That's What I'm Talkin' About!

The Rainmen played the first game of a double header against the Maywood Buzz last night. The Rainmen took away any sting the Buzz may have inflicted, with a 145-97 victory. The first quarter of the game was unbelievable. We were finally living up to our name, by "raining threes". We put up some monster numbers, including shooting over 50% from the field, over 40% for threes, and an incredible 79 boards, which is almost double the per-game average so far this year. While Kadiri was his usual defensive giant self, I was pleasantly surprised by Jon Clark's double-double performance. One more point for Kadiri and he would have joined Jon and Eric in that club for the night.

I liked how the rebounds were spread out fairly evenly among a number of Rainmen, showing that our team is playing well defensively under the net while still getting the chances to score big points.

It looks like this is the team we have been waiting for all season. Hats off to the front office for putting together a good mix of players and talents along with some size that we needed all along.

Sending Brian in to the hoop was a nice change from always making Eric do it. Brian was able to pull some fouls, which is almost like adding the points automatically. There were relatively few penalties called (especially against the Buzz, it seemed), which made the game go faster. Liberally subbing in our guys tired the Buzz players very quickly, which is always a nice advantage for us to have for home games.

It was great to see Kadiri get some blocks, a few baskets, as well as a three pointer. While the box score shows that he had only 3 blocks, he sure made a huge difference in the game, mostly for his strong rebounding skill. We put up the KD boxes for Kadiri's blocks last night. I guess we were also counting his defensive moves that caused the shot to be short or off-target. And to be completely honest, I put a box up for Kadiri's three-pointer, too. Here's hoping I get the chance to put a whole bunch more of them up again tonight.

James Tyler performed well with the second-most defensive rebounds (behind Kadiri) and even a few tip-ins. It was interesting to see him pass the ball out to the perimeter in the first half, but then start going for his own points in the second half. This shows some depth in the coaching strategy (yes, I said it), that we aren't just running the same few plays every time.

The Rainmen must have passed the ball around the perimeter more in the first half of this game than in most other complete games. The result was a lot of uncontested three-pointers, with a higher-than-average success rate. It was very exciting for me as a fan to watch fluid motion plays rather than the static Play #1 pick-and-roll. I was shocked to hear Coach Lewis call out "Four! Four!" I didn't know we had a fourth play! Anyway, excellent performance all around.

Congrats for putting the second stringers in for some meaningful time in this game. They showed us fans that they belong on the team. I just wish we had subbed them in for more time in earlier games, to give them experience, although to be fair most of the guys now on the bench weren't on the time a couple months ago.

I have to say that I finally understood what some people have against the 13th man rule. Tonight it was embarrassing to see the Buzz completely stop so the 13th man could take three shots at a layup. I was glad they had a monster dunk after that. Another disappointment was the number of fans there. I hope we get a better shot at weekend games next year.

Let's have a strong finish to the season on the way to Quebec! Go Rainmen!

Unsung Hero - Kadiri Richard

I am a big fan of Kadiri Richard. I bought Kadiri's jersey (and waited for it to arrive since there weren't any in stock when the jerseys were first sold). Two games ago, I brought boxes of Kraft Dinner (KD) to string up in front of my seats for each block he made, only to see him have no blocks for that game against Quebec. I found that the Rainmen played zone defense for at least the first half, and then an ineffective man coverage in the second half when Quebec capitalized on drawing defenders away from the net and then scoring. This doesn't give one a lot of chances for big blocks.

In my haste to get to the game against Vermont, I forgot the boxes, but I will bring them to the rest of the games. I didn't miss much of a chance to string them up, since KD only blocked 2 shots. Most of our defense in that game was in the form of grabbing the ball after the shot, hence the 34 defensive boards for the team.

It seems like Kadiri has never really been used to his full potential, with Eric being chosen as the man to take the ball in to the hoop. Watching Kadiri's highlight reel shows that he is certainly capable of driving hard and I have never really understood why he has been relegated to a largely defensive role with almost no opportunity given to him to score unless the opposition's defense breaks down. Maybe it is the Rainmen's small offensive play list that leaves Kadiri out in the cold. He has too much talent to simply be a 15-to-20-minutes-per-game player. Looking at his stats, he has rarely played more than half a game and his stats prove that the more time he has on the court, the more effective he becomes, with rebounds and blocks.

Having said that, his attitude -- both on the court and the bench -- is excellent. No one has a bigger smile when the Rainmen are winning (remember those days?), when a teammate scores an impressive basket Kadiri is right there congratulating him, and no one is more imposing when KD gets his scowl on to intimidate an opposing player. As the Rainman who starts chants nearly as much as Chris, Dunc and I do, Kadiri is almost as valuable to the team on the bench as he is on the court. I simply think he has more to contribute than he has been given the chance to show us.