THE DREAM LEAGUE
Asian American / Open Basketball Leagues
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Gen X 76, A Ball 71 |
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Gen X Overcomes 18-Point Deficit, Wins Behind Chin's 33 | |
| Nausrudeen Drops 32 For A Ball | |
| March 4, 2009 – New York, NY (DL) – We see it all the time in the NBA. A team gets down 20 points in the first half, they chip away, come back, and by crunch time in the 4th, it's a nail-biter that no one will ever forget.
Well, one team does have to lose, and if it's the one who gave up the early big lead, trust that while they will work hard to forget it, they won't truly ever completely let it go. When you cough up a 20-point lead, that's called choking and choking is about as desirable as getting posterized on the underside of a dunk. A new look A Ball began this chapter of their history with a promising beginning, but only had it collapse on them in the end after opening up a 21-2 lead in the opening quarter. Good thing it was only their first game of the season. They have lots of time to get it right. It's not so much their offense, but their defense that was the problem in Gen X's monstrous come-from-behind 76-71 win on Wednesday. A Ball's new additions – Ray Mohammed and Jeff Moy – came out smokin' hot, making GM Jae Ha Hwang look like a genius for taking a gamble on the mercurial Mohammed and moustauchioed Moy who has spurned this team for others before in the past. Mohammed hammered in 12 points in the 21-2 blitz – 9 off them off 3's, while Moy muscled in 5. Gen X looked Gen Flat as they were 5 steps slow to anything. They clunked along with Brandon Chock and Jiang Yu sometimes battling for the same spot in the post and without Chris Chin scoring 5 points towards the end of the 1st, would have been blown out before halftime. As they started to settle and Mohammed started to cool, Gen X quickly strung together a 9-0 start to the 2nd making it a 14-0 run overall that got them back into the game in an instant. Sure, captain Sung-Mo Cho would have preferred for Gen X not to have fallen behind by 19 points, but as an actor by day, he does have a flair for the dramatic, so he took it upon himself to lead his team with 6 points in the 2nd while also feeding the post fluidly to either Chock or Yu for beefy buckets down low. But just when Gen X thought they'd be strapped to A Ball's jock entering intermission, Moy boy (12 pts, 4 stls) took feeds from Hwang and Mohammed (14 pts, 11 rbs, 6 assts, 4 stls in his debut) right before the half for a deuce and a trey to put A Ball up 32-23. Gen X trailed by 9, but, hey, it was better than 19. During halftime, it's believed that Gen X's Chin went over to A Ball's Usama Nausrudeen, who heretofore, had been relatively quiet, deferring to his cousin (Mohammed) instead of taking up on himself to go, and told him, “C'mon dude. Let's do this. Let's turn this into a one-on-one battle.” Okay, so maybe that didn't happen, but for all intents and purposes, it may as well have. For the next 18 minutes, while there was some Chock and Yu sprinkled in (big boys won't roll over quietly), these two all-star caliber guards showed the world just why they are that. Nausrudeen. Chin. It reminds you of those old Converse ads that said: Choose Your Weapon. A Ball was comfortably winning this game, but suddenly the game within the game took front and center. Chin dropped 4 3's and a jumper in the 3rd while Nausrudeen scored 10 on a pair of 3's and twos. With Chock and Cho pitching in confidently (if not quietly while Chris was working his sweet Chin music), Gen X threw together a 31-point 3rd quarter that had the scorekeeper, Joe Yen, flabbergasted that a team had scored that much and scrambling to triple check his math. Sure enough, Gen X went an astounding 10/12 in the quarter, and Chin's 4th and final triple of the quarter – at the buzzer no less while falling down – made it Gen X: 54, A Ball: 49. Unbelievable when it was 21-2, A Ball, just a couple quarters ago. Not to be outdone, Nausrudeen played off of Chin's cue and took his turn in the 4th. He started it with a 3, followed it with a sick 3-point