Sunday, February 12, 2006
The Thirty-Second Minute
It came within a minute of not happening at all.
Dalton's boys, smarting from the two defeats they'd been handed by our boys during the regular season, hit the court in the second-round game of the Region 7AAAA basketball tournament at the Northwest Georgia Trade Center determined that there wouldn't be a third. The night before, they'd beaten Hiram in the first round -- Hiram, one of the two teams that had managed to defeat Murray in the regular season. It wasn't even close. The Dalton Catamounts dominated the game and crushed Hiram in spectacular fashion.
So the script was written and the stage set. If the game had been a pro wrestling match, it would have featured the Catamounts as the good guy that had been sucker-punched twice by an unkempt and foul-natured marauder, the MCHS Indians -- those uncouth, uncultured roughians from across the Conasauga River, those backwoods rednecks and sheep-chasing farmboys who'd had the audacity not only to show their ugly faces in Dalton's gym, but handed the Cats a 68-34 humiliation in front of a capacity home crowd. (In Murray County's honor, the Dalton cheerleaders had worn John Deere hats and camouflage caps emblazoned with the word HYPE -- a reference to our 17-2 record and the attention our boys had garnered in the local press.) The Cats were surely peaking at the right time; and the third time would be the charm...
Gametime, and for the first minute Murray enjoyed one of only two leads the whole night, going up by five. Dalton came back with a vengeance, and moved the ball crisply, defended with overwhelming pressure, and attacked the rim with abandon. And for the next thirty minutes, they played the game of their season: every time Murray would threaten a comeback, the Cats would rally and slam the door a little harder.
Murray wasn't helping itself, either. Our boys seemed by turns confused, indifferent, and lost. Guards and posts alike missed open lay-ups, allowed themselves to be boxed-out and outrebounded, and turned the ball over time after time on horrible, off-balance, forced shots. It was five guys playing individual ball, not the tightly-coordinated, unselfish team with the swarming defensive pressure that had gotten us to this point. While Dalton's boys were having the game of their lives, ours were struggling to remember how to play.
A five-point Cat lead at halftime swelled to nine at the start of the fourth quarter. On the Dalton bench and in the Dalton bleachers, elation: revenge at last for two defeats, and those Murray rednecks put in their proper place at last.
But even if they were having the worst game of the season... even if their shots weren't falling... even if they were struggling defensively... our boys still held on to whittle Dalton's lead in the fourth to a mere four. Perhaps they were buoyed by the couple of hundred Murray fans on the west side of the gym, those of us who shouted encouragements and contributed a great deal of rhythmic hand-clapping and foot-stomping. Or perhaps it was just their natural competitiveness. But they kept it close.
But close isn't winning. And for thirty-one minutes, Dalton was winning.
But a high-school basketball game lasts thirty-two minutes.
And after thirty-one minutes came the minute in which our guards finally realized that they couldn't force off-balance scoop shots and expect to get anywhere near the hole. The minute in which they played defense the way they'd been playing all season: pressuring the ball the whole way down the court, getting in the ball-handler's face, hands snapping out like striking cobras to tap the ball away and into the eager hands of the Indians.
The minute in which they found the open posts at the back door, and the lay-ups went in.
The minute in which Murray got its second lead. The only lead that mattered, as they won 57-55.
Friday night and last night came within a minute of not happening. I will write of them later -- they held their own treasures, and I want to commit them to writing before their power wanes.
But first I wanted to remember how close it came to not happening, those moments that followed in the ensuing days. The moments that grew out of the thirty-second minute.
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Dalton's boys, smarting from the two defeats they'd been handed by our boys during the regular season, hit the court in the second-round game of the Region 7AAAA basketball tournament at the Northwest Georgia Trade Center determined that there wouldn't be a third. The night before, they'd beaten Hiram in the first round -- Hiram, one of the two teams that had managed to defeat Murray in the regular season. It wasn't even close. The Dalton Catamounts dominated the game and crushed Hiram in spectacular fashion.
So the script was written and the stage set. If the game had been a pro wrestling match, it would have featured the Catamounts as the good guy that had been sucker-punched twice by an unkempt and foul-natured marauder, the MCHS Indians -- those uncouth, uncultured roughians from across the Conasauga River, those backwoods rednecks and sheep-chasing farmboys who'd had the audacity not only to show their ugly faces in Dalton's gym, but handed the Cats a 68-34 humiliation in front of a capacity home crowd. (In Murray County's honor, the Dalton cheerleaders had worn John Deere hats and camouflage caps emblazoned with the word HYPE -- a reference to our 17-2 record and the attention our boys had garnered in the local press.) The Cats were surely peaking at the right time; and the third time would be the charm...
Gametime, and for the first minute Murray enjoyed one of only two leads the whole night, going up by five. Dalton came back with a vengeance, and moved the ball crisply, defended with overwhelming pressure, and attacked the rim with abandon. And for the next thirty minutes, they played the game of their season: every time Murray would threaten a comeback, the Cats would rally and slam the door a little harder.
Murray wasn't helping itself, either. Our boys seemed by turns confused, indifferent, and lost. Guards and posts alike missed open lay-ups, allowed themselves to be boxed-out and outrebounded, and turned the ball over time after time on horrible, off-balance, forced shots. It was five guys playing individual ball, not the tightly-coordinated, unselfish team with the swarming defensive pressure that had gotten us to this point. While Dalton's boys were having the game of their lives, ours were struggling to remember how to play.
A five-point Cat lead at halftime swelled to nine at the start of the fourth quarter. On the Dalton bench and in the Dalton bleachers, elation: revenge at last for two defeats, and those Murray rednecks put in their proper place at last.
But even if they were having the worst game of the season... even if their shots weren't falling... even if they were struggling defensively... our boys still held on to whittle Dalton's lead in the fourth to a mere four. Perhaps they were buoyed by the couple of hundred Murray fans on the west side of the gym, those of us who shouted encouragements and contributed a great deal of rhythmic hand-clapping and foot-stomping. Or perhaps it was just their natural competitiveness. But they kept it close.
But close isn't winning. And for thirty-one minutes, Dalton was winning.
But a high-school basketball game lasts thirty-two minutes.
And after thirty-one minutes came the minute in which our guards finally realized that they couldn't force off-balance scoop shots and expect to get anywhere near the hole. The minute in which they played defense the way they'd been playing all season: pressuring the ball the whole way down the court, getting in the ball-handler's face, hands snapping out like striking cobras to tap the ball away and into the eager hands of the Indians.
The minute in which they found the open posts at the back door, and the lay-ups went in.
The minute in which Murray got its second lead. The only lead that mattered, as they won 57-55.
Friday night and last night came within a minute of not happening. I will write of them later -- they held their own treasures, and I want to commit them to writing before their power wanes.
But first I wanted to remember how close it came to not happening, those moments that followed in the ensuing days. The moments that grew out of the thirty-second minute.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Saturday, without basketball
The regular high school basketball season ended last night, with a Murray County sweep of all four games at Ringgold. So today was my first Saturday since November without a basketball game to go to.
I went to the movies (Capote, parts of which I slept through), bought Luther and the SNL Best of Will Ferrell DVD, and caught up on last night's episode of Battlestar Galactica. I also got some writing done.
In other words, today without basketball was a complete waste of time.
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I went to the movies (Capote, parts of which I slept through), bought Luther and the SNL Best of Will Ferrell DVD, and caught up on last night's episode of Battlestar Galactica. I also got some writing done.
In other words, today without basketball was a complete waste of time.
