad it was.
To somewhat credit the Knights, one look at the program shows some contrasts. The Knights have a bunch of guys that are 6'1" and 6'2" (non-Marvin guys) whereas the CK team has a bunch of 6'4" guys. Still, though, the rebounding crevasse was simply immense.
It was somewhat dismaying to see the Knights get pasted after two good wins at Foss and against Olympia. Next league game is on 3 Jan at North Kitsap. In the meantime, they take off for the City of Palms Classic tournament in Fort Myers, FL.
More exact figures on all this come tomorrow morning when the Sun releases the linescore. I think it's easy to presume Marvin accounted for about 60-70% of the total Knights offense.
I can't remember the exact score (I have bad memory and wasn't keeping a stat sheet or anything) but it was probably like 78-56 or thereabouts.
As I said, I don't wanna be too harsh on the guys, but I can pretty much rest assured that coach Lindberg told the team about everything I've pointed out in gory detail and probably more than that, too.
No defense, no rebounding, no penetration into the lane, a ton of turnovers, its best player (who is tall) camped out on the wing most of the time when he should be parked under or near the basket most of the time (much like good things happen when Todd Bertuzzi is parked in front of the net), missed rotations on defense leaving shooters wide open, players getting lost in screens on defense, etc etc
You get what the Bremerton Knights did at home against Central Kitsap tonight. I don't want to be too harsh here, but as both a sports fan in general AND as a former B-town Knight, I was almost ashamed that I had paid $5 to watch that game. If you can sum it all up in one word: sloppy. In one phrase: no defense. One more phrase: no rebounding.
Simply put, Central Kitsap executed much better as a team, played a lot more cleanly, could rebound, played superior defense, and took advantage of B-town turnovers, of which there were many.
Bremerton...I felt like I was watching the bad version of this year's Sonics out there in this way -- they were settling for the perimeter shot -- is that something you do when you've got a 6'9" future North Carolina player who's three inches taller than anyone else on the court? I think not. Marvin was guilty of a couple turnovers and racking up three fouls in the third quarter, but other than that, his supporting cast was racking up the turnovers left and right. Bad passes, lost dribbles, double dribbles, traveling, you name it. You can't execute on offense when no one can hold on to the ball. There were also stretches of quick shot plays which didn't involve Marvin Williams, and instead involved point guards who probably shot 5% from downtown.
Defense. None on the Bremerton end. CK's guys were blowing past Knight defenders on the way to the rack all night. Even Marvin got blown past by CK center Brice Brooks on an occasion or two.
Rebounding. Ugh. I can't even begin to tell you how many second- and third-chance opportunities that CK got off of their missed shots. Boxing out was nonexistent. If it was December 26th in Canada and this game were held, the Knights would be deported for spoiling Boxing (out) Day.
What did the Knight fans and alums get to cheer for in this game? Two of the first three baskets were Marvin Williams dunks. The first was an alley-oop and the second was a Marvin solo effort.
From there, it was all downhill as the sloppiness set in. CK opened up leads of well over 20 points in the second half. The 20-point lead was in full effect in the fourth quarter when the offense suddenly adopted what appeared to be its only clear plan of the night -- have Marvin Williams launch a ton of threes. This worked a few times, but CK knew full well that all they had to do was keep hanging on to the ball and playing keep away -- that or wait for the Knights to turn the ball over again. At one point in the fourth quarter, Marvin looked at coach Casey Lindberg and said "I'm not passing the ball anymore, coach." That's how bad it was.
To somewhat credit the Knights, one look at the program shows some contrasts. The Knights have a bunch of guys that are 6'1" and 6'2" (non-Marvin guys) whereas the CK team has a bunch of 6'4" guys. Still, though, the rebounding crevasse was simply immense.
It was somewhat dismaying to see the Knights get pasted after two good wins at Foss and against Olympia. Next league game is on 3 Jan at North Kitsap. In the meantime, they take off for the City of Palms Classic tournament in Fort Myers, FL.
More exact figures on all this come tomorrow morning when the Sun releases the linescore. I think it's easy to presume Marvin accounted for about 60-70% of the total Knights offense.
I can't remember the exact score (I have bad memory and wasn't keeping a stat sheet or anything) but it was probably like 78-56 or thereabouts.
As I said, I don't wanna be too harsh on the guys, but I can pretty much rest assured that coach Lindberg told the team about everything I've pointed out in gory detail and probably more than that, too.
/ Click for main page
