Shox 70, Terminator 66

Game two was kind of a coming out party, in a sense, for both teams. The pace was back, back, forth and forth ol’ school Aaliyah style (Did I just call Aaliyah was old school? Yikes). Eric Raymundo and Omar Grant may have proved they’re the league’s best backcourt, combining for 22 points and three assists in the first half. Raymundo had his scope from Call of Duty on early, knocking down three tre-bombs. But Chad Easterling was on a mission last night and wanted to let everyone know why he was picked first overall in the draft.

“He was that dude tonight,” said Shox teammate, Bernard Bowen. “He hadn’t really showed everyone why he was the no.1 pick but he took tonight as his chance to do that.”

Easterling definitely broke out of his shell, scoring 14 points and grabbing seven boards in the first half. Al Reyes (13 points) did his best to contain Easterling and made him work enough for the guard-play to keep Terminator ahead at the half, 34-33.

Chad and Bowen got it going in the second half, keeping nice spacing for the other to operate. Bowen (14 points) went into his normal attack-the-rim mode. The simple-socked version of CGF played cleanup (11 points) with points down-low and fellow shock forward Stalley chipped in with his mid-range game for 11 points, as well. At the 17:40 mark, Grant (15 points) pulled a Rondo on Easterling, baiting him with the layup on fast break, only to throw a behind the back drop pass to Raymundo (22 points, five rebounds) for one of his seven assists, as Easterling tried to pin his shot with a run-down block.

Midway through the second half, Raymundo tried to lift his team to victory with his shifty-shake moves to the rack. But Stalley got hot, going on an unanswered tear for six points. As the game was full of astonishing  plays, perhaps the biggest unexpected event was the surprisingly-spry play of Lucian Dickson, who nearly had a double-double (eight points, nine rebounds) despite his recent ailments from his bought with Montezuma’s revenge after his trip to the Yucatán peninsula. But nothing was more surprising than Easterling’s late game above the rim exploits, capped off by a rim rocker he threw down with his forearm (no exaggeration, I was sitting on the baseline) to seal the 71-66 victory.

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