“The basketball shooting technique called ‘tear drop’ is also referred to as the floater. Both of them are very descriptive names in that the basketball shot seems to ‘float’ over the defender and drop into the hoop so lightly as if it were a drop of tears. It is an alternate basketball shooting move in a lay up where you take the step-and-a-half early and while jumping forward, you shoot the basketball over your defender before he jumps.” – From Youth-Basketball-Tips.com

Game 8: January 4, 2008

Iowa Energy (9-8) at Sioux Falls Skyforce (5-10)

The floater. A soft, pretty shot. A skilled high-arcing drop in the bucket.

The floater. David Bailey’s new best friend.

The Skyforce entered the game looking pretty rough. I had hoped that they were righting the ship, winning three of four (including Christmas Day) but was disappointed to see they had answered the semi-streak with three losses in four games. Everything was back where it started, evened out.

And who were we playing? The horribly named Iowa Energy, featuring a Chicago Bulls NBA send-down Demetris Nichols. They were second place in the division, three games ahead of the last place Skyforce. But we had one thing on our side: the Iowa Energy’s amazingly streaky win/loss record. Go ahead. Scan down their schedule. Win three, lose three, win three, lose three, win three. They had lost two in a row going into the Friday night game. We were destined to win, right?

With David Bailey playing the way he did, sure enough. Tonight was my first glimpse of the faster, friendlier Skyforce – little Elton Nesbitt was starting, J.C. Mathis had disappeared (which is weird considering how effective he was during the Christmas Day game) and David Bailey was featured front and center.

I mean, he was everywhere, playing with ferocity I had yet to see out of him this season. He was the fastest player on the court, and he was using it to his advantage. Versus Jeff Horner? Easy – drive around him. Versus Euro-trash Fabricio Vay? Easy – wave off the rest of the team and take him one on one. Someone’s hand his face? Even easier – the floater, his newest friend.

Seriously – I’ve never seen someone take more tear-drop shots in a game. It was as if he had met a best friend from high school and he couldn’t help showing him off to his new crew. Drive. Floater. Drive. Floater. It kept happening, and like a Malone/Stockton pick-and-roll, you couldn’t stop it.

This is what I’ve wanted to see for the past six games. Two speedy guards, splitting the court apart, driving to the basket. Driving! We didn’t let the jump shot beat us tonight – we left that to the incredibly hot Iowa Energy, a team that managed to make nearly every shot in the first half and lose their touch in the second. We drove! I mean it – this was an epiphany, it must have been!

Nesbitt and Bailey combined to bring a Nash/Barbosa like tandem to the court – speed and shooting, assists and steals, like pesky gnats swarming unsuspecting campers. They were all over the place, making the extra pass when needed, shooting the three when feeling it, making life hell for the slower, lankier Iowa guards.

At halftime, we were keeping up with the Energy, 60-60. We begrudgingly left, knowing we had to get Sierra to bed and being better parents for the act. I listened to the rest of the game on the radio – Bailey kept making his new signature teardrop shot, Chris Alexander re-appeared in the fourth to defend the Energy’s impending rise, and the Skyforce eked out a win. It was an ugly second half – after scoring 60 points, both teams ended with a 36-34 half – but it worked.

It felt good to get a win. It felt good to finally defeat Iowa after two losses. It felt good to gain ground in the standings, and it felt good to see the team playing like a team – finally gelling after a season-so-far of awkward getting-to-know-you play.

But it felt really good – no, it felt GREAT – to see Nesbitt and Bailey taking control and playing basketball that’s both fun and effective. Live and die by the jump shot no more. We’re driving – and floating – from now on.

Skyforce 96, Iowa 94

Christmas day. A time to revel in the spirit of giving, to rejoin family after time apart, to celebrate all that has been given throughout the year, both meaningful and superficial. It’s a day to eat too much, a day to talk too loud, a day that commonly ends in an exhausted, yet pleased sigh and a drop into a warm bed.

Game 6: December 25th, 2007

Fort Wayne Mad Ants (4-6) at Sioux Falls Skyforce (3-7)

Christmas day in Sioux Falls means something even more. It means Skyforce basketball in front of what usually ends up being the biggest crowd of the year.

This year, we faced the Fort Wayne Mad Ants – Detroit’s pet franchise and the team that sits just one game ahead of the Skyforce in the standings. It’s a relatively new rivalry – in fact, it’s brand new; the Fort Wayne Mad Ants are celebrating their inaugural season as members of the D-League.

Last year, we were the Detroit affiliate, and we benefited from their youngest future star, Amir Johnson. This year, we were dropped in favor of the Mad Ants – a team actually owned by the Pistons – and now we’re saddled with the Charlotte Bobcats in its place.

