Two of the NRF’s dark horse squads faced off to start the night of week 10. The action lived up to its potential but first we gotta salute Jason Burke, who now leads the NRF in air balls from the free throw line. After shooting his second oxygen shot, he surpassed Treasure Kyn Neal and his bff-CGF, who are both tied at one.

But Burke did come through in clutch moments in the first half, scoring on three straight possessions and dropping eight of AF1’s first 12 points. DJ Ka$h-Money hinted at the height advantage by knocking Lil’ Wayne’s 6-foot-7 but to his own admission, Burke’s only about 6-foot-6. It was still enough to tower over Delta, until they threw a pressing zone at the purple-people, allowing TKN and Coffey (11 points) to score on two straight possessions. With the score knotted at 14, Burke (nine points and five rebounds in the first half) got back to business grabbing an offensive rebound and put back, giving his team the two point lead with 5:24 to go in the first. Bang Lee picked a pocket at mid-court, slipped up and made an assist from his knees (it’s not what it sounds like) to Ryan Fisher, and made it a four-point effort after getting another steal and converting on his only bucket for the game. As the clocked away on the first half, Fisher knocked down a deep three, to give AF1 a 26-20 lead at the half.

The Big Burke show a.k.a. Baby Bill Walton (thanks for that one Ka$h-Money) came out with four rebounds and four points in the first 4:18 of the second half, to push the lead to 34-22. Sensing a beat down coming, TKN (21 points) hit back-to-back three’s (37-28, AF1). But Fisher (19 points) C-blocked harder than the sober fat friend at the bar on the Delta Force comeback, with a pair of tre-bombs of his own to keep comfortable 43-28 lead. Delta did manage to cut it to 11 with two minutes to go, but Bang and Burke (19 points, 11 rebounds) killed all that comeback noise, as Bang drove the lane, faded left and made a no-look pass to Burke for the and-one. AF1 took the Force Off, 57-42.

Purp Set’s win puts them in a tie for first-place with Dirty Delta in the Downtown Division and Jason Burke has a simple idea why the win was no problem for his team.

“No Mike Won, it’s a Mike lose.” –Burke.