Playoffs baby

Last week we played our second last game of the season, at home vs Nes Ziona (who I think was in 4th place at the time)

Because of how the standings were with two games left, if we were to go 0-2, and the two teams below us both went 2-0, then we would end up in 9th place and out of playoffs. So this was a pretty big game to make sure we got in. Although if either of the teams below us lost then we would get in via tiebreak.

We started out the game pretty badly and were down 10 early. But we chipped away and by halftime it was only a few points difference. Second half we picked it up and I had a couple baskets. It was back and forth and nearing the end of the fourth our centre fouled out. So I was back in the game. We were up one when the foreigner from their team scored on a post up and put us down 1. On the ensuing possession our pg missed a jumper form the right wing that might have got tipped. I jumped up grabbed it and got fouled on the put back. So I went to the line, down 1 with 5 seconds to go.... Bricked the first one lol. But made the second one to tie it. The game went to overtime and we eventually pulled out the victory. I like to think I saved the game. Anyways point is we clinched the playoff spot with the win... although we found out later BOTH of the teams below us lost... so we were in the playoffs regardless.

Tomorrow is our last regular season game away at Kiryat Ata and only matters for seeding purposes. There's not alot of urgency on the team because all last week the coach/everyone just kept saying we just needed to win that last game blah blah etc etc. Then we won and now they're all saying how important this game is. Anyways not alot of pressure on this game so we'll see how people come ready to play. I'm clearly just trying to pad my stats so i'll be ready to go.

Playoffs start a week today, get hyphy

Rehab

Speaking of injuries.... I'll just go on a rant about the aftermath of getting hurt. We "have" a "trainer" on the team that is supposed to help out. But he's not really a team trainer... He only comes to practice on sundays, and then comes to games on tuesdays... so not exactly working 24/7. It's more like he is a normal guy and treats regular people, and if someone gets hurt they can go to him and he'll do his thing.

Even before all of this, I don't exactly trust the trainers out here. They are just taught and do things differently than we do in North America and it's just not comfortable to see things done differently than you're used to. Also we don't have any of the fancy (aka normal) equipment we would have back home. I.e. cold/hot whirl pool, ultrasound, electric stim, watever.

Back to our trainer. He has a 'clinic' that he works out of about 15 minutes away from where we live. So I would have to call him, schedule an appointment... which basically consisted of him trying to squeeze me in during his day. Sometimes I wouldn't be able to be squeezed in.... so no treatment that day. Then the coaches/management are asking me if I went to the trainer... I'm like, no he was all busy, etc etc. So then I'm supposed to tell them so they can call the trainer and curse him out or whatever. Like its my fault that they don't want to pay someone to work for them and help us. Luckily for them its not the first time I ever sprained an ankle and I generally know what I can do to help it out. It's been feeling better and hopefully will be back to 100% in the next couple of days.

And today i jammed my finger really hard :'(

Injury report

Took another blogging hiatus during the gf's visit... but sadly she's gone so I have a huge amount of time to bloggggggg.

3 weeks ago this Tuesday I sprained my ankle in our game. I had been playing pretty well and it was nearing the end of the third quarter I think. I limped off and didnt play the rest of the game (which we went on to win). So that hurt like a bitch. I limped around for a couple days and by the next week I gave playing a shot... It didn't go well. It was still hurting alot and I played like 2-4 minutes maybe. Stupid to try. By the next week (last game) I was starting to feel better and did my thing. I went in in the second quarter and was 3/3... Then in the second half I played like 2 minutes in the early 4th quarter.... Pretty frustrating to not get more minutes. Especially in that game where we had built a 19 point lead (and had gone up while I was playing), but later gave the entire thing up in the 3rd quarter (while I was out). It would have clinched the 7th playoff spot for us, but we ended up losing the game by 2. I was embarrassed. Although can't say the blame was on me. Anyways we have a game in 2 days at home to clinch the 8th playoff spot I think. It's our second last regular season game and its kind of a big deal. I dunno our team dynamic is notttt working too well right now, but we'll see what happens

This is just getting crazy

On sunday we were told that our coach, Hanan, would no longer be coaching us. I believe it was for health reasons but not really sure... they don't tell us much. So I'm going to be moving on to my sixth coach of the year.... crazy.

