THE DREAM LEAGUE
Asian American / Open Basketball Leagues
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Spartans 62, RL Cruisers 56 |
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Slappers Slip by Cruisers Late, Drop Cruisers to 0-2 |
| August 9, 2007 – New York, NY (DL) – Yes, it looks weird. Yes, it looks really weird. The Cruisers are now sitting at 0-2 after a 62-56 loss to the Slappers Thursday night at Baruch Coliseum. For the first time in probably forever, the Cruisers are looking up at everybody in the standings, and doing so without a win two games into the season. Yes, there is plenty of basketball left to be played as the season is still young for them, but damned if it still isn’t strange. Well, let’s take it back too. In their season opening loss to the renovated Tri-State InvAsian, George Chan was a no-show. In this latest loss, Tony Hu was relegated to sideline cheerleading duties after recently sustaining a reinjury to his shoulder that will have him sidelined anywhere from one to two months. What that means, in case you’re denser than San Francisco fog, is that never have the twin towers shared the court this season and so if you want to look at any reason as to why they are still winless, look no further. Now, this is not to discount just how good TSIV is now after adding the Clemente brothers, and it certainly is not to discount the way in which the Slappers came back to take this one from the Cruisers after trailing every single second of the game throughout three quarters. Despite having Hu hampered, with Howie Chu doing his best T-Hu impression, the Cruisers led early, led big, and led all the way, that is, until the tank started emptying in the 4th, disaster struck, and the Slappers slid away with a run, momentum, and the game in the final 3 minutes. Before the Slappers had all their laces tied, they were trailing 6-0 after Danny Chin popped a three and Chu laid one home. Stan Yeung got hot for a minute and scored 6 straight alone and then Chu got a feed from Leon Chu (prompting Hu to shout from the sidelines, “That’s the brotha-to-brotha connection!), putting the Cruisers up 14-6 and in control. Yeung (11 pts, 2 stls) hit another three and pushed the tempo in the 2nd, and although Eddie Wang scored 9 (of his 12) in the frame for the Slappers, the Cruisers opened up a lead as large as 10 before settling into the half with a 30-23 advantage. Chin (10 pts) came out of the break and deposited another triple to put his team up double digits again, but from then on, the Slappers started slipping back into the game. A large reason started on the defensive end as they made life miserable for Chan, who looked rusty in his season debut. Swarmed by two and sometimes three defenders, Chan dealt a dastardly 3/12 showing and the Slappers negated any second chance points with good rebounding as they won the battle 30-22 against a team that normally NEVER gets outboarded. Joe Kim and James Choi, part of the Slappers' lethal backcourt blazed to a trio of baskets between them and while the Cruisers struggled to find the range, Mark Lee ended the 3rd with a three-point play that, as it turned out, set the Slappers on their way. Dave Ha (7 pts, 6 rbs) tapped in a miss to time the game for the first tie as the 4th began and his jumper soon thereafter gave the Slappers their first lead. Matters would move back and forth for awhile as both teams exchanged buckets, but the trend finally broke when Kim (12 pts, 4 rbs) scored twice in a row and then Ha worked the offensive glass impressively to get a putback that sent the Slappers screaming and put them up 52-46, sucking the life out of the Cruisers. As the Cruisers came up empty, James Chung and Lee scored again to give the Slappers a 12-1 run in crunch time that sealed the deal despite a late onslaught by CB Liu (11 pts) who scored 7 points in the final minute of the game, never saying die. The Slappers shut down Chu in the 2nd half (only 6 of his 15 then), they’d contained Chan, and they got ample contributions evenly from everyone as every player scored at least 4. They trailed the entire game until the 4th, but so long as you save the best for last, it doesn’t matter how you win. And it doesn’t matter how, the Cruisers are 0-2. Weird. |
Score by Quarters
| Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | OT | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RL Cruisers | 14 | 16 | 9 | 17 | - | 56 |
| Spartans | 6 | 17 | 14 | 25 | - | 62 |
Boxscore
| RL Cruisers - 56 | |||||||||||
| Player | FG | 3PT | FT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | F | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chan, George | 3 / 12 [0.250] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 1 / 4 [0.250] | 7 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 7 | |
| Cheng, David | DNP | ||||||||||
| Chin, Danny | 3 / 4 [0.750] | 3 / 3 [1.000] | 1 / 2 [0.500] | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 10 | |
| Chu, Howard | 6 / 7 [0.857] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 3 / 10 [0.300] | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 15 | |
| Chu, Leon | 0 / 2 [0.000] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
| Hu, Tony | DNP | ||||||||||
| Liu, CB | 2 / 8 [0.250] | 1 / 4 [0.250] | 6 / 8 [0.750] | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11 | |
| Tso, Quincy | DNP | ||||||||||
| Yeung, Gary | 1 / 3 [0.333] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | |
| Yeung, Stan | 4 / 10 [0.400] | 2 / 4 [0.500] | 1 / 2 [0.500] | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 11 | |
| 19 / 46 [0.413] | 6 / 12 [0.500] | 12 / 26 [0.462] | 22 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 11 | 20 | 56 | ||
| Spartans - 62 | |||||||||||
| Player | FG | 3PT | FT | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | F | PTS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Choi, James | 3 / 5 [0.600] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 3 / 4 [0.750] | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 9 | |
| Choi, James | 2 / 6 [0.333] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 2 / 2 [1.000] | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 6 | |
| Chung, John | 3 / 7 [0.429] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 | |
| Ha, David | 3 / 7 [0.429] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 1 / 3 [0.333] | 6 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 7 | |
| Kim (NYC), Joe | 5 / 8 [0.625] | 0 / 1 [0.000] | 2 / 5 [0.400] | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 12 | |
| Lam, Kenneth | DNP | ||||||||||
| Le, Danny | 1 / 3 [0.333] | 1 / 3 [0.333] | 1 / 2 [0.500] | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| Lee, Yea | DNP | ||||||||||
| Lee (NY), Mark | 2 / 5 [0.400] | 0 / 0 [0.000] | 2 / 3 [0.667] | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 | |
| Lopez, John | DNP | ||||||||||
| Wang, Eddie | 5 / 9 [0.556] | 1 / 2 [0.500] | 1 / 2 [0.500] | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 12 | |
| 24 / 50 [0.480] | 2 / 8 [0.250] | 12 / 21 [0.571] | 30 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 10 | 21 | 62 | ||
Referees
| William Bullock: | Rate Me |
| Gina Kennedy: | Rate Me |