Team No Mercy Vs GI JOE’s ( Winner: GI Joe’s)
What a game this was to start the night. Team No Mercy led and controlled almost the whole game with the exception of a few minutes. Unfortunately, it was the critical minutes of the game when this happened. This are the times when big time players take their game to another level, and that’s exactly what team captain Joe did. Team GI Joe struggled mightily on offense with team captain Iso Joe looking like Iso No most of the game. First round pick Farris Alsakkaf was able to pick up the slack hitting 4 big 3 pt shots while showing he also has soccer skills reminiscent to Christino Ronoldo. Team GI Joe got a huge contribution from big man Jameel Dubaily with 6 pts and 9 rebounds. He seemed to control the paint and rebounding whenever he was in the game. Gazzi Alsafari also delivered big buckets as his team struggled to score points and at times looked similar to Dr. J with smooth and calculated drives to the basket. Team GI Joes continuous to display their veteran leadership with multiple games of them recovering from large deficits without displaying panic. Their poise and grit has been unmatched in terms of play from this league. Team Leaders Joe and Farris continue to help their team step up to challenges and play hard every single play.
For team No Mercy, not much was able to get going offensively for the whole squad with the exception of Sunny Saleh who took it upon on himself to shut down his opponents top player and still lead the game in scoring with 16 pts. However, messy play by the team late in regulation and in the overtime session led to turnovers giving a change to GI Joe to come back and win the game. Team Captain was able to win it for his team at the line showing that he is in-deed a clutch player. This was an emotional game for both teams as both teams went at each other physically and verbally. This match up had a lot of hype before the game, and it lived up to it. For team No Mercy, the talent on the team is pretty obvious, when they are clicking, they have out played the top teams. With a few adjustments, the opinion is they can easily be a serious threat.
Team Umrah Vs Billy Buckets (Winner: Billy Buckets)
This game was expected to be an easy victory. If it was, someone forgot to tell team Billy Buckets as they came out and lit up the score board on Team Umrah for 51 pts. The mismatches were glaring when Team Umrah tried to match up defensively and at some points in the game dedicating 3 defenders to Team Captain Bilal Farhat who had a quiet game. This left other players open for shots and they delivered. Abdosalam lit up the gym with a barrage of 3’s and ended the game with 17 pts. Fadlallah Nagi also did a good job of dictating the pace and putting up an impressive stat line of 11 pts, 7 rebounds, and 9 assists. Team Billy Buckets had a very good offensive night but late mistakes almost allowed team Umrah to come back. This is a little concerning as a big lead was lost. However, if they are able to get performance like that from Abdosalam, then they a team to contend with.
Team Captain Mo Suffi led his team in scoring with 23 pts. Mo Malahi also contributed with 9 pts. The deficit with less than 2 minutes was 9 pts and the team worked hard to cut it down to 3 with a chance to tie at the end of regulation. The team played hard but struggled to over come problems in terms of guarding everyone. Continuing to play help defense as they have done in many previous games, they found themselves giving up quite a few shots. Team Umrah was considered one of the favorites before this game. After this game, they are still considered a better team, but the gap with team shockers seemed to continue to grow.
Team Shockers vs The Beedy Bunch 2.0
This was an interesting match up. The league would get to watch team shockers without their top offensive talent and draft steal Fadi Nagi. The shockers took an early lead and help onto it. Team captain and the reigning defensive player of the year Khalid Eljahmi got into early foul trouble which prevented from playing his normal in your face type defense. In the absence of Fadi, many players stepped up their performance to earn the win. Khaled led his team in scoring with 12 pts. He got help from Mosa Elgahmi with 10 pts. Maher Salameh and Radhwan Elhaj cleaned up on the rebounds earning a respective 11 and 13 rebounds. This team continues to use their size and dominate on rebounds. The shockers seemed to struggle on offense without Fadi but did a good job of making up for some of the lost production. With a full squad, they are considered to be the league favorites to win it all right now. Without Fadi, the majority opinion might consider this no longer applicable.
Team Beedy Bunch was once again short handed and ended up closing the gap and losing by 4. Nebil Abdulla who many consider to be the favorite for league MVP, put on a scoring clinic setting the season high in scoring with 29 pts. He was able to continuously get to the rim and made the opponent pay on the inside and outside.