Shox 52, Dunk 49

With a full Shox squad in the house, you knew before the game even started this going to be a good one. Dunk on the other hand was going to have to play without Bobbito Garcia, and it appeared the “Playa of the Week,” but luckily he showed up right before tip-off.

Luckily for Shox, it appeared “vintage” Justin Leonard was in the house, as he was channeling his high school days of breaking ankles and taking names. On the defensive end though, doing everything he could to play good defense, Andrew Katz got into some early foul trouble guarding Scott Nelson (on some questionable calls). After his third foul that sent him to the bench, teammate Josh Gotthelf yelled to me, “Write what you see!”

At the 15-minute mark, Shox was up 9-0, after Nelson missed two free throws at the line. What can you say, ball don’t lie. But you knew that Dunk would get theirs soon enough. Behind Will Blunt’s best impression of the Juggernaut, he was doin’ work like Kobe and cut the Shox lead to 13-10 with 10 minutes left in the half.

Trying to extend that lead was Will Eberhart, who checked right in, didn’t get the call and then proceeded to argue with the refs. If Shox has title aspirations this June, they need to keep Eberhart’s emotions in check – especially after the play. For Dunk, it was Blunt who was getting flustered, after Jason Burke continued to kill ’em softly up until halftime.

Going into the second half, Shox led 27-21, but after five minutes of Dunk going at it, the scored was tied at 29-29 and we were back to where we started. Leonard would hit, Bang Takenouchi would respond. It wasn’t until Dunk jumped out to a 40-37 lead with 7:30 to play that Shox finally snapped out of it.

If Shox does want to go far in the playoffs, it’s no question that they need to get it together and learn to how manage their talent and rotation. With a bunch of alpha scorers, it’s all about rotating the ball and buying into the team.

With 3:30 left, Eberhart tired the game at 40-40, while Burke continued doin’ work in the paint. The game was tied 44-44 with a minute to play. The next 60 seconds were great. After leaving Leonard open for three, Shox jumped out with the lead, but let Takenouchi score an and-one to tie it right back up. After two good no calls on attempts by Nelson and Eberhart, we were going to OT.

After an Eberhart bucket to make it 49-47, Shox looked like they had it. But missing the front end of two one-and-ones didn’t do much to stop Nelson from tying it at the line, 49-49. We were going into double overtime. In that period, it was clear that Shox just wanted it more. After going back and forth for almost two minutes, it came down to Eberhart willing the ball in the basket, making the game-winning three!

Final score: Shox win, 52-49.

	1	2		T
Shox	27	25	-	52
Dunk	21	28	-	49

Box Scores

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