Spring 2011: B2 League Champs: Cha-Ching

FOT - Cha-Ching claims East Title
Cha-Ching 60 Super JaMario 52

Half of the B2 Unification 4v4 is set! Last night Cha-Ching clinced the East\'s bid to rep the league against the rest of the B2 Champs.  They\'ll take on the South (and defending B2 Uni Champ) Wheels of Steel, at date still TBD.  But we\'ll figure that out later, you want to read about the game don\'t you?

Since it was the East Finals, it was no surprise that fans came out in groves to watch the game.  Each team had a fan (hi Ash!), while the league MVP took time out of his clearly busy schedule to take in the action. That\'s the kind of support I like to see for his league-mates!  Rory and Roberts were both doing the scouting for Wheels of Steel.  All in all in made for a quasi-crowded balcony, which is usually more than I can say for the last game in a night.

Everyone\'s nerves were on display.  Super JaMario started the game 0-7 from downtown while Ryan took a while to get going.  Super J has been streaky all season long, but I didn\'t really expect them to have a tough time in this game, with the season\'s work on the line.  

As I stated earlier in the day, Cha-Ching would need Sydorko to play in order to have a chance in this one.  Mike hasn\'t played since week 5 when he got hurt, but he had enough games played to qualify for the playoff roster.  Apparently the 7 weeks off treated him pretty well. He scored a quick 7 points, flashed the 3 point range that he showed earlier in the season. I wouldn\'t have been more inspired if Willis Reed had limped onto the court.  Hell of an effort and kept Cha-Ching\'s offense going early.

Another man who knows all about limping, Brian Barrett, got himself off to a hot start as well.  Sure he didn\'t hit a 3 this week, but he hit a couple early buckets and was tearing down every rebound.  Super J needed a big game from him and the start was promising, unlike that of He Who Shall Not Be Named.  I\'m not going to say His name again, until there\'s some playoff winning for Super J.  The all-time leader in B2 PR started slowly and ended even slower. I was surprised he was still upright at the end of the game. Four seasons of great stats and records for the franchise, but not a single B2 East title to show for it! 

Credit has to go out to DTree, who has drawn the toughest defensive assignments in these playoffs and repeatedly steped up to the plate. A week after chasing BMul around for 40 minutes, he had to do it again this week against an arguably better offensive player, Josh Barrett.  JB got off to a slow start (when the halftime score is 30-29 not everyone is going to fill-up the statsheet) and a lot of the credit goes out to Troiano for that. I wonder if he\'s going to draw the thankless duty of guarding Tristan next week for the Wheels of Steel.  All in another night\'s work for DTree.

But like Ryan, Josh wasn\'t going to be kept down all game long.  Both guys got into their grooves as the first half wound down.  Ryan used his Dirk-esque off-foot fade away, while Josh went around 3 screens before finally springing free to hit long 2s and longer 3s.  

As expected, Terry warned both benches at halftime to clean it up, he was putting up with no shenanigans! Maybe that\'s why Matty benched himself for the rest of the game? He didn\'t want to cost his team any points!

For a team that, at least internally, prides itself on defense, it was pretty surprising that Super J didn\'t get their first steal of the game until there were 9 minutes left in the game. As he did all game long, Josh had to do everything himself, nab the steal and take it coast to coast for Super J.  

Cha-Ching was unfazed. AJ stepped his game up.  Didn\'t matter how many times Super J knocked him down, AJ got up and played better despite the hard hits.  He turned up the D, went to the hoop harder adn started going to the free throw line.  All looked lost when Cha-Ching built their lead all the way to 4 points (10% of the scoring!) wiht 5 minutes to go.

With JB, though, a team is never out of it. In 20 seconds Josh scored 5 quick points to tighten the game right back up.  It was the beginning of a silly stretch for Josh as he nailed a couple 3s and long 2s like in the first half.  Every time down the floor, if they didn\'t get the ball to Josh they weren\'t scoring (he had 17 of their 23 points after halftime).

With a minute left, Super J just had to keep killing the clock since they were up 2.  They did that the previous 2 minutes, so what was one more? Unfortunately, AJ had different ideas, broke up a pass and tied the game at 52.  No one would be able to score before the end of regulation, and we were headed to overtime! Really it\'s only fitting that this Finals game went to OT.

Isn\'t that how Super J lost the East last season too??

The stat that tells nearly the entire story is the free throw shooting.  Cha-Ching was 8 for 9 in regulation, while Super J was 7 for 14.  I thought they were a better free throw shooting team than that, and in fact hit 63% of their attempts from the charity stripe up until this game.  I\'m no math genius, but the difference of 2 free throws (7-14 vs 9-14) would have given Super J the win in regulation.

In OT, Super J had a couple great looks, but couldn\'t get anything to fall.  With a minute to go, we were still tied at 52!  Ryan, though he struggled with the 3 ball all night, never loses confidence.  He got free one too many times and drilled a wide open 3 ball to spark an 8-0 run to end the game and move onto the B2 Unification Final Four! 

Scores, Box Scores & Write-Ups

Playoff: week 12

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B2 East S11 Basketball League