| When MVPs Collide |
Feb 8, 2007 |
This game had it all. I-Slam All-Stars. I-Slam Champs. I-Slam MVPs. Neil and Ahsan Raza were both named I-Slam 1st Team All-Stars, while Ahsan was also named the League MVP. But Zilzal featured 3-time I-Slam MVP, Ammer Askary. In the previous 2 seasons, Asr had come excruciatingly close to making the finals before dropping heartbreaking losses in the semis to Ikhlas. This season seemed to be their season to break out over the top; they had lost only 1 game all season, and were one of the best offensive and defensive teams in the league. The first time these 2 teams met was at the start of the season, and Asr won 55-45, but Ammer was noticeably absent in that game. This game, he wasn't absent.
Considering the 2 teams involved, the game started off pretty slow offensively, with the exception of Ammer who was passing up the 3's early for aggressive drives to the basket. For Asr, baskets were hard to come by in the 1st half as only Ahsan and Zahir were able to put in field goals. Zilzal went up 12-8 after the first 8 minutes of the game. Soon afterwards, Anish hit a 3 to give Zilzal the 15-8 lead, forcing Asr to call a timeout. Coming out of the timeout, Zahir responded by hitting a 3 of his own to cut the lead down to 15-10. The defensive intensity of Asr was on high throughout the half, and was probably the cause of Anish getting hit with an intentional foul borne out of frustration with only 5:31 left in the half. At the half, the game was 24-16 for Zilzal, lead by Ammer's 12 points while Asr got 8 points from Zahir and 6pts from Ahsan.
In the 2nd half, the game just didn't seem to be clicking for Asr. They seemed tentative on offense, with nobody really stepping up to take the big shot. The lead for Zilzal began to slowly extend until Asr was forced to call a timeout with 11:04 left and down 37-26. Coming out of the timeout, Asr's luck didn't change much as Zilzal continued extending its lead, seemingly putting the game out of reach. But Asr didn't give up and managed to make a mini-comeback as Zilzal fell to its bad habits of taking ill-advised quick 3's from well behind the arc. Despite this though, Zilzal held it together and regrouped behind Ark's pair of MONSTER blocks on drives by Ahsan and Zahir, and Neil's dagger 3 from the baseline corner to put the final nail in Asr's coffin. The final score in the game was 56-41 for Zilzal, who were lead by Ammer's 23 points; Neil and Anish also managed to hit double digits. For Asr, Zahir and Ahsan did their best for the team, chipping in 18 pts and 12pts respectively, but they didn't get the support they needed in what was surely a disappointing loss for them. |
