Why We Lost
Since
she left, I've been running over it in my mind again and again. The stock split
didn't work out the way everyone planned, and the whole thing just went straight
through the floor. The thing is, they've got a lot of horses. When we've got
a team down, we have to learn how to put them away. We can't let them back in
the ballgame. You let these guys up for air, let them think they've got a chance,
and they'll take advantage every time.
What we have to learn to do is to stay mentally strong towards the end of the game, especially on the defensive end. We have to be much more aggressive. Guys are coming in here and eating our lunch. I would have done anything for her, anything, and she knew that. Maybe that's what went wrong; she knew I was always going to be there and she took me for granted. Women don't go for a guy like that. They think they do, they say they do, but they don't. They go for the other kind every time.
Take the other night. I was in the groove. Unconscious. I found my stroke and the basket just looked as big as the ocean. Do you think the big Fortune 50 guys are sitting around complaining about vaporware? They're not. They're already thinking about tomorrow's technology. That's what keeps them on top of the game. If you're not changing, each and every day, you're out of the picture. Tonight, the shots just weren't falling. I felt strong, but I grooved a couple over the plate and they took me deep. A lot of times, the defense will make you look good, cover your mistakes. I may not always have my best stuff, but it's a team effort and if we're winning ball games, then that's good for us. When we're losing, it's like you're under a microscope, especially in a big media town like this one. There's just no place to hide.
When you look at it on paper, it looks like championship all over. But you can't win it on paper, you have to do it on the court. It takes two to tango, and if she's not there you can argue all you want but you're still lying in that big bed all by yourself talking to nobody. Sometimes it just doesn't work out, nobody's wrong, nobody's right, the chemistry just isn't there any more. Of course, we've got guys out hurt, but we have to regroup and find some way to win. Other guys have to step up. We've got some guys on this team, their minds are already on the beach. They're not stepping up to do the job. They're not willing to raise their level, to step up their defensive intensity. That's not going to get the job done--on either end of the floor.
The buy-out hurt us, and we're too fat in the middle management layers. It's a digital world now, and these small peppy firms that are coming in online without the overhead, they're able to offer the just-in-time stuff for pennies on our dollar. Of course, they're building on our infrastructure, but try telling that to the customer. Joe Sixpack doesn't care who laid the groundwork, he wants to know what he's going to get for his nickel. It's time to stop the bleeding. One way or another we've just got to dig ourselves out of this hole. We'll be successful if we stay focused and play together. We just have to keep improving. We're getting killed on the glass. No rebounds, no rings, plain and simple. It isn't the guys who are making the excuses that are going to be there in June. It's put up or shut up time.
There have been too many mental errors down the stretch. You know why they're successful? They stifle the opponent with their patented brand of hard-nosed defense. But we can't worry about that. We don't want to get caught up in their game where we're walking up and down the court. We have to go in there and play our game. We have to dictate the pace or it's going to be a long night out there. Last night the problem was we didn't come out ready to play basketball.
Things can turn around on you so quick in this game. One day you're having fun, going to the clubs, drinking the wine, enjoying the candlelit dinners, the sex is great. The next thing you know there's a strange distance between you and then one day it's a note on the dressing table and she's out of there and she's taken the stereo. Guy steps up and drains a pair of free throws, and suddenly they've opened up a 20 point bulge. We got in a hole early. We made a run at it, but we couldn't get over the hump. It was just too much ground to make up. We have to come out and set the tone. If your production people aren't talking to the boys in marketing, it's going to throw off your schedules, your costs, your priorities, and ultimately your life-cycle costing is going to end up totally skewed.
They just wanted it more tonight, I hate to say it but it's true. It was a total team effort. They just came out and beat us in every facet of the game. It was a good old fashioned ass whooping. They were able to execute. What we have to do is go in and penetrate and then look to kick it out, otherwise we'll all end up just standing around and they'll converge on our big man. It comes down to making a defensive stand and then putting the ball in the hole at the other end. It's going to be hard to win many games when you're giving up as many buckets as we've been giving up. If we can hold them down and play our game and get some easy baskets, we're going to win some ball games.
Fatigue was a factor late in the game. I was frankly tired of her bullshit. Then Murpin from accounting comes in and he's whining about procedures and forms, I mean, we're trying to build a strategy here! Guys like him just don't get it. It's like he wants to make everything as difficult as possible for everyone. I don't think he's got much of a personal life to tell you the truth, and he takes his bitterness out on the rest of us on a daily basis. But he's holding the purse strings and we're ultimately at his mercy. He's going to bring this whole organization down around his feet soon if we don't get somebody in there with some vision.
We've had our little victories, but if we don't build on tonight, this game will mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. We can't just come in and try some of the time. We have to try all of the time. We have to play 94 feet of defense for 48 minutes today. If we don't, they'll find a way to hurt us.
Being good enough isn't good enough. We were able to get out and score some easy points for a change, but we couldn't sustain our momentum. We had a little run, but they were able to contain us. We were beaten tonight, we didn't lose. We had some good looks, we had our chances to win the game, but we just didn't convert. They made the big plays, and we couldn't match them on our end. What the good teams do is find a way to win. It takes a lot of mental toughness.
After a while, she would just sit around the house all day in her bathrobe, doing nothing. When I came home she would just bitch. Me out with the guys all the time this, me never helping around the house that. I couldn't take it anymore. The essence of systems is relationships, interfaces, form, fit, and function. This was architecting: structuring, simplification, compromise, and balance. If you don't understand the principles, you're not going to be able to compete. They did the things you have to do to win tough games. The ball rolled their way tonight. It was a see-saw battle that came down to fourth quarter heroics. I think we showed we can be competitive with the good teams, but we didn't sustain our momentum. We didn't close it out the way we needed to close it out. Injuries are part of the game. Guys have to step up. We want to give them different looks, work the inside-out game.
Good teams find ways to win, that's the bottom line. You've got to give them credit; they didn't quit. They made the plays. They hit the big shots. They made the key stops. I've been swinging the bat well, I'm just not connecting. I don't want to think too much about my mechanics, and I'm not going through any special rituals. Ultimately, you have to give the people what they want at a price they're willing to pay. It's about character. It's about heart. In our case, we just didn't have the magic anymore.
[Comments]