Opening night of the Cornerstone Friendship league was filled with buzz, as players were eager to get on the court to showcase their talents. While everyone was meeting each other for the first time and running together, you can tell that the cohesiveness and chemistry wasn't quite there yet. Even for the scorekeepers and stat trackers, it was an endless sound of "rebound #3", "2 pointer missed by #8", and the occasional "who just scored? what just happened?". Ok, on to the recaps!
Team Grey- 52
Team Red- 43
This was a tale of 2 halves. In the 1st half, team red could do no wrong. Darryl "Smiley" Greene was driving to the hoop with ease and making short little jumpers. When he missed, he seemed to have a GPS system on the ball because he was getting offensive rebounds left and right. And he did all this while flashing that trademark smile. That's service with a smile! Just like Michael Jordan's tongue, you better watch out when he flashes those pearly whites because he's about to put a move on you. When Darryl wasn't grabbing the rebounds, Daniel Quach was grabbing the rebounds and putting it back in the bucket with his unusual shooting form. Is he left-handed or right-handed? We may never know...On the other side of the ball, Stan Chan and Hank Liu were keeping their team in the game but not getting much support from other people.
If the game was only 20 minutes long, team red would have won decisively. But the game is 40 minutes and in the 2nd half, team red wasn't able to keep up their offensive output while Stan and Hank were heating up and raining in jumpers. Team captain Octavio Jimenez game plan was pretty simple. Play Stan and Hank for 40 minutes and give them the green light. Assists come in bunches when you have these 2 guys with Kevin Mau leading the way with 5 to go along with 8 points. Team grey finally figured out how to grab rebounds as well when Hubert "Great Wall of China" Lim pushed people out of the paint and finished with 8 rebounds. So what did team red do when they needed points quickly? Turn to their team captain and super-sub Ryan Susanto. Heating up faster than a microwave, Ryan scored the team's final 10 points with relative ease. Makes you wonder if Ryan had been in the whole game, the outcome might have been different. But in the end, team grey prevailed over team red.
Stan finished with 18 points and Hank 13 points. Ryan and Daniel finished with 11 points each while Darryl had 12 rebounds.
Team Blue- 43
Team Orange- 37
I was only able to see the 1st half so look to Col-daddy's column for a recap of the entire game. On paper, this looked to be a one-sided contest based on my pre-season rankings, team orange #1 vs. team blue #5. But this just proves that any given Tuesday night, anyone can win. That's why you play the game. In the 1st half, team orange struggled from the outside settling for jumpers and 3-pointers (2/15 on 3-pointers) instead of using "Bruce Bryant" JJ and Jeff Chan down in the post. On the other side of the ball, Tim Ng and Dennis Hoang took turns going to the line, as they were being aggressive with the ball. The 1st half was still close with team captain Greg Wong keeping his team in the game by scoring 8 points. I'm not sure what happened in the 2nd half but Greg apparently didn't score in the 2nd half. Maybe it was the ringers that Col-daddy picked up during the week that shifted the balance of power. Maybe ringer #1 Donald Chew might have shut him down?!? Or maybe the stat person fell asleep? Whatever the case, team blue pulled off the upset over team orange.
Team Black- 44
Team White- 36
Old guys vs. fundamentals. 1st half didn't look pretty for team white. They struggled to score 11 points in the 1st half with Mel Reyes keeping them in the game with his post play and aggressiveness but still found themselves down 9 points at the half. Meanwhile Adam Lee and Erik Chan were giving their best Tony Parker/Tim Duncan impression with Adam's post play and hustle points along with Erik's drives to the bucket.
2nd half, team white showed more energy and hustle out there to climb back into it. Down by 15 points in the 2nd half with 10 minutes to go, Jon "No Soup for You!" Kwok started off things with a block on Oz "Webmaster" Orr that triggered a fast break. After another series of defensive stops, Albert "Soy Sauce" Tseng started making jumpers and taking it to the bucket. He finished the game with a team-high 12 points. The lead was cut down to 6 but team white would get no closer. Turnovers were the story for team white with team total of 20 that contributed to easy transition points for team black. Adam had 19 points to go along with 10 rebounds. Erik had 10 points and 4 steals while Brandon Cheung had 9 points and 3 steals.
Team captain Brian Chew was a mysterious DNP-CD (did not play- coach's decision). Maybe it should have really read DNP-WD (did not play- wife's decision).
Player of the week- Adam Lee: 19 points (7/12 2pts, 5/7
FTs, 10 rebounds, 3 steals)
Power Rankings (prior week rankings)
- Team Grey 1-0 (2)- Can anyone stop the dynamic duo?
- Team Black 1-0 (3)- Chemistry is not a problem for these guys.
- Team Blue 1-0 (5)- Surprise. Surprise.
- Team Orange 0-1 (1)- Outside shooting woes a concern
- Team Red 0-1 (4)- They can rebound but can they put it together for a full game
- Team White 0-1 (6)- It only goes up from here, right?
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