Dirk Nowitzki Stomping Grounds

If you don't know of Dirk Nowitzki, let me fill you in:

He is one of the greatest German's to play in the NBA and is THE MAN in the paint (post player reference).  He was drafted in 1998 and has averaged nearly 23 points per game throughout his 15 year career.  He shoots an incredible 48% from the field and averages 8 boards per game... pretty impressive stuff!  The 7 foot center led the Dallas Mavericks to their first NBA championship during the 2010-11 season and also was the NBA MVP that same year.  In summary, he is the shiz.

His hometown: Wurzburg, Germany... where my team and I played this weekend.  

To get to the game we all shoved into an 8 passenger van for 2 hours on the way there and FIVE hours on the way back thanks to some hefty 4 day weekend traffic.  Never thought I'd experience that on the fastest highway in the world!!  Ah, the irony.

Anyway, to the game.  And if you don't feel like reading an awesome, yet fairly detailed recap, please skip ahead.

Wurzburg vs. Viernheim, Conference Game #2
Did I look at the refs wrong?
This was my thought the entire game as I'm learning each time we play how merciless the refs are to Americans, especially posts.  I have never been so frustrated or felt like the reffing was so biased in my entire life and the inconsistent calls almost landed me fouled out and on the bench.  First, I couldn't get a single call my way - and believe me - I was getting hammered every time I went up by the basket.  At one point, I split two defenders with a spin move and one grabbed my arm on the way up to the basket.  The shot went in and I was waiting for the whistle for the "and 1" call, but did it come? Nooooooppppee!!  Secondly, I picked up 3 fouls 5 minutes into the second quarter (one from a very clean block), which landed me on the bench to heatedly watch the game and let the steam from my ears slowly die down.

1st Quarter
We jumped out to an incredible 14-0 start and I thought the game was going to be a complete blowout, as Wurzburg was shooting terribly from the field and we were owning them on the boards and controlling the tempo of the game.

2nd Quarter
Unfortunately for us, their dry spell ended and they started hitting some big 3's and our double digit lead evaporated as they pulled within 6 points to end the half.  It didn't help that we were 7 players deep and therefore had very sparse subbing while they were subbing 2-3 girls in at a time to keep their players fresh.

3rd Quarter
Knowing I had 3 fouls, I tried to tighten/smarten up my defense and not go for anything stupid.  Our team was battling hard to keep up with our very quick opponent and using up every ounce of energy we had to stop them in transition.  By the end of the third, we held on to a small lead.

4th Quarter
Fast forward to a minute left in the game, Wurzburg took the lead by 1 on a pair of free throws.  Maybe it was the fizzy water that I drank (since that's all German's seem to like and bring for the team to the game), but my stomach was in nervous knots the entire fourth quarter.  With team moral and my moral nearly beaten from getting absolutely no calls from the refs in a game that felt like 7 on 5, we rallied to get a basket to put us back in the led.  But, Wurzburg quickly answered on a big two point shot from their American with 17 seconds left.  Our coach calls a timeout and sets up a play, which ends up falling through and we get a decent shot off from the field but it clanks out... desperately, I dive into the paint to try to tip the ball in or at least get the rebound but it's just slightly out of reach... HOWEVER I end up tipping it to our 6'4" awesome German post who grabs it and practically dunks it in to take the lead by 1 point with 5.5 seconds left!  Stomach knots getting no better, we buckle down on defense... their American gets a really good look from a pull-up jumper but it rattles out and we win!!!

End attempts at the free throw line: Wurzburg 26, Viernheim 12.  Complete shiza and biased reffing with stats to prove it.

With all adversity aside, we got the win!  And now I think we're getting the attention from the league who counted us out early.  Such a good feeling to be 3-0 (2-0) in conference... time to keep on rollin'!