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A Playoff Primer | | ALL-DREAM LEAGUE SELECTIONS ANNOUNCED!
And so it remains in tact. A No. 1 seed still has never won the DL AL title.
For you future teams who want to claim the top seed in the regular season, we suggest you purposely dog it. Do whatever you have to do to finish 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or even 5th. Sure, grab double elimination, but if the No. 1 seed is on the line in the regular season finale, your team is down 1, and your star player is at the line with 0.3 seconds left, tell him to miss ‘em both on purpose. Scratch that, don’t just tell him, implore him, lest you cut him from the team right after he wins it for you.
On Wednesday night, in Game 2 of the championship series, the FBNYC Fury finished off Dai Chong 56-51 to come back from the loser’s bracket and officially claim the title. In doing so, the Fury made it two for two.
Not just two for two in the two games against the No. 1 seed, but two for two this season in claiming the NL chip as well as the throne here. Congratulations to Ren Hsieh and company for putting together a magical system this season. First A, now B, next? We’ll see. (Apparently, the NL Champs are sitting it out for awhile after this.)
 James Choi has reason to jump after the Fury knocked off Dai Chong again to claim the chip. |
Congrats to Rich Chang, James Choi, Harris Chung, and Alvin Wang who join a select few players in league history to claim two titles in the same season in different divisions. Surely, feeling like a champ twice in one week is something they could get used to.
And something they got used to doing against Dai Chong in this series was hanging 55, 56 points on them and finding whatever way necessary it was to win. In Game 1, it was playing from in front by a large margin and hanging onto win. Here, in Game 2, it was playing from behind most of the game, and willing a way with a 21-12 4th quarter to catapult them to the top.
After a tough semifinal loss to DC on Jan. 14th, this marked the third game against them in the last two weeks, and it’s clear who walked away from the 3-game set having made the most adjustments on the fly and who had the greater will to win – the fabulous, fantastic, fortuitous Fury.
Game ball goes to Choi boy, who came alive in the final stanza with 12 of his 18 points. After being told that the only way he was going to score on the evening was at the foul line by someone on the DC bench, Choi, who for the most part, seemed to let that get into his head, saved his best for last and helped turn a 49-43 deficit with just minutes to go in the game into a 55-51 Fury lead with 8 seconds left by dropping a 3, a jumper, another 3, and finally 2 free throws in a 115 second stretch that etched his legend in the annals of the DL remembrance Hall of Fame.
Years from now, someone who was witness will turn to his, or her, 67 year old buddy and ask, “Remember when Colgate Choi scored 10 points in the final minute of the ’09 AL Finals to seal the deal?”
The other ole’ fart will respond, “It was sick. It was quick. He shot better than any Knick…at the time.”
It’s true, Choi could probably give the Garden’s resident team a lift these days, just as he gave the Fury one on Wednesday that helped to punctuate the longest season in DLNY history.
This thing started back in early July and it’s now late January – if any of you have wives and impregnated them back when this thing was tipped off, your baby is due to arrive any minute now.
What else will be arriving is our traditional All-DL AL roll call soon, so stay tuned.
In the interim, let us all – the Fury, Dai Chong, and all the other teams, friends, family, and staff who sat through this ride from the start do what Harris Chung asked his guys, as well as Dai Chong members (cause he’s so friendly) to do after the Fury finished posing with their second trophy in the last 6 days, “Go for drinks?”
After this one, we all need it. (But not for too long, the next season starts up the week of Feb. 22!)
 For many Fury, this is 2 for 2. L to R: S. Chen, J. Choi, A. Cho, A. Wang, R. Chang, B. Sun, H. Chung. |
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