THE DREAM LEAGUE
Asian American / Open Basketball Leagues
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2009_Winter/Spring AAA-Elite (NYC) |
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Swishes & Bricks 3.8-3.14 |
| The AI’s Ray Huang (TSIV-OS) – Usually when you are without the reigning scoring champ of the AAA for a game, you tend to worry. Not TSIV-OS. No Vegas Dave, no problem! In the highest scoring game of this young AAA-Elite season (a combined 138 points- what’s crazy is that the Suns dropped 154 on the Warriors on Sunday) Ray Ray led the way on the offensive end for TSIV-OS with 24 points on 10/13 shooting (3/5 on 3’s) with 4 boards, a dime and a steal in their 73 – 65 win over Bearcats. Kashem Miah (Bearcats) – Why he shut it down last year and didn’t play, I have no idea. I only know that had he played last year he might have challenged Vegas Dave and ZLiu for the scoring title. K.R.E.A.M (Kash Rules Everything Around Me) ruled the court with a scintillating 33 points on 11/24 shooting (a nice 8/11 from the charity stripe) to go along with 7 boards, 2 dimes and a steal in another close loss to start the season, this one to the veteran laden TSIV-OS squad. Big 3 (Runnin Rebels) – Could this Big 3 be the equivalent of the Boston Celtics in the AAA-Elite? That remains to be seen, but after this first game under the new Runnin Rebels moniker, they passed the first test with flying colors. Jumpin Jack doing his best Paul Pierce impersonation with 17 points on 5/15 shooting with 4 boards, a dime, a steal and a block; Willie P channelling his inner Jesus Shuttlesworth with a nice stroke en route to 16 points on 6/10 shooting with a board, a dime and 2 steals; Sean “The Big Asian Ticket” Zhang doing it all for the Rebels in every facets of the game with 18 points on 7/13 shooting to go along with 9 boards, a dime and 3 blocks in their 61 – 53 win over New Blood. Joe Yen (G5) – Mighty Joe Yen with an impressive opening season performance for G5 (can I expect to see some of them in the new G line series of commercials from Gatorade) tallying 19 points on 6/8 shooting (while shooting 3/4 from downtown) with 4 boards and 2 dimes in a close, 3 point loss to HKT. It’s a blessing that he decided to show up for the first game because if not, G5 would have only scored 17 points for the entire game. Rob Chanthavongsa (New Blood) – Wow, talk about déjà vu. It was the first game of the previous season that New Blood lost to these very Runnin Rebels, formerly known as the Scrappin Squirrels. Hopefully this isn’t an omen that their season will end up like last year with single elimination playoff status (or maybe they want it that way as they had a long deep playoff run). Black Robb with a vintage performance in the 8 point loss to the Runnin Rebels by leading the team in scoring with 17 points on 7/15 shooting to go along with 7 boards and 2 dimes. Rodmanesque’s Kevin Fong (HKT) – K-Fong (his ability to stay away from the young pop star and have 2 kids with her remains to be seen) was a 1 man wrecking crew for HKT. His size and penchant for rebounding was sorely missed in their first loss against TSIV-OS, but he showed why its imperative he shows up for every game. K-Fong was a beast on the boards grabbing 17 (consider this, his entire team grabbed just 1 more board COMBINED) to go along with his HKT leading 15 points on7/15 shooting with a dime, a steal and a block in the 39 – 36 win over G5. James Dai (Bearcats) – JDeezy laid a goose egg from the field (0 points on 0/6 shooting), but more than made up for it with hustle and nose for missed shots by snagging 10 boards in the 8 point loss to TSIV-OS. Grabbing 10 boards is a great feat in itself, but to do it against Double A and the large TSIV-OS frontline is pretty impressive. Walter Ho (New Blood) – The newest blood on the New Blood roster WHo made his presence felt on the boards? Walter sure did. After defecting from another expansion franchise just last year Thelonius Dunk, WHo showed why Thelonius Dunk will rue the day that they let him get away. Scored 6 points on 2/3 shooting with 11 boards and 5 dimes in their opening season loss to the Runnin Rebels. Big O’s Felix Shen, Arif Ansari, Andre Liu (TSIV-OS) – Like Jiggaman collaborating with Memphis Bleek and Beanie Siegel on More Money, More Cash, More (I will let you fill that last one in), these three combined to be a hit on the court. Felix the Cat (with apparently the 4th deepest tan in Dreamleague history, are we sure he hasn’t moved up since last week) with no points, but only took 1 shot, to go along with 2 boards, 8 dimes, and 3 steals, Double A tallying 11 points on 5/11 shooting with 7 boards, 3 dimes and 4 steals and The Co-Commish with 11 points on 4/6 shooting with 4 boards, 5 dimes and 3 steals. That gave them a slick 22 point, 13 board, 16 dime, 10 steal performance in the win over the Bearcats. I don’t care what anyone says- to get that kind of production out of 3 players is just bananas. Bombers Ray Huang (TSIV-OS) – Ray Ray showing the AAA-Elite a vintage Ray Allen circa UConn in the mid 90’s by nailing 3 of 5 from beyond the arc en route to 24 points on a very efficient 10/13 shooting clip with 4 boards, a dime and a steal in the win over the Bearcats. Can we have a midseason All-Star game like the NBA and have a 3 point shooting contest since the AAA-Elite has some cats that are just stroking it from long distance? Joe Yen (G5) – Might Joe not only leading his team in all major offensive categories for this game but he also scorched the nets from long distance by hitting 3 of 4 from beyond the arc on his way to 19 points on 6/8 shooting with 4 boards and a dime in the close, 3 point loss to HKT. Again, I shudder to think what would have the game looked like had he decided to get some Bonchon chicken. Mmmmm, Bonchon. The Glove’s Entire TSIV-OS team – Now this was a collective team defensive effort that would put a grin on Avery Johnson’s face. The team combined to intercept 12 passes en route to forcing 17 TO’s overall. Notice I said team defensive effort- individually they let K.R.E.A.M. torch em for 33 so that is an area they can improve on. Sean Zhang (Runnin Rebels) – The Big Asian Ticket showing why it’s an unwise decision to try coming into the paint to get a bucket or two. Swatted 3 shots to lead the block party for the Runnin Rebels to go along with his team leading 18 points on 7/13 shooting with 9 boards and a dime in their win over Gao and the New Blood. Erick Garantiel (G5) – Garantiel (could he be one of the G’s) receives an A on the defensive end in this low scoring loss to HKT with 3 block while also scoring 4 points on 2/5 shooting with a board and 3 dimes. Bricklayers James Dai (Bearcats) – Gets a double dip this week in the Swishes & Bricks column with his aforementioned great performance on the boards and his not so great performance on the offensive end of the court with 0 points on 0/6 shooting in the loss to TSIV – OS. Hanh Dang (G5) – Dang it! Laid the second goose egg of the week to join JDeezy in the Bricklayers secition. Like JDeezy, Dang got a 0 in the scoring column on 0/5 shooting (0/3 on 3’s), but did manage to grab 2 boards, with a dime and a steal in the 3 point loss to HKT. |