| Can’t Hold On |
Dec 20, 2007 |
Humazah had a chance to finish their regular season at .500 and enter the playoffs on a positive note. They also had a chance to prove that they were the only true holders of the Quraysh team name, as it had been exclusively their’s since the start of the East league years ago. Except for 2 double digit losses this season, Humazah has been in all their games, only losing out due to mental errors (we used to refer to them as youthful mistakes, but this squad has grown up and is too experienced to be given that cop-put any longer).
No surprise, the 1st half was dominated by Quryash’s big man Basel as he went to work since Humazah has never really had a true big man on their roster. Quraysh was forced to call a timeout at the 10:23 mark down 16-6. After a Quraysh 3 by Mohamed at the 3 minute mark to make it an 11 point game, Abdurrahman responded with an “And 1”, followed by another one with 4 minutes left in the half, followed by another one by Suleiman bringing them back to within 5 points with 2 minutes remaining in the half. Quraysh was definitely getting sloppy and playing terrible defence. Though both teams spread the scoring nicely, Quraysh had the slight lead in this low scoring affair, 29-23 behind Basel’s 12 points and 7 rebounds and Mohamed’s 10 points. Suleiman and Abdurrahman’s 6 points each paced Quraysh.
The second half put a damper on Humazah’s end-of-half comeback as they were hit with a dumb technical for having 6 players on the court, which gave Quraysh 2 freebies and possession. You may have noticed that up until now, there has been no mention of Humazah’s Saleh; I have essentially frozen him out much like he was on the court during this game. Saleh just wasn’t getting the touches he needed to be effective, and I don’t know how many times that has been written this season in Humazah recaps. Humazah’s Hussein hit one of his 2 3’s on the day to bring his team back within 2 points just 5 minutes into the 2nd half. Saleh did hit a layup to give his team their first lead of the game at 34-33, followed shortly by a huge block on his part off the glass. Mohannad hit a 3 to give Quraysh back the 36-34 lead; Hussein responded with another 3 but Basel powered his way to another bucket ensuring his team maintained the lead at 38-37. Definitely a back and forth end to this game. Humazah was keeping up the defensive pressure, at times applying it too hard as Suleiman fouled out later in the game. Shuaib had a key steal to tie the game at 40-40 with 4 minutes to play.
The last minute of the game to watch? Horrible? To be on Humazah and play in it? Excruciating. Quraysh’s Basel had fouled out, Humazah managed to have the slight lead and then lucked out by getting to shoot the “1-on-1” bonus as Quraysh started hacking to stop the clock. Humazah had a 5 point lead with 30 seconds to go, with Quraysh’s Mohamed at the line; he bricked both free throws BUT got the rebound and made the follow-up while getting fouled. After making the free throw and bringing his team to within 2, Humazah brought the ball up and got to the line only to miss the front end. Quraysh brought the ball up down 2 with 20 seconds to go and rather than have them eat clock, Humazah inexplicably committed the foul before Quraysh even brought the ball over half. Needless to say, Quraysh hit the 2 FTs to tie the game, applied the press and came up with consecutive steals which ended up with them shooting FTs and eventually pulling out the win in the last minute. Quraysh won the game 50-48 behind Basel and Mohamed’s 18 points each while Humazah was paced by Shuaib’s 11 points. |
