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This One's For You, G | | Yaletown makes all of Canada proud. Congrats on earning the chip! All-Dream League selections announced! As is an All-Star Evening review!
Yaletown yucked it up, didn’t they?
They sure did.
On Wednesday night, Yaletown took home the DL AL chip with another resounding 58-48 win over Moneyball in a game that was never really in doubt.
Getting out to a 13-5 start after one, Yale methodically moved out to a 20-point lead before eventually thwarting any hopes of a Money move to take this to a decisive one and done game on Thursday night.
 After claiming the chip, SMC & G run rampant through the streets of NYC as rioting and looting occurred. |
Just the way they wanted to go out.
After all, were they to have to play on Thursday, captain/coach/caretaker George Lai would have been out due to his farewell party from his office.
G-Lai, the brains behind all the Yaletown brawn (what exactly is Yaletown? That answer will come soon enough) recently decided to opt out of New York for a finance position in San Fran to be closer to his future wife who is in law school at Stanford and thus, with his imminent departure in early early June, before Wednesday’s game, the Yaletown team decided to dedicate themselves to playing the way they knew how and to dedicate the game – and the season – to G-Money (not Moneyball).
This was an email distributed to the team the night before the game that our inside source obtained for good money (not Moneyball):
With respect G,
This time I'm calling you out.
Take yourself back man. I've only known you since the Yale days, so that's as far as I can go with you. Before you became George Lai, the adult and future family man. To when you were just a kid who loved basketball way too much.
First thing after class, run to Payne. Play pick-up. With whoever was there. Find out there was a Taiwanese basketball team. Start running games with them. Which became start running games with "us" (the TAS 5 - Jimmy, you know). Which became recruiting any helpless freshmen who could shoot and "initiating" them to the ways of Canadian, East Asian, and Yale Asian basketball. (You met, hit on, and started dating Char) Which became midnight runs to KMart the night before AASA tournaments. Which became winning half the AASA tournaments we played in at Yale INCLUDING our final one (sorry Fred).
Then there was that 1 year interlude in Japan (and from the footage, I know for a fact, there was more basketball)
Then NYC. Runs at river place. You signed us up for Dream League. You gave us our team. Our name(s) (Dave - I know you appreciated this). You got engaged to Char. You GM'ed. You coached. You haven't played as much (trips to SF, foot injuries, foot injuries part 2, CFAs, and now, laryngitis). You never forgot who you were (welcome Canadian high school ballers Sung and Eden to NYC's Yale(town)). You see where this is going.
So G, even if it's just for a couple minutes. Let's turn back the clock.
I know you don't read my e-mails. So just read this:
Top 5 reasons that you will play Wednesday:
1) This, rightully, for all intents and purposes, should be your last game.
2) If G is out there, WE WILL ALL PLAY HARD
3) You will play hard, like it's your last game.
4) We will all play as if it was OUR last game.
5) Go out a champion.
Epilogue: (You go out to SF...start ibanking...get married....get fat...get kids...get old...reminisce about said championship '07).
And there you have it. The reason why Yaletown won.
And as you can deduce from this email, there was doubt as to whether G would even play in the chip match. A case of laryngitis had him bed-ridden for days, in and out of the ER, trying to rid himself of the most untimely illness.
Yale had owned Money this season, especially treating them on the boards like trash, but Money came out prepared with a game plan Wednesday and the rebounding margin was virtually nil, all things considered (when you are on the short end of by 51 rebounds in two games and then only come up short by 7 the next game, you’ve pretty much won.)
Their big guns came to play.
But Yale just refused to lose. They couldn’t. They couldn’t let G down.
From Fred Lee’s game opening two triples to the final horn, they played with passion, pride, and a purpose.
That purpose was George Lai.
G? Oh he played. He brought energy, coaching tips, two free throw swishes, and a momentum shifting buzzer beating runner at the end of the third.
It could have only been better if the runner was at the end of the game to win the whole thing.
As it was, it would do.
Congratulations gentlemen. Good luck, George.
 2007 DL AL CHAMPIONS - YALETOWN |
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