| Backing Up Your Trash |
Jun 11, 2007 |
Trash in this case being the words out of the mouth of Nasr's Viquar when he promised to hold Quraysh's captain to under double-digit points. This game was the 2nd vs. the 3rd seed and in my preview I stated that Quraysh has had an up-and-down season primarily due to attendance problems but that they showed promise in their final regular season game as they handed previously undefeated Humazah their only loss, and that Nasr started the season hot with a 3-0 record, but fell off a bit near the end, finishing 1-2. Since these teams didn't meet during the regular season, it could be expected that they may be unfamiliar with each other but that's not the case as many have played with each other for years.
The 1st half of this game was a well-paced one with lots of scoring spread amongst all the players. In fact, Nasr had 5 of their 6 players score at least 5 points in the 1st half, while 6 of the 7 Quraysh players were also on the scoresheet. With 5 minutes left in the half, both teams found themselves in foul trouble but neither were able to capitalize as Nasr was only able to convert 4 of 11 FTs and Quraysh hit 4 of 7. With some better freebie shooting, Nasr could have built an even larger lead at the half, but had to settle for 36-28 lead, paced by Wayne's 8 points. However, Nasr was dealt a large blow in the 1st half when defensive leader Camran Baig was taken out of the game due to a bad ankle injury after landing awkwardly after blocking Quraysh's Ibrahim Tiamiyu's fast-break 2-handed jam.
In the 2nd half, the scoring was much less, probably aided by the higher level of hacking going on. At the 7 minute mark Quraysh's Isa Tavarez went in for a layup but had it sent back, waaaaaaay back, to the wall at the opposite end of the court. Wayne made sure to let Quraysh know not to bring anything back into the lane. Quraysh wasn't totally intimidated as they continued to get into the lane on offense but just didn't seem to be able to finish their layups; so maybe Wayne's memory still played some part in their minds. At the 13:55 mark, Quraysh was forced to call a timeout down 46-38. At the 16:57 mark, Quraysh's Rajko went in for a left handed layup after breaking down his defender but was met by Wayne on the recovery who blocked the shot with his left hand to send the ball away again. Nasr called a timeout at the 17:40 mark up 49-42 to make sure everyone was on the same page on how to close out the game. Quraysh tried to come back but Nasr came up with the bigger plays; at the 1 minute mark, Wayne was shooting an "And-1" situation but missed the FT however Amer Hussaini came up with a huge offensive rebound over 2 Quraysh players. The game ended with Nasr winning 51-44 as neither team was able to score more than 1 basket in the last 2:20 of the game. Nasr was lead by Wayne's 16 points and defense while Quraysh was lead by Gamada's 16 points. Unfortunately for Quraysh, their big guns were shooting blanks as only 1 player reached double digits in points and Viquar was able to deliver on his trash as Usman managed only 4 points. Next up for Nasr is Ash-Shams.
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