THE DREAM LEAGUE
Asian American / Open Basketball Leagues
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2006_Summer/Fall AAA (NYC) |
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Seoul Says...What Have You Done for Me Lately? | |
| (2) HKT vs. (4) Jurassic Park: It’s a month and a half later and the story between Jurassic Park and HKT still hasn’t been written. I know that I was out in the Hawaiian Islands on that particular day, so whoever still hasn’t done it, your timeliness as a journalist is atrocious. If we actually paid you anything, or if you brought this to work at a mag such as Men’s Health where you wrote your witty and insightful articles, you’d be fired. Without belaboring this point however, let’s get on with tonight’s match-up. While the elimination game between (2) HKT and (4) Jurassic Park looks good on paper, it, like the fact that the lack of their regular season game’s story not being written is atrocious, has the potential to become atrocious as well. If the playoffs are about what have you done for me lately and how a team is performing in its current state, Jurrassic Park is Kelly Clarkson to HKT's Britney Spears. In their last played games, Jurassic Park and HKT showed themselves to be diametric opposites in every aspect of the game.
Jurassic punished Bonzai by finally playing a sharp, spirited game in which they rule the boards like George ruled his kingdom. As they always should, they took no prisoners with Arif Ansari inside by dumping the ball into him and lettin’ him do his thang. Ansari ought to eat HKT post players alive tonight. Jurassic attacked the rack and shot 25 free throws. They didn’t shoot great from the floor – they rarely do – but they were scrappy on defense and energetic on offense. Mike Owh was even smiling and dancing, proving he wanted to be there. On the other hand, HKT suffered a 22-point blowout at the hands of the Cinderella Rage. It was ugly, it was foul, it was the kind of game in which a team may never recover from. If each game was a car on the season, this one was the jalopy in HKT’s fleet of Porsche’s, BMW’s, and Rolls Royces. They lost every statistical category and looked like a shell of their regular selves. It’s no secret that late in the season, HKT has fallen apart and it looks like now, when it matters the most, things are at the lowest it can go. I’m not certain where things went wrong, but the turning point was when they dropped an overtime game to the previously all-time winless 16 Minute Men. It’s like it was such an embarrassment being the first team ever to lose to them, that they’ve never recovered. The week after, they lost that game to Jurassic, and it was officially a slump. One area in which they’ve been deficient has been their collection of sinewy slashing forwards. Kevin Fong, Tony Lau, and Steve Lee are playing nowhere near where they were at the start of the season. Perhaps the grueling schedule has started to rub off on these rookies to the DL. They may not be used to the wear and tear, the road travel, the various game-days, the different gyms, the conditioning of other teams. It may be taking its toll. I’m not even going to bother guessing whether Swishy Rassiwalla will come or not. He’s more frustrating than a calculus problem. I’m not going to mention how important Henry Park or Owh are to the cause since they never read the AAA pages. Aside from Ansari inside, I’ve got my money on Vic Wu to bring it. All he’s done so far in the post-season is brought his hard hat and lunch pail to work each night and given his all. He’s as jacked up and enthused about playing as Cher is about singing. Admire the passion, it doesn’t exist in many. I used to love HKT. They were the League darlings. But, I’m sorry, the way they have been exposed recently, especially in the middle where they lack a true post-man, Sing Lau will have to score 39, drop 18 dimes, and swipe 15 steals in order for them to grab a win here. Jurassic has flaws too, many of them, but they responded after losing to Picked Last to get back on the right track last week. HKT has yet to show they can do that since they started their free fall. The ole’ guys soar again and will move on to face, potentially, their greatest fears next Wednesday (if Picked Last gets passed the Rage.) |
