THE DREAM LEAGUE
Asian American / Open Basketball Leagues
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Bearmen 2.0 65, NYC Gritty Committee 63 |
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B-Men Bear Down to Beat #1 Seed | |
| Gritty Goes to Loser's Bracket | |
| January 6, 2010 – New York , NY (DL) – This is what playoff basketball is all about. Getting the new year, the new decade, started off on the right foot, the Bearmen and the NYC Gritty Committee met on Wednesday night after a break in the action for a couple of weeks and demonstrated that a holiday layoff didn’t mean that they’d gotten fat from sitting around the fire. Quite the opposite.
As if Santa came and delivered both teams the gift of playing in an excellent game, the B-Men and Gritty teamed to deliver us what has to be so far considered the best game of the post-season. Of course, one team had to win and one team had to lose, so in the end, one team felt as if they had coal stuffed down their stocking. That team would be the #1 seeded Gritty Committee as the #4 B-Men had a little more bounce to the ounce and surprised the AAA’s regular season champs essentially at the wire, 65-63. In the opening half, it seemed that Gritty would have the edge as they used their size advantage to open up a lead while the B-Men kept their own Kash on ice. While Vic Chia and Bada Hong had their way inside (10 and 8 in the 1st half respectively), the B-Men seemingly forgot they had the most dangerous shooter in the AAA on their team. Kash Miah barely made a peep in the 1st half (of course, the Gritty’s focused D on not giving him anything had a lot to do with it), and they were lucky to wind up keeping things close as 7 2nd quarter Mike Chin (17 pts, 4 rbs) points and a Eugene Truong triple cut the halftime deficit to just 27-25. Mere moments before that, a 9-1 Gritty run had gave the #1 seed a 21-11 lead. In the 3rd, fed up with the tight D, Miah simply took matters into his own hands and lit up like an outlaw cigarette smoker in an NYC bar: to heck with what the law says, I’m smoking! Miah connected on 3 deep 3’s (one resulted in a 4-point play) that kept forcing Gritty to stretch their defense that would bode well for the B-Men in the 4th. Wilson Lew (11 pts) also dropped a triple and the team’s 25 point blitz in the frame was lovely, but Gritty gutted out their own highlight reel worthy period with 21 points – 8 by Hong and 7 from Kwon Lim. Everyone on Gritty’s team was playing their role to perfection and more than one sidelines observer said something to the effect of, “I love how this group is playing team ball.” The passing was infectious, however, the fouls were not. John Park, who was the lynchpin in the Gritty passing attack – he finished with 10 dimes – was hampered with 5 fouls by the 3rd period and this, along with Miah’s many shots, set up a 4th quarter that ever so favored the B-Men by the end. With the threat of Miah hitting a 30 footer, and with Park (and suddenly Hong too, who picked up his 5th in the 4th) concerned about fouling out, Gritty’s had to play on their heels a little bit, and that gave the B-Men the opening they needed to pull it out. Miah’s range stretched the Gritty D and thus, Ricky Vein took advantage, scoring 6 points in the paint in the 4th (having Hong on the bench with fouls helped too.) The teams exchanged baskets, and leads, for the final minutes of the game after Park fouled out at the 4:12 mark. A Jiwon Kim jumper gave Gritty the lead, but a Ricky rack move would give it back to the B-Men. Lim (17 pts, 5 rbs) caught an airballed 3 and laid it in softly with 6.6 seconds remaining to put Gritty ahead, 63-61, but after a timeout, a well-designed play resulted in Miah, who finished with a game high 23, getting an and 1 off the inbounds to give the B-Men a 64-63 lead that would prove to be the game winner. Gritty, who got double doubles from Chia (15/14) and Hong (20/13), drops to the loser’s bracket unexpectedly and must work their way out of the muck to re-enter the championship circle. Don’t count them out. They weren’t the AAA’s best team this season for nothing. The B-Men, with the win, advance to the semifinals to face TSIVOS, who would win the game after them to advance themselves, this Sunday. That game can’t be any better or crazier than the one we had tonight. Could it? |
Score by Quarters
| Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | OT | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NYC Gritty Committee | 12 | 15 | 21 | 15 | - | 63 |
| Bearmen 2.0 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 15 | - | 65 |
Boxscore
| NYC Gritty Committee - 63 | |||||||||||
| Player | FG | 3PT | FT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | F | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chia, Victor | 6 / 15 [0.400] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 3 / 6 [0.500] | 14 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 15 | |
| Chun, Patrick | DNP | ||||||||||
| Hong, Bada | 8 / 14 [0.571] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 4 / 10 [0.400] | 13 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 20 | |
| Kim, Dave | DNP | ||||||||||
| Kim, Jiwon | 2 / 4 [0.500] | 1 / 1 [1.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |
| Lee, Kyu | 0 / 8 [0.000] | 0 / 6 [0.000] | 2 / 4 [0.500] | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | |
| Lim, Kwon | 7 / 18 [0.389] | 0 / 2 [0.000] | 3 / 3 [1.000] | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 17 | |
| Park, Austen | DNP | ||||||||||
| Park, John | 1 / 6 [0.167] | 1 / 5 [0.200] | 1 / 2 [0.500] | 6 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 4 | |
| Van, Kenneth | DNP | ||||||||||
| 24 / 65 [0.369] | 2 / 15 [0.133] | 13 / 25 [0.520] | 47 | 16 | 6 | 0 | 21 | 27 | 63 | ||
| Bearmen 2.0 - 65 | |||||||||||
| Player | FG | 3PT | FT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | F | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ?, Justin | DNP | ||||||||||
| ?, Kevin | DNP | ||||||||||
| Chew, Irving | DNP | ||||||||||
| Chin, Danny | 0 / 6 [0.000] | 0 / 2 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 0 | |
| Chin, Mike | 5 / 11 [0.455] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 7 / 11 [0.636] | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 17 | |
| Dumadag, Neil | DNP | ||||||||||
| Fung, Michael | DNP | ||||||||||
| Lew, Willie | 4 / 10 [0.400] | 3 / 9 [0.333] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 11 | |
| Liu, Dennis | DNP | ||||||||||
| Mak, Kalee | DNP | ||||||||||
| Miah, Kashem | 6 / 11 [0.545] | 3 / 6 [0.500] | 8 / 11 [0.727] | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 23 | |
| Shaw, Damien | DNP | ||||||||||
| Truong, Eugene | 1 / 4 [0.250] | 1 / 2 [0.500] | 2 / 6 [0.333] | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 5 | |
| Vien, Ricky | 4 / 9 [0.444] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 1 / 3 [0.333] | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 9 | |
| 20 / 51 [0.392] | 7 / 20 [0.350] | 18 / 31 [0.581] | 21 | 8 | 10 | 2 | 15 | 18 | 65 | ||
Referees
| Reginald Gardner: | Rate Me |
| Bobbie Lewis: | Rate Me |