My initial thought when I saw the nightcap for week 10: “Raf vs. Scott? There’s gunna’ be a lot shots. First team to 50 wins the game.”

The two all-stars set the tone of the game for their respective teams but Raf definitely seemed more assertive, as he tried his best to get the cup. Seeing that his Green Team was ready to work, Raf switched from his normal role of scorer to playmaker, dropping four dimes in the first half. While Scott (seven first half points) and Raf (eight points, four assists) were rolling, their teammates had to double-up to match up to their fearless leaders. Harold Reid (six points) and Ryan Kearney (three points) combined for nine points in the first, and Uptempo tandem of Jarek Carethers and Nick Blatchford dropped five a piece to bring the halftime score to 26-23, in favor of the Dunk Squad.

NRF’s league is playing out, in some cases, like the NBA: Huarache (Boston) looks the strongest after a defeat in the finals last season and is led by a bald-headed vet; Uptempo (Lakers) aren’t consistent, have lost games they should have won and there is some doubt as to whether they can repeat but they have the most dangerous scorer in the league. And finally the Shox (The South Beach Amigos) were supposed to cruise through the league and smack every team in their way, but they haven’t dominated and no team truly fears them.

Spooky.

The Foamies have been a force all season behind their balanced inside-outside attack. Do “To the Rim” Kim was at his normal franticly fast pace but the question was could Hyperflight keep up? The two teams surprisingly were running and gunning against each other for the first 10 minutes of play. Chris Dowling’s use of the give and go ensured that Foamposite would even keep their fluidity in the half court set. Both teams ran the floor, passed well and made smart decisions on shot selection.

Huarache is a force this season in NRF. Watching them over the last nine weeks has been like listening to Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and leaving the album’s seventh track on repeat. Simply put, Team Huarache ain’t Nuthing ta…well you know the rest. They don’t stop on defense, each player has a role and they play it well, they’ve seemed to drain the life out of opponents in the second half and they can counter every style they’ve faced so far.

Uptempo’s zone defense is ever-improving. However, Delta Force didn’t seem too impressed as they scored in the paint from the opening tip. Delta’s defensive scheme seemed to be to keep Scott Williams off the ball and Treasure Kyn Neal took on the job of keeping the NRF’s leading scorer out of the picture. Williams has yet to see a real full-court pickup and it flustered him in the first half, and left his team out of synch early, as Delta built a 8-3 lead.

Generation started the game out hot with back-to-back three’s from Joe Branch (13 points) and Weston Spotts (13 points). Team Gen’s slow pace was working, until Chad “Beasterling” established his low post presence and lead the Shox to a two-point lead. Everything was all good for Chad, in the first five minutes-he was really feeling it. And then he felt the floor, when he went for a highlight reel dunk and relived his childhood with a “Grant Hill drinks sprite” miss.

The opening matchup for week nine started off tight but actually looked like the most fun game of the season, so far. Harold Reid (12 points, seven rebounds) threw an alley-oop to Ryan Kearney that would have made the J. Kidd, KG and the rest of the fun police from those Nike commercials of my youth blush. The pass hit the backboard and had to be considered more a shot than a pass but again, it was fun.

As the 2011 NRF regular season heads to an end, the two sleeper teams were on a collision course in week eight. Delta Force is hanging on to that number one spot in the Downtown Conference, despite getting off to a somewhat rocky start. The Termies have gone the opposite route, surprising opponents with wins early on but now seem to be fading away (and not like MJ, more like a Shawn Bradley fadeaway, where he trips over his feet and falls down). 

In the secret society that is NRF basketball, there are many questions that deserve their own hour-long specials on the Discovery Channel. Will PR ever play a game before the playoffs? Will that ref who looks like Steve Harvey’s doppelganger ever work a night-cap game without his jacket in his hand and a foot in the hallway? Is Ron Jackson a 70’s super-hero, sent to the future to take down the MAN and other Jive-Turkey’s?

Billed as the game of the week by my blog-brethren Lucian, this game quickly turned into an old western shoot out (Or a gangs of New York brawl? There weren’t any women with metal teeth running around but, you get the point). Jason “I’m kinda like a big-deal” Burke went down low with his patented NRF’s best footwork and scored the game’s first field goal. Not to be out-done, Scott Williams who answered with a tre-ball.  Ryan Fisher had the dual pleasure of guarding the league’s top scorer and running the offense for his purple compadres.