McKeesport gets defensive in home win over Gators
By Jeremy Tepper
MVI Sports
Every McKeesport basketball practice oozes with competition.
There are no light, easy practices as the Tigers push each other constantly, whether they’re hammering the intricacies of a defense, or playing four on four basketball, where the losers have to run or do bear crawls.
The goal is to ingrain a sense of competitiveness and commitment to defense that can be leaned on in the most dire of moments.
On Thursday, McKeesport desperately needed its defense to do the heavy lifting, and that it did, as the Tigers took down Gateway, 45-34, in Section 4-5A play.
It was a defensive slog, or — in other words — an offensive struggle.
The Tigers (5-1, 2-1) simply couldn’t make shots, but they never sulked. Instead, they kept up the intensity on defense and created enough turnovers and easy buckets to secure a relatively comfortable win.
“You probably learn more from a loss than a win, but we can take a lot of things out of this game,” McKeesport coach Eric Smith said. “We preach that if your shots aren’t falling — which they weren’t tonight — the one thing that does not change is your defense or your effort. Both of those things stepped up and we were very pleased with that. We ended up playing some pretty good defense. We took a lot of charges and played pretty good help defense.”
The signs of an impending offensive struggle were apparent early on. McKeesport played its typical pressing, trapping defense, while Gateway (0-5, 0-4) did the same, aggressively trapping all over the court and forcing McKeesport into some turnovers. Subsequently, there were not a lot of buckets scored as McKeesport led 8-2 after one quarter.
“They are a three-quarters court trapping team and they are either man to man or zone. Today they were just chasing us around and trapping us. And we’re in good shape as long as we’re hitting shots. We beat the traps, the shots are wide open, but we weren’t hitting them,” Smith said. “I thought schematic-wise we did okay. We didn’t finish well and I think that’s what kept that game close.”
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