| 2/22/09 Recap |
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| Monday, 23 February 2009 | |
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MKA v Desert Eagles
The first game of the day was an important one for MKA as with a win in this game and Hitmen matched up against a hot Basketballers team, MKA had a chance to move into the last playoff spot in the West. Desert Eagles came with a bit more depth than in weeks past (welcoming back PJ Bains from his paternal leave aka "my wife won't me out." ) as they look to play the role of spoiler down the stretch. The game however was as expected. It started out close with Walid creating some good opportunties for his teamates near the basket and MKA draining jump shots on the other end. Midway through the first half though, MKA began to pull away with solid play on both ends and never looked back. Rahul and Farhan non-Hani Ahmad provided the usual three point barrage combinging for 11 three pointers. Maybe not coincidentally, Khurram utilizing his hot shooters had yet again a double digit assist total dropping 11 dimes to go along with his 11 points. Khashif also chipped in 11 points to round out 4 guys in double digits. HUMANS v Dynasty The red-hot Dynasty coming off a great game against the Basketballers 2 weeks ago and their record setting 120 point performance last week, faced the season's overall hottest team, the HUMANS who were winners of their last 10. It ended up being a battle of inconsistency vs consistency and not surprisingly the latter of the two won. The HUMANS came out blazing as Muneeb and Mohammed abused the Dynasty man-to-man defense and Mahdi had one of the best defensive halfs of the season getting 4 monstrous blocks on anyone coming down the lane within the first several minutes of the game. This helped HUMANS build a 20 point lead half way through the first half. Dynasty however stayed poised, made some key defensive adjustments, and capitalized as Muneeb and Mohammed took a rest and continued to attack Mahdi to get him into foul trouble. They slowly chipped away into the lead ending the half down 48-41 but snatched all the momentum away. As the trio of Tim "the tall man" Crane, Sejdo, and Angel kept at it in the second half, no one from the HUMANS provided a counter punch as they only scored 24 points in the second half while the balanced attack of Dynasty dropped another 41 points in the second frame. Great job by the HUMANS holding a red-hot Tim Crane to a relatively low 10 points and 11 rebounds but Sejdo and Angel lit it up for a combined 51 points. Muneeb contributed 29 in a losing effort. Basketballers vs Hitmen Hitmen, coming off a classic SABL performance against Dynasty, were looking to hold on to their playoff position. MKA-NY had won their matchup earlier in the day against Desert Eagles, and a loss against the Ballers would drop them in to the fifth spot in the Western conference. The game started off extremely Baller-sided, as they jumped out to a 16 point advantage lead by Sajeel and his three point shooting. Towards the end of the first half, Hitmen played very tough defense and closed out on the three-point line, preventing the Ballers from scoring for a span of 7 minutes where they remained at the 44 point mark until half-time. The second half was extremely close, as both teams exchanged basket after basket. Hitmen, lead by Triggy, and the sharp shooting of Harpreet, kept the game tied as they survived several scoring surges from the Ballers. Hitmen stayed within striking distance the whole way but failed to capitalize on it in the final seconds on several possessions with a chance to tie including a Paul Ravens 3 point attempt during which he was fouled by Usman sent to the line with a chance to tie the game but converted only 1 of 3. In the end, it came down to the Ballers defensive execution which prevented Maaz or Triggy from hitting the tying basket to send it to overtime. Ravens vs Assassins Game started off very sloppy with deflections, turnovers, and forced shots. Ravens eventually settled in with Joe V. back running point and took a commanding lead with good passes and movement without the ball. Assassins didn't seem to get the memo that this was a 5 on 5 basketball game as they constantly went 1 vs. 5 unsuccessfully. It didn't help of course that Ravens were physically far superior in cleaning up the boards and had plenty of depth on the bench. This loss combined with the Strong Island win puts the Assassins 4 games behind them for the last playoff spot and there are only 4 games left to play. With Strong Island holding the point differential tie-breaker, the Assassins are mathematically eliminated from the playoff picture. Titans vs SWAT This highly anticipated rematch ended via a forfeit in favor of SWAT as Titans did not have enough players to continue midway through the second half. Until that point it was a close game as expected with SWAT holding a slight lead. Panthers vs Strong Island This was the game that Ravens and Assassins were looking forward to more than anyone else. You had Strong Island team reeling from injuries coming off a loss to the last team in their division, now having to face the #1 team in the East, the red-hot Panthers who were winners of their last 4. Strong Island already missing Mark Pollard who is done for the season, was also short Simran Lamba who had been playing very well since his return from injury. They did however have Richard Reyes back to face a Panthers team close to full strength. Both teams played solid throughout with no long scoring drought either way but early on the surprise player was Karan the Klown Chawla stepping in huge in Lamba's absence grabbing offensive rebound after rebound. Richard Reyes also made his presence felt dropping another double/double with 11 points and 11 boards. Panthers played very ball in the half court and the fast break with Jasjit as usual finishing with 2 points after nearly every pass given to him around the basket. The difference in their offense was several crucial missed layups. Ditar got to the basket at will but was just slightly off all night once near the rim. He did however contribute 10 assists. The Panther bigs also missed a few gimme layups on putback attempts. The star of the night however was Shaun of SI who dropped another 20+ point game to go along with his 3 assists, 3 rebounds, and 3 steals. He also contributed a great defensive stand causing the Panthers guard to lose the ball for a backcourt violation during a one possession game within the last minute. With seconds to go and the game already iced, a Strong Island player decided to shoot a 3 just before the buzzer and made the shot. Captain Neil immediately walked over to apologize to the scorer's table, refs, and most importantly all of the Panthers. The player who hit the shot quickly followed suit as well. On a night where SABL has seen better times in terms of poor sportsmanship, the night ended on a "Strong" note (pun intended) thanks to the heady thinking of captain Neil Ramani. |
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