I’ve compiled about two and a half minutes of Matthew’s on court adventures into one file; you can find that here. He scores two baskets and has at least two or three more chances that don’t go in (and two miss pretty badly…)
Highlights(?):
- The kid is all over the place. They are supposed to play man to man and not all go to the ball, but, in the first quarter at least (about the first four plays of the tape) he was matched up against one of the weaker players on the other team and I think you can tell that Matthew’s decided that he doesn’t need to guard him too close. He’s constantly cheating over towards the ball on defense.
- He’s not afraid to shoot. I bet other parents are calling him a ball hog; if he’s open, he’s going to take the shot. He did pass a little more later in the game, but, early on, he was going for it.
- I didn’t use any video from the 2nd half but he had at least three chances for easy lay-ups after rebounds (similar to what you see in the tape in the first half) and missed them…..my introduction to basketball coaching has at least brought me enough knowledge to be able to tell him today what he was doing wrong. The layup in the first half you can see he’s coming in more from the side; the ones in the second half he came almost straight at the basket from the middle of the court; that’s a much harder shot.
- I didn’t capture the aftermath on video but you’ll see him diving to save the ball twice in the clip…..that second time he hurt himself a little bit and came up limping as he ran down the court. His legs have all kinds of bruises on them right now from basketball and today’s snow adventures…..