I mention all of these impressive big-league connections because I’m a little self conscious of our minor league status. Most of my friends see the Skyforce as a trinket on the basketball landscape, a knick-knack not worth much attention, let alone a season-ticket induced fandom.

“We’re for real!” I’ll scream. “A real team with a real coach and real jerseys and everything!” and my friends, many of which have strong connections to Minnesota and, therefore, the Timberwolves, just smile and shake their heads.

As if the Timberwolves could beat the Skyforce this season.

Tonight we entertained a real sports fan – Kerrie’s uncle Bernie, from Virginia. He’s an aficionado. He has years of sports knowledge tucked away and can spot things I never even think to look for – footwork, unbiased ref calls, the release of a shot.

In addition, he’s got some great connections. Enough that he has courtside tickets to Georgetown basketball. See that bald guy to the left of the scorer’s table? That’s Uncle Bernie.

That’s our guest. That’s what the Skyforce have to live up to – the unflinching brunt of a knowledgeable sports fan with tickets to one of the most sought after shows in the Washington D.C. area. Suck it up, Force. Don’t embarrass me for the hype I built up.

As if notified of the importance of Bernie’s visit, the Skyforce were on their game. Like, seriously on their game – great shooting, great defense and a drive to win. Maybe it was the crowd – a typical, “get us the hell out of the house!” Christmas crowd – or maybe it was the idea of moving up a spot in the standings. Either way, the Skyforce simply blew the Mad Ants out of the building.

And hey – some guys got a little chippy, and some guys got thrown out. The Mad Ants became frustrated, some flagrant (and flagrant-2) calls were tossed around, and the crowd became a seething pit of hatred, calling for Mad Ant beheadings and mass slaughter.

Less violently, this was the first game I really took notice of J.C. Mathis – both good and bad. The man has some great footwork (thanks, Bern!) and moved around defenders like they were stuck in epoxy. He sliced shots up and in, and developed the statement dunks when needed.

But then he wouldn’t give up the ball. He took shot after shot, leading the team in both scoring and off-balance, no-pass shots. Still, he ended with 29 points on 13 of 19 shooting, so at least he was making the shots he was blindly taking. David Bailey managed to do the same thing, except he couldn’t hit an inside shot all day (1-8 from inside the three-point line). Thankfully, he took enough long shots (4-5 from three-point range) to make his game worthwhile.

When the fury settled, what was left was the strongest Skyforce showing of the year. Over 50% shooting from the field and from three. Two players with a double-double and seven players in double figures. Every quarter won, no lead squandered. Even a justifying ejection by Fort Wayne’s brute, Corey Minnifield.

So maybe it’s not a Wizards game. It’s hardly even a Georgetown game. But one thing’s for sure – the Skyforce are competitive, and they’re nothing to look down your nose at. As long as the team can play like this every week, they’re no longer semi-pro. They’re all out pros.

Skyforce 116, Fort Wayne 88

The Dakota Wizards. In our house. A classic rivalry, named one of the top three in all of South Dakota sports history. A reason to come to a game on a lazy, wintry Sunday afternoon; North vs. South, a Dakota Territory civil war played out in all of its glory on the basketball court.

Game 3: December 9th, 2007

Dakota Wizards (2-3) at Sioux Falls Skyforce (1-4)

Thanks to some quick action by Kerrie (and a token infant in a cute lamb outfit) we were chosen to sit in the Kory Davis Experience Best Seats in the House – two leather seats at the end of the court. It’s pretty sweet, actually – and it’s the second time in three seasons that we’ve been able to sit down there. We’re three games into the season and we haven’t even sat in our actual season ticket seats yet.

In terms of a rivalry, Sioux Falls vs. Dakota doesn’t have the same spunk that it used to. Last season, it was us vs. the old us – Dakota had our old coach, Dave Joerger, and three of our championship stars in Ronaldo Major, David Beasley and Corey Williams. There was an air of competition in the Arena when Dakota came to town. We wanted to beat them because they were so good. We wanted to show everyone that we could do well without those guys.

Unfortunately, things have changed. Joerger is with the Memphis Grizzlies as an assistant. Major, Beasley and Williams are elsewhere. Both teams entered the contest with a combined record of 3-7. No one I could recognize remained from last year’s Dakota team. They looked flat.

We looked flatter.

It wasn’t a great game. For the second straight game, our small ball approach allowed the other team to out-rebound us, and for the second straight game we watched as an opposing player pulled down 20 boards. Tonight, it was Rod Benson. Tonight, it was a D-League record 28 boards.

I was easily distracted as a result. Maybe it was the new seats. Or maybe it was a boring game. All I know is that we were losing (no way!) going into the 4th quarter. As always, we decided at that point to start playing defense. We pulled closer, and an Elton Nesbitt take-over (15 points in the 4th alone) had begun.

