DEFLATE GATE 2018Brasil 112 Canada NT 80 (45774)We worked so hard all season... You guys were incredible in support in terms of game shape and training all year... but the week we need everything the most, it felt like sabotage.. I am deflated...
The sim screwed us Thursday- hurting our most productive guard this season
Almada... but some of the owners who have been so good to me and to us, let us down too . Not too many ways to say this..
Pavliuk --coulndt play(game shape/too many minutes),
Madiar -- our best and main SF this year--couldn't use him(bad game shape-- no minutes played at all),
Burimenko--arguably our most effective bench player and super sub off bench in several games---couldn't use him(bad game shape--no minutes played at all),
Colesby--other main SF--couldn't play(too many minutes). That is a lot to overcome...
It forced us to be bold.. we were playing the only other team in the tournament who had perfect enthusiasm... the only team with home court.. a fantastic all-around defense.. and with the game shape updates, it was pretty obvious we were gonna go inside...
WE did the best we could. Could I have gotten both gdp correct, maybe but Brasil has a versatile offense. did I make mistakes .. probably.. but this one stings.. The fact that we made it as far as we did was amazing, and I have tried to focus on the positives all season, so I shall try to do the same today... but as a competitor it hurts.
It has been a wonderful season. Tonight may be the end for some of our amazing veterans. As some of you have said.. we really were a rag-tag bunch of misfits, that just made it work. With great stamina, experience and great game shape week-in-week-out it was an amazing run.
Our who's got next motto rang true. Each week we seemed to have a different hero. Kozakov and Pavliuk early, then it was a mixed bag of Burimenko, Hall, Cockayne and Madiar.
What made it especially enjoyable for me, is that I learned a lot. I learned from the game play, I learned from losses, I learned from wins. But I especially learned how to try to be a good team player. Many said they would help, but when push came to shove, it was 4 key men who helped me bounce ideas when I needed to lay it all out there: Manzel, Fwinns, Beanerz and Burns . Thank you so very much. I'm sure you thought I was a basket-case for my ideas, but I appreaciate you guys helping out when you had the time.
In this game specifically we actually outrebounded them 48-36.. and got an incredible 19 offensive rebounds.. but all too often we couldn't score the second and third chances provided by this rebounding. WE problaby had our worst assists-turnover ratio of the year 16/10. I appreciated the players we got to use, but it was clear we were short-handed in terms of top notch guard play today..
A strength early was that we forced them to foul us countless times in the first two quarters and in fact only fouled them 9 times all game. that's amazing. Obviously I take the blame for the one incorrect gdp guess.... I just don't think we could have won without taking a risk.
Thanks for a great season overall. I hope you haven't lost faith because of one game. I now will start the hard-core scouting phase. reminder to make sure your drafting stuff is setup.