| The Reign of Terror is Over |
Feb 8, 2007 |
In the first meeting of these two teams, Fatiha pulled out a 58-51 victory which was dismissed as an aberration by most league insiders. Ikhlas merely stated that they were tuning up for the playoffs, at which time they would be even more of a handful for their opponents; an assumption that was supported by the last two seasons in which they went on tears in the playoffs and won 2 consecutive championships.
Well, it was playoffs now, and both teams came off relatively easy 1st round playoff victories. Ikhlas was looking to get off to a quick start offensively while Fatiha was looking to clamp down on Sanel and Sherif, particularly their outside shooting. Well, from the start of the game it looked like Ikhlas' game plan was going to win out as Sherif hit a quick 3 on his first attempt (this despite walking into the gym in street clothes just as warm-up had finished and not getting any practice shots), then made good on a drive to the basket, and then topped it off with an acrobatic spin-in-the-air "and-1" layup, as he scored the 1st 7 points of the game. In fact, Ikhlas managed to run up a 9-0 score on Fatiha before their opponents first basket as Vik hit a shot at the 5:00 mark. After their initial surge however, Ikhlas went into an offensive funk and Fatiha managed to climb back into the game and erase Ikhlas' momentum as Deklon tied the game at 9-9 at the 7:40 mark, followed by Vik giving Fatiha their first lead of the game at 11-9. However, Ikhlas started to get back into a bit of a rhythm as Sanel and Abdul Bari hit back-to-back 3's to regain the lead for their team. This game was a low scoring affair and it was due to the defense of both teams and not necessarily poor shooting. The half ended with Ikhlas up 18-14 behind 7 points by Sherif, while for Fatiha they were lead with 4 points by Vik and Deklon. A key player up to this point was Abdul Bari, particularly his defense, as he managed to swat 4 of Fatiha's shots and discourage them from driving. Of particular note was that Fatiha didn't attempt a single 1st half 3-pointer as they seemed determined not to give Ikhlas the chance for long rebounds and easy cherry-picking fast breaks that they are famous for.
The second half began with Ikhlas showing the same offensive slump they had shown in the 1st half. Deklon scored a few quick baskets and Fatiha found themselves down only 19-18, but then Arsalan gave his team the lead again with a driving basket.The game was back and forth but it clearly seemed that the momentum was on Fatiha's side as Ikhlas was really struggling to break Fatiha's defense. Soon Ikhlas' big man Emmanuel found himself in foul trouble with 4 and was quickly forced to sub off as alot of time was still left. Fatiha capitalized on this and began driving to the hole more often and drawing fouls. Soon Fatiha found themselves in a bonus situation for the rest of the half. Fatiha's momentum started growing as they began getting easy transition baskets and soon they found themselves up by 10 points and forced to call a timeout to take a bit of a breather with the score 34-24 and only 6:20 left. At this point Ikhlas seemed a bit deflated as the offense still wouldn't kick in, but they kept fighting. With 1:07 left and down 42-33 Ikhlas called a timeout apparently to plan out one final attack. However, it wasn't enough as Fatiha ended the game winning 44-33 and ending Ikhlas' run at a 3rd consecutive championship. For Fatiha it was an especially sweet victory as their defense managed to hold Ikhlas to only 33 points despite them being the league's highest scoring team as they averaged 66.3 ppg during the regular season. |
