| Can the 2nd time be a charm? |
Jan 29, 2007 |
For the 2nd consecutive week, Takathur and Al-Fil faced off, but with the implications of today's game much more meaningful. Last week Al-Fil won by a score of 47-40 behind the shooting of their young guard Ehab. Takathur entered this game confident that they should have won last week's game, and also sure that with last week's familiarity, the same mistakes would not be repeated.
The game started off looking like Takathur was right and that they would be advancing to the 2nd round. Al-Fil was playing extremely sloppy and settling for outside shots (which they weren't hitting) while Takathur was playing aggressive and hitting their long distance shots (at one point early in the game, Sultan hit 2 consecutive 3's as he tried to force Al-Fil's defenders to cover him outside as well). Most impressive for Takathur was the play of Alvin as he drove the basket and wasn't shy from behind the arc. All in all, Alvin finished the half with 11 points. However, despite their misses, Al-Fil's Chris Johnson kept his team in the game by fighting for offensive rebounds and somewhat surprisingly, matching Sultan's soft touch from long range. With Chris' help, his team only trailed Takathur 28-25 at halftime, as he chipped in 14 points and 8 rebounds.
The 2nd half is where Chris got some help while Takathur struggled to find someone to take the lead. Andrew Nelson came alive in the 2nd half after finishing with only 2 points and 2 rebounds in the first 20 minutes of the game. Andrew was grabbing every rebound and giving his teammates easy targets to pass to with smart cuts to the basket as he dropped 10 points and 13 rebounds in the 2nd half alone! Chris Johnson continued to be steady for Al-Fil, while the other Chris chipped in 8 points of his own in the 2nd half. Takathur was forced to call a timeout at 11:26 mark of the 2nd half to regroup as they saw their lead turn into a 45-41 deficit. Unfortunately for Takathur, even though they managed to keep the game close, their team could not match the efforts of Al-Fil's in the 2nd half and they lost the game 58-55. The strong numbers put up by Chris Johnson (25 pts and 9 rebs) and Andrew Nelson (12 pts and 15 rebs) highlighted how much Takathur missed the presence of their big man Haynes Ali Jones. |
