Recap
Final (2:00 PM-3:00 PM) Sunday, Jan 28, 2007
Zilzal
Adiyat
  1 2 T
Zilzal (6-2-0) 35 23 58
Adiyat (3-5-0) 16 29 45

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Jan 30, 2007
by Teepu Khawja  

Did he have you fooled this season? Ammer that is. Veterans of I-Slam may have noticed the absence of Ammer's name from the statistical leaders, while his absence could be used to excuse new comers as to wondering who exactly is Ammer. But that was regular season. This is playoffs. And he and his team of sharpshooters is looking to win that elusive I-Slam championship after coming excruciatingly close last season.

In their regular season game a couple of weeks ago, Zilzal won easily 51-31. Unfortunately for Adiyat, they are for the most part newcomers, so they could mistake Ammer and Anish's poor scoring as the norm. Last time they met, Neil scorched them on 6-11 shooting from behind the arc so he would be the one they focussed on early.

The game started with Ammer looking to set the tempo as he launched long bombs from almost NBA 3-point range; of course, not knowing Ammer, Adiyat wasn't covering him that far out. Ammer hit his 1st 2 3's and thus opened up the court for his teammates. As the defense began to get drawn out, Zilzal quickly recognized the hole in Adiyat's defence in the baseline corner and Neil began to set up camp and launching wide open 3's of his own. Between the 2 of them, Ammer and Neil hit 7 3's in the 1st half (as Ammer said, Anish could have the 2nd half:-). The half ended with Zilzal up comfortably 35-16. As you can tell by their score, nobody from Adiyat was lighting it up, and Sharif led the team with just 5 points.

The 2nd half showed the Adiyat had some heart left in them, as well as the flip side of the coin of Zilzal. Zilzal's 3-point shooting went stone cold and so did their momentum and lead; though the outcome of this game was never really in doubt, Zilzal showed the same chinks in their armour that cost them the championship last season. Combined, Zilzal shot only 2-10 from behind the arc and could only must 23 points. Adiyat's Sabree woke up and began driving through Zilzal's unmotivated defence and torched them for 17 points and 5 rebounds in the 2nd half alone. Unfortunately, he didn't get much more help from his teammates, though their effort was never in doubt, unlike Zilzal's. The game ended with Zilzal winning 58-45, led by Ammer's 21 points.

Adiyat's season is over, however we hope to see them again next season now that they have some experience under their belt. Zilzal moves on to face Asr and hope that they can turn on their high octane offence for 40 consecutive minutes. Because if they are missing, Asr's big men will be sure to catch all the rebounds and hit Zahir on the outlet passes for easy buckets.