But sometimes you can’t overcome the height difference. And you can’t go back to the well too often. We didn’t have the comeback in us like we did two nights before. We left as desperation fouls were doled out and “see you next time” music began playing.

(An aside: the music at the Skyforce games is often disjointed from what’s going on in the game. When we’re up, they often play the “This is our house!” clip from some sports movie – a clip that’s supposed to fire up the crowd when you’re behind.

If they play Sweet Caroline, we’re screwed. Tonight, they played Sweet Caroline.)

At times, I noticed that Sierra had her eyes fixed on everything but the game. The crowd. The vendors. The large indoor blimp. She couldn’t focus on the game at all. And to tell you the truth, I don’t blame her a bit.

Skyforce 105, Dakota 115

Here we are. Sioux Falls Arena, sitting in the HenkinSchultz seats just below the bar, the back row of the good seats. We’re right on the aisle, ready for an easy escape. After all, this is Sierra’s first Skyforce game, and we’re not quite sure how she’ll take it. We’re sitting alongside Amy, our season ticket partner for last season. A new guest. A returning guest. And two die-hard fans, ready for the match-up.

Game 2: December 7th, 2007

Idaho Stampede (5-1) at Sioux Falls Skyforce (0-4)

Wait. Something’s going wrong here. We’re down by 15. Already.

No joke. For the first three quarters, this game was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Excruciatingly dull. A lesson in how not to play, and a reminder that Nate Tibbetts – while quite possibly a great coach and quite possibly completely able to lead the Skyforce to a win – hadn’t actually won yet.

The Skyforce couldn’t pull down a rebound. They managed to foul at a 2 to 1 pace. I couldn’t tell if the refs were out to screw us (naturally, when the Skyforce are losing, it’s the refs’ faults) or if the team was really playing this bad.

I shouldn’t have been surprised – the Skyforce were up against a team that had won five in a row, the 5-1 Stampede. Or, as it looked to us, the 5-1 Seattle Supersonics. It was Minnesota Timberwolves affiliate night, and both teams celebrated by wearing big league uniforms – Idaho went with their affiliate Seattle, while the Skyforce sported real-life Timberwolves jerseys. Considering the records of both teams in the NBA, the Sioux Falls Arena was probably a bigger attraction than any Seattle/Minnesota game would be. And both teams would sport about the same number of recognizable players.

The highlight of the Timberwolves affiliate night is that we get to experience the services of Crunch – a big league mascot, one that does all of the things our Thunder doesn’t; messing with refs, interacting with the fans, entertaining half-time shows. It was fun. In fact, I’ve never laughed so hard at a Skyforce game before in my life.

The game was laughable as well. Damone Brown returned to us from wherever he was, and managed to be both a floor leader with tons of energy and a complete waste of space throwing up brick after brick. He didn’t see a shot he didn’t like, I think, and that added to a 6 for 15 shooting night. Nic Caner-Medley had been ineffective, Tibbetts had seemingly flipped out, slamming a basketball into the ground and nearly hitting a ref with it, and the team looked lost.

And then, like the clouds breaking to reveal a blazing sun, the Skyforce flipped the switch and turned into a championship level team. Thanks to the aforementioned Damone Brown’s defense (four blocked shots, three steals, and a million pardons from me for making fun of his slow first half). And thanks to a sudden take-over by my new favorite Skyforce player, last year’s bench star Elton Nesbitt.

The Skyforce were down by 15 going into the 4th, and hadn’t gained much ground after the first 7 minutes of the quarter. Nesbitt took the ball and drove for an easy lay-up. We cheered, though reservedly, and waited for the Stampede to match on the other end.

They didn’t. A defensive stop – the first of a series of great stops, and the moment when the calls began to start going our way – gave us the ball back. Back in Nesbitt’s hands. Back to the paint, and back in for another lay-up.

I looked up at the clock, the Skyforce only down by 9, and thought, “Damn, if Elton keeps going like this, we could do this.” This just a few minutes after asking Kerrie why Nesbitt wasn’t the starter. He has the energy, he has the leadership, and while I love David Bailey to death, he’s not the kind of point guard I’d want starting the game.

Regardless, the idea of Nesbitt as Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson, the spark plug off of the bench, sits okay with me. Nesbitt played the rest of the game and the Arena crowd was on its feet like it hadn’t seen since a close loss to the Wizards in the middle of last season. I was contesting every call, yelling at the refs and jumping from my seat like it was electrified. Sierra probably wondered what was wrong with her father – a normally reserved man turned into a screaming lunatic. But it didn’t matter – the Skyforce were going to overtime.

From there, it was over. The Skyforce outscored the Stampede by 9. Sierra had seen enough and was ready to go home. So had the Stampede, their five game winning streak snapped, with two 30+ point games (former Skyforce star Randy Livingston and Cory Violette) wasted and a 15 point lead squandered.

