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Mom’s in town

My Mom is in town for an annual conference that she always attends. Of course, she’ll be spending most of her time at the conference, but I got to spend some time with her yesterday. We went to Kathleen’s Art Cafe, which is probably my favorite local place for getting really good food. The atmosphere is also really great. I think Mom liked it a lot.

After dinner, we went to Starbucks for some coffee and she finally got to see all my pictures from Europe. There are about 1,000 of them, so we just kinda’ skimmed most of them. All in all, I had a super time and I’m glad I got to spend some time hanging out with my Mom.

Another basketball win

Last week, we got our first win (I think we started 0-3 this season). I don’t really remember it, but I think we played a pretty good game. This week, we got another win, but in a very unusual way. First of all, we only scored 33 points. Second, one (of six) of my teammates scored 22 of those points. Third, we won by one point in Double Overtime. In this league, Double Overtime is “Sudden Death”. That’s right, I said “Sudden Death”. But I should go back a bit before the end of Double OT.

Just before the end of regulation, the other team had possession with 1:18 remaining. They got it across half court and then the Point Guard said, “One shot! One shot!” A team will usually go for “one shot” if there’s approximately one shot-clock worth of time left in the game. We don’t have a shot-clock, but 1:18 is a lot longer than the shot-clock in any league. Fifty seconds later, they finally decided to go for a shot and their Point Guard made a nice 3-point play (in our defense, it’s tough to defend for 50 seconds and still get a stop). Our super scorer immediately answered with a 3-pointer and we went our first OT.

We made it through the first OT without scoring. Neither team could score and no one was hitting free throws. It should be noted that OT was only 2 minutes with a running clock, so there weren’t really many scoring opportunities. We began the second OT looking about as well as we began the first. With very little time remaining, their big man got two free throws. He missed the first. Then made the second. But wait! He also stepped over the stripe for one of the few “lane violations” I’ve ever seen called. It was a good call, but a pretty unusual one. We got the ball back, used a couple time outs and took it up the floor. On what looked like a broken play, one of our guys pulled up for a three-pointer and intentionally double-clutched to try and draw contact. Lucky for us, he succeeded…at drawing the contact, at least. He connected on the second free throw attempt and that ended the game (remember, we were playing sudden death).

So, that was probably the most bizarre ending to any basketball game I’ve ever played. That is all.

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Game 5 a better loss

We lost the fifth game of our league season, but only by one point, 45-44. We played pretty well both defensively and offensively, but just didn’t hit the one shot we needed to win. Basically, we made the mistake of starting in a 2-3 zone and they outscored us by about 12 while we were in the zone. Then, we went man (for about the last three-quarters of the game) and outscored them by 11–one short of what we needed to go to OT and two short of the win.

All in all, it was a good game and we played well. I did alright, but mostly was a quiet contributor tonight. I was pretty pleased with my performance, but of course I’m kicking myself for not hitting one more shot.

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2004 NBA Finals: Game 2

I only saw the last 6 minutes of regulation and then the OT, but I thought the Pistons looked great until the melt-down. Really, if they had played just a tad better for the last 45 seconds of the game, they’d have gone up 2-0 before heading home for 3 games. Instead, they sort of gave up the ghost both physically and mentally and left L.A. hanging around. I thought there were two big plays, both involving Shaq, that just didn’t go right for the Pistons: First, Shaq’s 3-point play shoulda’ never happened. He should’ve been fouled before he ever had a chance to get the first shot off. Second, every Pistons player should’ve had the following phrase in the back of his mind: “They’re down 3. If Shaq catches the inbound, foul him and we win.”

The good news is I think the Pistons can actually take the Lakers. They have three games at home and they can finish it in Detroit. I think they’re doomed if they have to go back to L.A., but I also think they can wrap it up by game 5. They’re defense is obviously too good for the Lakers. That was true for all but Shaq and Kobe for both games so far. The trick is they can’t let Kobe break out for 14 points at the end of the game and expect to survive. Keep the ball outta’ his hands, force him to take bad shots and keep Shaq as far from the rim as possible. It sounds simple, but the Pistons are one of the few teams that can actually do it.

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Bummed about basketball

Apparently, because CBS does regional coverage of the NCAA Tournament, I won’t be able to see the Florida game tomorrow because they’ll be showing the Texas Tech game instead. So, I guess I’m going to proceed as though they are showing the Florida game–keep my cell off, stay away from IM, avoid e-mail and keep out of earshot of any potential basketball conversations at work–and TiVo it, so I can watch it when I get home. Of course, by “it”, I mean “any little segments or tidbits they might show during the Texas Tech game.” If I remember correctly, CBS tends to sort of bounce around and show bits from games in other regions all day. Hopefully, they’ll show some of the Florida game. Also, I’m thinking that if the game is close down the stretch or goes into OT, CBS might show it. I’ve made my picks and I’ll try and post my bracket once they’re “public.”

Sleepometer runnin’ low

I only got 6 hours of sleep last night, I’ll be lucky to get 6 tonight, I slept horribly on Sunday night and Monday night was only a moderate night’s sleep. So far, I’ve been feelin’ great, had plenty of energy and haven’t felt like I needed a mandatory naptime. But, I’m afraid my lack of sleep is going to catch up with me before the weekend is here. I spent all day today (almost 10 hours) in a meeting and I’ll be in the same meeting tomorrow, although “they” say it’ll only run about 6 hours. I just hope they’re right, ’cause if they’re not, they might have to adjust their voices to compensate for my super loud snoring.

Tunin’ up the workouts

I took last week off from the gym and came back this week with a whole different philosophy. For the past several months (years?), I’ve been training primarily to build some strength and secondarily to build some tone. Mostly, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting pushed around when I played basketball. Last week, I realized it’s been a really long time since I’ve worked out really hard and pushed myself to do a lot of reps and a lot of exercises in short time. So, I decided I’d go back to a workout similar to what I was doing in high school, but only three days a week instead of five. I’m hopin’ to “lean up” a bit and maybe get some of my speed back on the basketball court while maintaining a reasonable amount of strength. I’m also trying to eat better by eating lots of veggies and focusing on not consuming ridiculous quantities of unhealthy food. We’ll see how that goes…