But for our game on Tuesday, a guy from management named Israel coached us (as he did the other week when Hanan was sick). He definitely likes me and I got to play for a while uninterrupted and get into the flow of things. I finished with 10 pts (4 for 4 shooting)/6 rebounds in almost 20 minutes, and played good defense throughout. It was probably my best game since I've been here and we won the game. That moved us back into a tie for 4th with 6 games remaining.

As it turns out, I don't think the club wants to spend any money so Israel might continue to coach us for the rest of year. I think they've figured out our team is talented enough to make the playoffs without alot of coaching over the next couple weeks... so that's what theyre going to let us do.

Rant Time

Some stuff has been weighing on my mind about 'professional' basketball in Israel. Obviously the rest of the world doesn't have alot of the advantages that North America has in terms of sports and facilities and things like that... But some stuff here just makes me so angry. First and Foremost, and this is like complaint 1 through 27, is that there are no gyms available. Yes, that's exactly how it sounds. We do not have a basketball court to play basketball on except for the short time we have practice, and even then it's not under ideal circumstances. Our practice gym is also home to a day school I believe, as well as a number of volleyball, gymnastics, judo, etc, etc, etc, classes. So if we have practice at 7pm, usually there is gymnastics until like 6:50 or something. What this means is that even if I was inclined to come to practice early and work out by myself from say 6:30-7, I wouldn't really be able to. On the other end of it, when practice is over we only have a short period of time where we can continue to be on the court. The equipment managers hustle us off the court and into the locker rooms to shower so that they can take all the practice gear and laundry and get out of there. Now it has to be said that it's not like I'm used to the finest facilities or incredible access to the gym and such and such... Lafayette wasn't exactly the pinnacle of that type of stuff either lol. But I assumed at this point in my career, being paid as a professional athlete and being expected to perform, that I would be able to practice and improve if I wanted to. To that end, I assumed that outside of the established practice times (which really is only around an hour and a half), there is no available gym time to speak of. Yes,  you heard right, there are no times to come to the gym and work out on your own. Actually thats not true, every once in a while they'll tell us that we can come to this alternate gym with a concrete floor to shoot around from like 8 to 9am.... great. thanks for nothing.  This annoys/bothers me to no end. Like I'm being paid to play basketball but can't practice my basketball skillz other than in the small window of practice which is often not revolving around personal development. I had the same feeling many times during my Lafayette career. The feeling that the circumstances surrounding basketball didn't allow me to be the best basketball player I could be. Here I am, with people expecting results and strong performances, but I can't work to make sure my skill level improves or maintains itself. This is especially bothersome for me, and I honestly believe has hurt my level of play this year, because of the type of game I have. My accomplishments and skills as a basketball player revolve around having a great touch around the basket, feel for when to do what move or play, and finishing a high percentage of plays/shots. All of these things revolve around getting a lot of shots up on myself and being very comfortable with the ball etc. Sadly because we almost literally have no time to be in the gym and do our own thing, I haven't been able to keep up with my usual level of that type of thing. Which angers me. and frustrates me. Obviously I want to practice more and play better but I can't. I could go on and on about this so I'm just going to stop.

Another thing is everything about practice. First off we've stopped practicing on Saturdays (shabbat) so we're down to 4 days a week practicing, 1 game, 2 days off. Second, practice is only around an hour and a half, and alot of it is basically bullshit. People are lazy, lots of stupid bullshit euro drills. Our coach is very quiet and unemotional. Said he's "not here to motivate us"... which I think is almost a part of the definition for a coach's role in leading the team, at least at some times. Altho I don't put much blame on him, its mostly the team. I am constantly thinking how it compares to the far more structured, intense, and challenging practice atmosphere in college. Also I keep thinking about how much better the young kids would develop under college coaches and practices than they are here.

Altho the locker room, training staff, and other surrounding circumstances aren't NBA level, that doesnt bother me that much. Like I said I didn't grow up with a life of being spoiled by incredible athletic facilities etc. rant over for now i guess.

Anyways we've got 7 games to go in the season and are sitting in 5th place. It's a close league so it really depends how the next couple games go to determine if we're going to stay in the top 8 and make the playoffs. Honestly I'm almost indifferent. I want to come home already, have time off from basketball for a while and then be able to work out on my own terms and be back to playing at the level I'm accustomed to. But alas, gotta grind it out for a little while longer and try and stay in the playoff hunt.

