Week 2 Recap

 

Welcome back fans to our weekly recap of what’s new, what’s hot and what’s not in our beloved CEBCFL (Cornerstone Evangelical Baptist Church Friendship League). Each and every week there will be expert analysis and commentary on the games in the league by Janny Who and some other dude. It was a sizzling night with plenty to talk about, so let’s get crackin.

 

Purple vs. Turquoise

 

Both teams came into this game having lost week 1 and were hungry to get their first win of the season. Greg Beast Wong (chinese name on passport: Wong Beast) had a dominating performance in week 1’s game with a double double (21-10), 80% field goal percentage and a bunch of other goodies. Turquoise came into this game knowing they had to find a way to stop Wong Beast and company. Could they do it?

 

The game started off slow, with both teams trading point for point until Jesse Automatic-not Manuel (team Turquoise) kicked it up a notch by grabbing rebounds, shooting put backs and attacking the hoop. The surge of offense helped give a slight cushion of 12 to 9 before Wong Beast checked in. Purple applied the pressure by attacking the bucket with David Miers leading the way and being aggressive and crafty which earned him trips to the line. Armando “I Live for the Highlight Reel” Perez was up to his usual self, scoring points, grabbing boards and looking good. Then there was Jeffrey Thai racking up some points with his fastest draw in the west jump shot. At the end of the half it was 24-22 with team Turquoise ahead.

 

Even though team Turquoise was ahead by 2 points at the half, they were well aware that it wasn’t enough to win against team Purple. Team Turquoise came out of the gate in the second half guns blazing with solid contributions from a multitude of players. Raymond Loi deployed an array of offensive weapons (worthy of approval by renown weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin) with jumpers and fade aways falling from all directions. Tig was 50% from the 3pt line, making 2 of 4, which further helped to open the lead.  Brandon Moon was playing hard and contributed 7 pts.

 

Closing in on the final 2 minutes of the match, team Turquoise had a 9 pt lead and it was theirs to lose. A couple of silly turnovers or mental errors could easily have cost them the match. It came down to shooting free throws for team Turquoise to hold on for victory. It was a nerve wracking ending for team Turquoise since there was a free throw dry spell, which opened a window for purple to swoop in from behind. However, team Turquoise was able to hold on for the win 43-33.

 

Red vs. White

 

This was one of the epic battles of the night. Red had shown in week 1 that they are able to share the ball and score as a team, which can be quite a headache to handle. On top of that they seem to gain extra energy when their team captain Ethan Chan gets them to shout out all sorts of things that have nothing to do with basketball when they come out of a team huddle.

 

Right from the get go, the Red team came out with all cylinders firing. The red team was able to build a 9 point lead with the score being 13-22 near the end of the first half.

 

The action picked up in the second half as the point deficit must have helped to fuel the White teams’ fire. They picked up the intensity on both defense and offense going on a 10-2 run to bring the score to 23-24 (White-Red) with 16:27 to play. Jeffery Hua and Clauren Wong made quite the offensive pair as Jeff made the beautiful passes and Clauren finished. Other players on the white team with notable contributions are Timmoney Ng affectionately known as Sweet Money (13pts, 5 stls), Clauren Wong (11pts) and Khanh Nguyen (7 reb). People on the White team need to give Eugene Tse and Jason Buqeileh (both with 1/1 100% FG percentage) more shots so they can prove that their stat is no fluke.

 

With 9:15 to play, the score was tied at 34 a piece. However the crouching tiger not so hidden dragon otherwise known as baySlyy on Xbox Live, Sylvester Chiu was only just heating up. He finished up the match with 18 points, shooting 5 for 7, 8 rebounds and bunch of other goodies. Cameron Lew put in a sweet 10 pts to be added to contributions from Jon Trooper (8 pts), Nick Ly (6 pts) and Ethan Chan (6pts).

 

With 2 minutes left to play Sweet Money aka Timmoney ices 2 free throws to tie the game. In the end, the White team played hard but could not hold off the Red team. The Red team made their free throws and came out on top with a 48-41 victory.

 

Green vs. Black

 

This game was the nail bitter of the night. How could it not be? It started with the league’s first technical foul on Green team’s Josh Tobin for forgetting his league t-shirt. However, the effort was appreciated Josh with your sweet looking 6 made of masking tape.

 

It was a slow start for Black as they were having some trouble handling the ball with a couple of early turnovers. On the contrary, Calvin Lee (from the Green team) got off to a good start. He got some early buckets and converted a “and 1” play. However, it turns out that Calvin wouldn’t be the only one, as there would be a handful more “and 1” plays for the highlight reel from Eugene Moy, Colman Chung and Jeff Chan.

 

The Black team eventually warmed up by the 13 minute mark and were able to pick up the pace with some fast breaks in transition. The black team had three players scoring in the double digits:  Colman Chung (12pts), Stanley Wong (11pts) and Chris Leong (10pts). Colman was everywhere tonight getting himself a sweet 5 steals (making up for his 4 turnovers) and 3 assists. Alan Lin wasn’t scoring as much this game compared to last but he was still working hard by grabbing himself 8 rebounds.

 

The second half started off with a beautiful reversal by Brandon Nasu. Brandon Nasu’s layup has nothing to do with the rest of this paragraph, but it was sweet and I had to put it in. With 17 minutes to play, the Black team had their first lead of 29-30. The Black team would go on to score a couple more buckets to be up 29-34. However the Green team’s defense picked up and the Black team suddenly found themselves rushing and turning the ball over. Colman, being the veteran calls a timeout to let his team regroup.

 

The Green team was up 41-36 as the time approached the final minute, but Stanley Wong wasn’t willing to go down without a fight and got a steal and the bucket to bring the score to 41-38 with 1:09 to play. With 45.5, once again it was Stanley who picked up a loose ball fumbled by Green and converted to be within 1 point (41-40). You could tell there was definitely a momentum shift even though the Green team was still up by 1 with 15 seconds remaining. With the final seconds going down, the Black team gets yet another steal by Stanley. Chris Leong does not hesitate and goes coast to coast with the game winning layup. The Black team comes from behind to win it 42-41! The Black team ended the game with 11 team steals to Green team’s 7.

 

From the Green team, Jeff Chan had himself a great game (10 pts, 5 rebs, 3 asts, 3 stls). As did Erick Chan (60% FG, 10 pts, 5 rebs, 1 ast,1 stl) and Josh Tobin (7 pts, 3 rebs, 2 asts).