We let them back into the game, and eventually lost the first half because:
- Johni missed 3 or 4 rather easy shots that he usually makes.
- Due to defensive breakdowns or miscommunications, we continually allowed a red hot bench player who probably wasn't on our scouting reports, to get COMPLETELY wide open looks from deep. Several times he had time to catch the ball, square up, frame the shot and then have 1 - 2 seconds to shoot it. That's just giving away points.
- Johni's unusual mis-queues led to us losing at least 6 lost points, and we gave away another 9 points to their super hot long distance sniper, so that's a minimum 15 point swing.
In the second half we actually outscored them, but we didn't make all of the adjustments that we needed to. They had a clear game plan of exploiting our "switch everything" M.O., and they were patient and worked it. I don't recall us switching up and throwing them any curveballs or sliders for even a short period of time. We just kept rearing back and throwing our 98 mph fastball and saying "Hit it if you can", (and they did).
Overall, it was a good game, good test, and while I NEVER like to lose, I think we could potentially grow from this.