Just when I thought I had seen it all, I arrived to the game last night expecting that we would be prepared to face one of the better teams in our league. What I got was D.T. and I chatting it up for ten minutes realizing that nobody else was in the building. No G.C, No A.H. not even James our newest player was anywhere to be found. I know B.A. was busy at home enjoying the Redskins and Colt Brennan leading the Skins to a comeback PRE-SEASON win and M.D. was probably running suicides in the parking lot or jogging from his house to the game to warm-up. Finally, J.D. was busy working hard in hopes of getting out on time. So there we were the two of us, warming up watching the clock slowly tick down when all of the sudden B.A. rolled in, weary and blurry eyed, then M.D. with his canvas bag full of jellybeans and his gear. The 4 of us took the court hoping that the beating would be painless and quick since it was late and all and we really did not want to be a part of the slaughter that was to come.
Except, something happened and there would be no beatdown. Starting the game 4 against 5 is never fun, especially since the other team featured some very athletic players and they decided that they would trap whomever had the ball. Brilliant plan obviously and they forced us into a couple mistakes early on but we did enough to hang close for the first 4 minutes when J.D. sauntered into the arena. Down 10-5 at that point we were in an early hole (as usual) and we had a lot of work ahead of us if we were going to get back into this game.
Facing a team that had beaten "Team Rock" by nearly 20, that is right the same "Team Rock" that handed us our first loss of the season last week, they were primed for taking us out and earning sole possession of second place. I recognized their point guard from back in the early days of our program, he was very good and I knew he would be a handful. Combine that with a long big man and a thick big man who had a nice touch from the outside and a couple uber athletic guards and swingmen we were going to struggle to put up any consistent offense. Somehow we managed to hang around enough to tie the score and eventually take a 3 point lead going into the second half.
The five of us were certainly tired and we used every timeout made available to us to catch our breath and to their credit, the "Beltway Ballers" were offensively running like a machine. They were able to pretty much get any shot they wanted against our soft zone. The point guard I mentioned a bit earlier must have hit 6 or 7 triples alone, not to mention another 5 or 6 by various other teammates. We scratched and clawed our way to baskets. B.A. was agressive, the most agressive in fact he has been all season and it paid off big dividends for us. He got to the rack at ease and even looked like he was starting to get his touch back from the outside too burying a couple trifectas. D.T. looked like vintage D.T. canning a half dozen threes of his own from all parts of the floor. Before I could look up there were a couple minutes left in th egame and we were up 5. A few poor turnovers later on our part, including a couple bad ones by me it was super tight down to only a 2 point lead with the enemies on the free throw line and 20 seconds to go. The plan was to call a timeout if he made both and hold the ball for the final shot.
At this point they were pressing us man to man as soon as the ball was inbounded so we knew it would be a tough task to get it done. I was fearing the worst and when they made the front end of the two shots I knew we were headed for a tie game. Everyone was holding out hope that he would miss the second shot somehow and we could secure the rebound and get out of there with a win. I knew I was tired and I could see the rest of the guys were down to reserves in the tank as well. Second shot went up and he missed it!! The guy who talked the most and complained the most all night missed it and J.D. got the rebound and was fouled immediately. He calmly sank a couple of free throws giving us our 3 point lead back with a little less than 20 seconds to go. Down they came looking to tie with one shot and the guy who had killed us all game long missed a three from at least 3 feet behind the arc. The rebound came loose off a couple sets of hands and I tried to bat it further up court after realizing I could not grab it. Deja then batted it further and then managed to secure the ball and toss it ahead to M.D. for the easy lay-up as time expired. A 5 point victory for the team that came out fallter than a month old soda last week. The core group of guys who have been through the battles together before got it done against a really good team.
Everything went according to plan.....up next week a rematch vs. our number one rival "Dynasty"
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