A lot of confirmation bias this morning with the junk defense we implemented last month. We knew our opponent in the semis was going to be a challenge, but they're from the other side of the city and no one we know had played them before, so we didn't know what we were getting into.
As they slowly started to stream into the gym while the game before us wrapped up, we had a good idea how these guys won. They're big. And once we got onto the floor for warm-ups, we noticed they're athletic too. Uh oh...the one type of team we knew we'd match up poorly against. I went over to our HC with about 3 mins before tip and suggested plan B as our post guys are going to get rolled. We called the team over early and I pulled my son and our other little scrappy guy to the side of the huddle. Little men, you're defending 50. Yes, I know he's a foot taller than you. That's not why you're on him. You're denying entry to the post - if they're getting the ball to him it's over your head or because you're closing on an undefended shooter. If the ball gets to him, you go low at the ball while our bigs go high and disrupt the shot. I reaffirmed with our bigs your ball side role is the block and off ball role is help. He's either going to catch the ball in front of you or under the hoop in traffic, that block is yours. Let's go!
Things went...okay, for a half. Our defense was good (real good), ping-ponging from this junk D to M2M, keeping them guessing, but our offense was a mess. Lazy passes on press break and lack of movement off ball resulted in more TO's than usual. When we play good aggressive D it usually translates to the same on O, but it wasn't today. We weren't able to create fast breaks through our D, had to setup our half court O, and the kids didn't respond well to the size disadvantage. Despite that we were up 16-12 late in the 1H, but they rattled off 7 straight to finish the half off more turnovers. As we were telling the kids at half if one of their guards gets hot and that's how they beat us then so be it. Outside of that, we get back to the basics on O and be assertive to the glass (9 FT attempts), this game's ours. But they adjusted and stopped trying to feed their bigs, did off ball screens for the guard we were not defending and kid buried 3 in a row. Game, set, match - and well played, coach. We played better O, hitting cutters and getting looks from inside 10' or foul line, and got it back to 6 a couple times (32-26 and 35-29), but just didn't hit enough shots, falling short 41-31.
Tremendously proud how far this group's come. It was before my time, but as third graders this team only won 2 games, the same number they lost this year. What was a 2 man show has developed into team ball with each one of them getting better in at least one new area this season. I was happy one of the other coaches focused on development to this point post-game as it allowed me to focus on going forward, that you all helped articulate. (paraphrasing) While you all have individual development opportunities that I'm happy to chat about separately, continued focus on improving M2M and basketball IQ, especially away from the ball, is how you'll break the ceiling from good-to-very good to playing in high school and maybe even beyond, if that's what you want to do. We play good team defense, but we're vulnerable to teams with more size than us, and that's what played out today. Despite that, we were still in striking distance, just too many turnovers from stagnant offense. To make the leap from good to great is neck-up, part intelligence and the rest effort. You now know your keys on defense, and you now know how to dissect the floor, but it takes focused effort in the offseason to develop them into instincts. We observed a lot of 'oh, my bad' this year, realizing after the fact what you should've done, you just didn't see it before it happened, which is fine, you're just 6th graders, but if you want to make the leap, those 'oh, my bad's' need to develop into plays / stops. You have control over that...unlike your height, you don't have control over that. But there are ways to overcome that disadvantage, keep working and getting better then let's focus on those next year.
Great season, but I'm really looking forward to a 2 week break.
I said "the offensive player being scared of him isn't a foul." and then he finally he said "you are right, it was a bad call." 
At that point, the game was a lot closer and it was my sons 3rd foul still early in the game so it could have had an impact.
