The Finals game features two very talented teams with top notch defenses and a team philosophy on offense. No team has been hotter than the upset minded Boomas as of late, winning 5 of their last 6 games in route to The Finals, but no one can question Team Dy-Nasty's ability to elevate their game when it counts. With Nick Shango continuing to flourish both offensively and defensively and with Fadi Eliya coming off his best game of the season, the question is will The Boomas have enough to contain all of Team Dy-Nasty's weapons. The season series between these two teams was split exactly down the middle at 1-1 with both teams beating the other by 11 points in their victory. Team Dy-Nasty is a 3-1/2 point favorite to win the game.
KEYS TO VICTORY:
The key to victory for The Boomas will be to try to limit Nick Shango's points while shutting down the rest of Team Dy-Nasty's players. Team Dy-Nasty has proven that this will be an extremely tough task with their performance against the favored Kukumbas team in the semi-finals. If The Boomas allow Nick Shango's supporting cast to have good shots and open looks at the basket, it will be nearly impossible for them to win. Offensively, The Boomas must move around and set more picks to allow Joe Kejbou to distribute to the opened players. The Boomas must also take opportunities to push the ball up and score easy transition points, when they are presented. Finally, with Team Dy-Nasty having a slight advantage on offense, The Boomas must win the battle of the boards, both offensively and defensively.
The key to victory for Team Dy-Nasty is Shango, Shango, Shango. This team must work the ball through Nick Shango on offense and create open looks and good scoring opportunities by being active on offense. Nick Shango has proven time and time again that he will do what it takes to win and if his teammates are creating opportunities, then he will get the ball in their hands for easy scores, as well as create shots for himself. Defensively, Team Dy-Nasty must remain active as well by playing solid defense from top to bottom and pressuring The Boomas when they have the ball. If this team comes out and has a repeat performance of their last game, especially in the second half, they will be victorious.
SEMI-FINALS RECAP
#3 TEAM DY-NASTY vs. #2 KUKUMBAS
This game started out all Kukumbas, as they jumped all over Team Dy-Nasty leaving them dazed and confused both on offense and defense. As the game progressed, it looked as if Kukumbas were going to run away with the game as Team Dy-Nasty seemed to be imploding on the court. However, in true championship form Team Dy-Nasty came back after making adjustments and closed the deficit quickly by being aggressive and putting pressure on Kukumbas both on offense and defense. In the end Team Dy-Nasty put a strangle hold on Kukumbas and took the victory from their hands, 60 to 54.
On the surface after watching this game, the perception was that Team Dy-Nasty really stepped it up defensively in the 2nd half to rally back and win the game, but when you take a look at the numbers you'll see that it's not the case. Kukumbas were actually very solid and steady on offense scoring 27 points in the 1st half and 27 points in the 2nd half. Could it be argued that it wasn't Kukumbas best offensive performance and they could have scored much more if they played better? Absolutely. Although the fact remains that while Kukumbas played excellent defense in the 1st half, only allowing 17 Team Dy-Nasty points, they followed it up by a horrific defensive performance in the 2nd half allowing 43 points to their opponent. Kukumbas talent was unquestioned, having the most complete and talented team from top to bottom with no real weaknesses, that is why this defeat must be even more bitter to them, because they know that they underachieved. All of that being said, you can not take away from or forget about Team Dy-Nasty's performance. Team Dy-Nasty was very slow to get rolling in this game, starting off with silly turnovers, missed shots on open looks, and sloppy passes that were out of sync. After making adjustments both offensively and defensively at half time, Team Dy-Nasty shined in the 2nd half with Nick Shango and Fadi Eliya leading the way, combining for 33 second half points. Team Dy-Nasty also put tremendous pressure on Kukumbas defensively, by switching to an aggressive box plus 1 defense, on their way to victory.
#4 THE BOOMAS vs. #1 SAMER AND THE REVOLUTION
As expected this game was a tight defensive battle all the way until the end, with The Boomas up ending Samer & The Revolution by a score of 46 to 40. This game went back and forth with The Boomas jumping out to an early lead, followed by Samer & The Revolution taking the lead and keeping it well into the 2nd half. Early in the 2nd half the Boomas made some adjustments defensively and started getting into a rhythm offensively. The Boomas closed the gap and took the lead for the second time in the game, and this time they didn't look back on their way to clinching a spot in The Finals.
Although both teams had substantial leads in the game, it was a very tightly contested match and could have went either way at the end. It's quite possible that the thing that separated these two teams in the end was what The Boomas did and what Samer & The Revolution didn't. First off, down the stretch when the game was very close, Samer and The Revolution didn't really make any adjustments. Surprisingly, Samer & The Revolution did not play any zone defense against The Boomas, which proved to be very effective in their last regular season meeting. Also, Samer & The Revolution failed to get the ball into the hands of arguably the most talented center in the league on offense in Derek Dabish. Although John Mansour was doing a great job guarding Derek Dabish, limiting him to 10 points all game, Samer & The Revolution still should have found a way to get the ball in his hands more often and work the offense through him. For The Boomas, what they did do was effectively get the ball out of Senan Abdaal's hands and forced other players like Zane and Tameem Roumayah to try to distribute the ball to create scoring chances. This made Samer & The Revolution one dimensional on offense, as they were constantly slashing to the basket to try and get points. Finally, The Boomas did a great job of moving around and creating chances on offense at the end of the game as well as shutting down their opponents defensively, only allowing 9 points in the last 13 minutes of the game.
