Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

In a separate post, Nestor has created a discussion of the need for strong leadership on this team. It is a great thread.

I think leadership is one half of why we lose games.

I think focus is the other. Saturday, we lost because we had neither. We win games when we create a favorable turnover ratio and score off the turnovers we create. Saturday, we gave that advantage to Az. There is absolutely no excuse for the sloppy, lost inbound passes. None. And, throughout the game, we were throwing the ball away -- the cutter going one way the pass another, or the pass directly to an Az player. At one point in the game thread I noted that EVERY one of our players who had been in the game had turned the ball over. Every one.

At this time in the season, my sense is that this is not a matter of skill but, rather, a matter of attention and focus. Hanging on to rebounds is part strength and part focus. There are games when we have hands of steel and others when we have hands of stone. I wonder what is behind the difference. (And, lately, we've been punching the ball around instead of grabbing it. Not sure what that is.) When we play our ferocious D you can see the guys have their heads completely in it. When we are not playing great D, we seem to get lost. People lose their man, don't rotate or get to the open man quickly. Some of this may be a lack of speed. But, it may also be a matter of focus.

Had we not played some incredibly good games, I'd think this a matter of skill. But, we are skilled. Were we not, we'd have a big problem.

All we need to do is focus so that we can use those skills to their full extent.

I'm sure CBH will work on this all week. 

Of the two problems, I think leadership will be harder to solve. Focus is something we have had and can have if we just focus (weird sentence, huh?).