Sooooooooooooo bitter

Just heard the other day from one of my former teammates, Kenny, that my old team released the big guy they signed a month or so ago. The 36 year old who played in Israel 8 or 9 years ago. Anyways basically they released him after a month or so, I think they were paying him like 10 or 12K a month. I heard the news and all I could think was how stupid they are. Ah whatever, I'm long go. Still annoys me though

Catching up again

Been scumming hard on the blog lately... dunno why. We've gone 3-0 since the new coach has here, beating the 1st place, 4th place, and 5th place teams... all ironically after we lost to the last place team. Although our new coach Hanan wasn't at this last game, nor was he at practice all week due to some undisclosed illness. Apparently it was pretty serious because he was in the hospital for a fair bit of time. Thankfully we've been told he's on the mend and will supposedly be at practice tomorrow. So that's good that he got better.

In other basketball news, during the 4th quarter of last game our Israeli point guard, Avi, went down with a knee injury. We haven't really heard exactly what the deal is but there was mention he could be out for 6 weeks. If that's true that would bring us basically to the end of the regular season. So we'll see what happens with that. He's a veteran guard who knows the ropes, although at times he is pretty damn frustrating.

On the team side, our recent string of wins over teams in the top half of the league, combined with a couple added losses by some of the top half teams, have allowed us to move up into 4th place overall in the league. With (I think) eight games to go we're in a pretty good position to remain in the top 8 and make the playoffs. Its becoming increasingly clear that that is the limit of the teams expectations (and goals) for this year. And because the team is doing well they have basically realized they can skimp by with doing the least possible for the team. They haven't, and won't, hire an assistant coach to help out... the stupidity of which became increasingly clear with our head coach out of the picture for almost 2 weeks. Players have basically been running practice ourselves and its been pretty bullshit. People slacking off alot etc. We've also done away with  having scouting reports for games... At this point its basically one or two guys on our team throwing out a couple names from our opponents team and a little bit about them before every game. The professionalism of the team is kinda devolving. Also, we've stopped practicing on saturdays, possibly because our coach is religious and practices shabbat... but even so I don't know why we don't practice later at night. So we're at 4 days of practice, 1 game, 2 days off.

In other news, I moved out from my apartment in Herzliya a little over 2 weeks ago and brought everything over to the new apartment in Hod Hasharon about 20-30 minutes away. By new I mean the apartment 3 of my teammates, and one wife of a teammate, have been living in all year. What happened was, one of the 3 ended up getting cut, and recently flew home, creating a room for me to stay in. The apartment isn't too shabby, about 10 minutes away from the gym and right around a busy intersection in the town. Lot of little restaurants, convenience stores, etc around. The apartment itself is not bad, pretty big kitchen and really big living room. Bathroom is by itself in this tiny room next to a bigger room that has the shower, another sink, and a washing and drying machine. The dryer is really nice to have after having to dry my clothes outside all year. We don't exactly keep the bathroom and shower in pristine condition but its alright, although the shower itself is a piece of crap. My bedroom is basically just an empty room with a bed. Oh, I also have a wooden chair... sweet.

Had some 'want my mother' moments recently. Last week the night before we played the 1st place team I hadn't been feeling good. On gameday Tuesday it was worse, and from Tuesday night to Friday morning I was more or less dying. I learned around Thursday that some stomach virus had been going around and a number of people had had it... otherwise I was starting to get worried. By Friday morning I was feeling better and ate my first real meal in 5 or 6 days that night. The next couple days at practice were pretty rough after not having done anything for a whole week almost. Thankfully my stomachs all back to normal these days. Then earlier this week I woke up one night feeling all itchy everywhere and some red splotches on my body... it was pretty effing annoying and I was scratching my life away. Don't really know what it was but got some generic allergy medicine the next day and it went away so I guess its all good. I think I must have touched something weird and then touched my body. Anyways I could have used someone to take care of me, but I survived.

Think that's about it. Hopefully the weather starts getting better soon around here, although earlier today when I was in Jerusalem it was hailing really hard for like 5 minutes. Pretty weird to see. The gf will be back in a month so just grinding out a couple more weeks til I can see her, should be good. Later all