Last year, the Skyforce would have been the team giving up the lead. This year, we fought back, like the scrappy batch of underachievers we can be. And the best part? Sierra had a great time watching the crowd and the players. There wasn’t a peep from her all night.

Too bad you couldn’t say the same for mom and dad.

Skyforce 122, Tulsa 113

Forgive me for being distracted. It goes with the territory, I guess. And, by the looks of the Skyforce last night, it was contagious.

Game 1: November 24th, 2007

Tulsa 66ers (1-0) at Sioux Falls Skyforce (0-0)

Distraction? Well, for the players on the court it was more like exhaustion. As in, boy, that loss was exhausting. As in, wow, we looked exhausted after firing on all cylinders for the first 36 minutes. As in, we’ve exhausted all options, let’s shoot long range shots all night until we piss the game away in the final seconds.

It was opening night, and as Kerrie and I made our way to row three of the Sioux Falls Arena (courtesy a season ticket holder special) there was a sense of excitement. Look, NBA D-League President Dan Reed! Ooh, we’ve got a young, homegrown coach that’s proven himself over the past three seasons as an assistant! Wow, our uniforms have the jersey numbers on top with the names below – how European!

We were distracted – it was a night away from Sierra, and we scoped out the Arena for signs of infant life so we wouldn’t feel guilty dragging our 4 month old to see Development League style basketball.

It was, according to Dan Reed, the first sellout in Sioux Falls Skyforce history. In history! We’ve won two CBA championships, been in the league for 18 seasons (this is the 19th, apparently) and seen several future NBA talents rifle their way across the Arena floor. And this is the first sellout? The traditional Christmas game doesn’t sell out, but this one does? Wha?

It turns out that not only was this the first Skyforce sellout, it was also the most people who witnessed a loss in Skyforce history. In fact, it was a rough game throughout – we looked as if we were still finding our legs.

(Author’s note: as you know, I am a season ticket holder for the Sioux Falls Skyforce. I have followed the team very closely over the five years I’ve been back in town. And because of the loyalty I have shown, I often refer to the Skyforce and myself as the collective “we” or “our.” You’ll have to forgive me – these are the ramblings of a man blinded by fanhood.)

Tulsa played us well. They pushed us around, but did it with finesse. We committed 31 fouls to their 20, and none of them were awful calls. This was not the refs’ fault, for once – this was ours. It also didn’t help that the 66ers had an NBA designee (Ramon Sessions of the Milwaukee Bucks), a player who’s currently averaging 30.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game.

This is the development league, and it showed when you looked to the other side of the court. The Skyforce fielded two players from last year – Elton Nesbitt and Antywane Robinson – that barely made the court some nights. Our 11th and 12th man. The development? They’ve become quite competent factors in the Skyforce offense, combining for 46 points in last night’s loss. Last year, they’d be lucky to combine for that many in a month. Nic Caner-Medley turned out to be a decent pick as well – 30 points, 15 rebounds, 2 steals – even though he couldn’t be trusted to make the long shot.

So with new leadership and some good scorers, what happened? Oh, hold in – wait a minute. Are we really running two sub-six-footers out there? Is our tallest guy really only 6’9”? Meanwhile, look at Tulsa – they’ve got some serious height, including one big-haired and freckled oddity that had to be at least 10 feet tall.

Or, at least, he seemed that way against our lineup of midgets. This could be a problem. Sure, coach Nate Tibbets loves the run and gun, but these guys are short. They’re fast, but they’re short. The entire team. There was a time that it seemed like our team was an average of five inches shorter at every position.

But it shouldn’t be blamed on height. If you can shoot, you can overcome a couple inches. Simply put, it was a horrible shooting night. While Tulsa shot 49% from the field, we could barely find the basket with 43% (most of which were missed long range shots – stuff we shouldn’t have been taking in the first place.) We couldn’t make free throw either, missing over a third of our shots.

So over everything, it’s pretty basic – what we saw was a coach who is a spitting image of his predecessor – a guy who loves the run and gun, who lives and dies by the jump shot. And don’t get me wrong – we have some shooters. We led by a considerable amount several times, but even then you’d have fooled us. It seemed we were behind the whole game, not just the last quarter – we looked ugly, and it was an equal ugliness on the opposing side that kept us in the game. All until that last quarter.

What was old last year in Mo’s offense is new again with Nate. We saw the same frustrating meltdown, the same lack of inside presence, the same finesse garbage trying to bang up against a bruising, inside based team. We allowed too many drives, relied too much on the outside shot and lost our momentum when we should have been putting the game away.

It wouldn’t be so upsetting if it didn’t seem so familiar.

Skyforce 109, Tulsa 117