play, and would finish the quarter with 18 points on 6/9 from the field with a perfect 4/4 from the arc. You'd think that would be good enough to put A Ball back on top, but with no one else on their team other than Mark Kiang hitting a field goal (told you everyone else may as well have not been there) and Chin still on fire – he was 2 of 2 from the floor and 4 of 4 from the line in the 4th, Gen X did just enough to keep staying ahead. Chock and Yu (12 pts, 8 rbs) chewed up A Ball's interior and it was 2 late dimes from Cho (11 pts, 6 rbs, 4 assts) to Chock (18 pts, 6 rbs) that essentially wrapped up the game. In the back half, Gen X went a wicked 18/24 from the floor. They shot 51% from the field and hit 17/21 free throws (A Ball only went to the line 5 times.) It usually matters none how bad you were in the 1st half, if you shoot 75% in the 2nd half, you've got a good shot to win. U-Naus? He had 32 points on 12/19 FG and 6/8 from 3. Chin? He finished with a game-high 33 on 9/19 from the floor and an ice-water in his veins 10/10 from the line (remember when he airballed a free throw in Gen X's first game?) Yea, Danny Han had a crazy stat-line of 10 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 steals for A Ball. Yes, Gen X won this game coming from way behind. But by the end, what we'll remember the most (A Ball will remember the choke) was the night U-Naus and Chin made sweet music together. |
Score by Quarters
| Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | OT | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Ball | 23 | 9 | 17 | 22 | - | 71 |
| Gen X | 9 | 14 | 31 | 22 | - | 76 |
Boxscore
| A Ball - 71 | |||||||||||
| Player | FG | 3PT | FT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | F | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chen, Andrew | DNP | ||||||||||
| Chin, Danny | 3 / 9 [0.333] | 1 / 6 [0.167] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 7 | |
| Han, Danny | 0 / 4 [0.000] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 10 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | |
| Hwang, Jae Ha | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | |
| Kiang, Mark | 3 / 7 [0.429] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 6 | |
| Mohammed, Ray | 4 / 11 [0.364] | 3 / 9 [0.333] | 3 / 3 [1.000] | 11 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 14 | |
| Moy, Jeff | 5 / 19 [0.263] | 2 / 9 [0.222] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 12 | |
| Nausrudeen, Usama | 12 / 19 [0.632] | 6 / 8 [0.750] | 2 / 2 [1.000] | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 32 | |
| Park, James | DNP | ||||||||||
| So, Andy | DNP | ||||||||||
| 27 / 69 [0.391] | 12 / 34 [0.353] | 5 / 5 [1.000] | 36 | 16 | 12 | 3 | 10 | 19 | 71 | ||
| Gen X - 76 | |||||||||||
| Player | FG | 3PT | FT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | F | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chin, Chris | 9 / 19 [0.474] | 5 / 12 [0.417] | 10 / 10 [1.000] | 4 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 33 | |
| Cho, Sung-Mo | 4 / 9 [0.444] | 2 / 4 [0.500] | 1 / 4 [0.250] | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 11 | |
| Chock, Brandon | 7 / 11 [0.636] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 4 / 4 [1.000] | 6 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 18 | |
| Chu, Howard | DNP | ||||||||||
| Gao, Nick | DNP | ||||||||||
| Hsiao, Danny | 1 / 3 [0.333] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jhaveri, Nihar | DNP | ||||||||||
| Lew, Wilson | DNP | ||||||||||
| Liu, DJ | DNP | ||||||||||
| Nakamura, Junji | DNP | ||||||||||
| Schopen, Robert | DNP | ||||||||||
| Shen, Felix | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Shum, Vincent | DNP | ||||||||||
| Van, Wayne | DNP | ||||||||||
| Wang, Danny | DNP | ||||||||||
| Yen, Joe | DNP | ||||||||||
| Yu, Jiang | 5 / 9 [0.556] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 2 / 3 [0.667] | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 12 | |
| 26 / 51 [0.510] | 7 / 17 [0.412] | 17 / 21 [0.810] | 26 | 15 | 4 | 2 | 13 | 7 | 76 | ||
Referees
| Owen Fox: | Rate Me |
| Winston Howarton: | Rate Me |