Games, Autographs, and Scooters

The first matter of business in our newest city of Dongku was to stop at the local grocery store, a sponsor of the local sports committee, and sign some autographs and take a few pictures. They had a big stage set up for us and an MC that was promoting our game that night (at least that’s what I think he was saying.) They gave us some ice cream bars and the locals got their fix of staring at us while we were on stage. We headed to the hotel to get settled and to have lunch. After lunch all the guys and I headed to the Bank of China to exchange some USD into Chinese Yuan. I finally captured a little kid with his butt just hanging right out of his pants. Check the pic. I also found some really nice slacks and tie that I had to pull the trigger on.

Coming into game four, I was ready to beat Jiangsu again. They’ve been a little cocky after beating us the last two games. I was hoping the guys felt the same way I did. We when got to the arena, and I use the term arena very loosely this time, I realized that we may have been spoiled by playing in the nicest arena, thus far, for game one. The gym was very old and I knew it would be packed, loud, hot, and smoky. This gym lacked a few things, such as: a locker room, a scoreboard, a third referee, and a competent shot-clock operator. What it did have was a concrete floor, a leather couch as part of our bench that I coached the game from, and a paper flip chart to keep the score, and an actual clock at the scores table. I was actually excited to only see two officials, one less guy to screw things up.

We got off to a good start and got out to an early lead. Joe Darger finally hit his first jumper, and I was hoping that was a good omen for the night. Prior to the game, I decided to simplify the game plan offensively. We stuck to just a few plays for the whole first half, and it seemed to give us a bit more cohesion offensively. We also started to double in the post, which allowed us to get a few steals that led to easy transition baskets. At halftime time we just hung out on the bench/leather couch (since there was no locker room) and watched the local sports committee throw out stuff to the crowd. A few of the fans sitting courtside mobbed one of the guys and took about five shirts off the guy. I thought a riot was about to break out, but instead we moved right along to the second half.

The second half was more of us playing well. They made some adjustments at halftime and starting to switch a lot of our screens, which gave us a little trouble. Terry Marin carried us through the second half, really the entire game, using his athleticism to get to the basket and rise up in the lane for pull up jumpers. They, of course, made a run at us in the fourth but we had built a big enough lead to sustain it and ended up pulling out a double-digit win.

Some of the highlights/lowlights of the game were: the shot clock. They didn’t reset it about twenty times throughout the game, which drove me crazy, and trying to explain it through a translator was pissing me off even more. One of the refs caught a cramp in his calf, and the whole gym starting laughing. I felt bad for him and threw him a water bottle, thinking that he would relax and drink it and let the cramp go away. Instead, he sat down on the court and poured the water all over his leg, water dripping down his calf and down in his socks and into his shoes. I even had to laugh at that one, and the game paused for about five minutes why that whole debacle took place. It seemed like the scores table had it out for me. Besides the shot-clock screw ups, I swear they refused to give me a few of the timeouts I asked for, and it seemed impossible to get a sub in the game. My frustrations with all of this were obviously apparent, as the other teams coach came down to our bench during the middle of the game, and explained to Robert that I didn’t know the rules. Not sure if he was trying to be nice, but it mad me even more mad because he seemed to be yelling at my guy Robert. And because I knew the rules! Needless to say, I was happy to get out of that zoo with a win.

After the game we headed back to the hotel to see one of the security guards from the game and his sister there at the Dong Kou Hotel, and they offered to take out around the city. Being that we had a seven-hour bus ride the next day, and could get some sleep on the ride, I decided to take them up on the offer. I was the last one out to the parking lot and all the guys were nice enough to pile into one car and leave my only option for a ride on the back of our security guards scooter. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, in fact on the way back from the city, I decided I would drive the scooter. My first matter of business was finding the horn; from that point on I knew I would fit right in on the roads. Never that I’d be cruising on a scooter in Dongku, China with an Asian security guard on the back, saying ‘I love USA,” every two seconds. Good times. Until next time…