In this edition of On The Ball, NATION basketball writer Justin Marville reviews another week of action in the Co-operators General Insurance Premier League season.
INSIGHTS, OBSERVATIONS and musings of last weekend’s eventful Premier League knockout title game.
• THAT’S ONE DOWN, now for our resident group of super powers.
Not that Pinelands had a mere knockout trophy in mind when they went out assembling their own local version of the Avengers during what was clearly one busy offseason.
Say what you want, though, but could you imagine if they DIDN’T win? The response and ridicule would be worse than anything every other opposing defence could ever throw at them.
It’s sort of the pressure you’re going to face when you make it your business to field a unit with national players at every position: everyone expects you to win every game – and handily at that.
I’d say they’re handling it quite well, though, what with a shiny new knockout cup and equally spiffy six-game winning streak to show for their efforts.
• I think it’s high time we all stop waiting for this up-tempo prolific attack to show up, and just accept Pinelands for what they are; a stifling defensive unit that picks their spot at the other end.
Yeah, it’s not exactly what we’re hoping for when Ramon Simmons, Junior Moore and Halley Franklyn all announced they were taking their talents to Princess Royal to form a super team with Jeremy Gill and Charles Vanderpool.
And who could blame us, considering the wealth of offensive talent and varying skills their union represent? But it hasn’t quite come together as planned, not on the outside at least, where the side’s perimeter players have struggled to consistently space the floor.
The major issue there, of course, is that several of them have been hyped as good three-point shooters – however, perception couldn’t be further from reality in this case.
The best of the lot, Simmons and Gill, are streaky at best, while you could almost turn your back to Franklyn, Steve Sealy, Daniel Lovell and Damon Thompson for anything beyond 20 feet.
Yet, Vanderpool (17.2 ppg) and Moore (15.7) have still found ways to operate down low despite the less than ideal spacing, and the Pine’s transition attack has been more than enough to make up for whatever challenges they have in half-court.
Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, and making much ado about nothing. Or maybe a certain Husbands squad may be waiting to turn its back on a group of players too.
• Well if half-court offence has been an issue of sorts for Pinelands, then the situation could only be described as a certain catastrophe in Dayrells Road.
Nowhere was that more evident than in Saturday’s knockout final where the Warriors men combined for a bite-sized 57 points in all of 40 minutes despite playing in the shooting-friendly confines of the “College”.
Wrap your head around this stat for a minute. Warriors missed 57 off 78 shots on the night! No that’s not a typo or an error of fact.
It’s the reason why I can’t pick this side to seriously make any noise in the postseason, or even get there for that matter.
It’s the reason why Frederick Bynoe is forced to employ shoot-first scrimmagers like Seon Hilliman for heavy minutes.
It’s also the reason why diehard basketball fans won’t mind not seeing Warriors in another major final this season.
• Charles Vanderpool may be the clear frontrunner for MVP, but there’s no doubt who’s the league’s best player right now.
Just in case anyone forgot, and considering his play then, they just might have, then Gill gave all a timely reminder of his elite all-round skills with that game-winning 32-point performance.
Sure, he took an extremely inefficient 29 shots to get them. however, it had to be a job in itself just to get off so many looks against that type of Warriors defence.
And while the shots were many, at least the makes were timely if nothing else, as Gill seemingly came up with a huge trey or a series of drives every time Warriors threatened to go on a run.
Forget scoring, Gill’s biggest play probably came at the business end of the floor while stuffing Kenny Matthews’ would-be dunk at the ring.
It’s almost like Vanderpool and company have become the setup men for Gill to be the late-game closer a la Mariano Rivera or Kobe Bryant.
Now, if only he could finish off teams without going two of 14 from deep.
• Just when you think Cougars have turned the corner then this happens.
The “this” of course would be referring to that 112-84 whipping inflicted by lowly Warrens on Sunday in a game that the Hothersal men all but rolled over in the fourth quarter.
Ricardo Jemmott’s absence has a lot to do with the result for sure, but that’s still no excuse to give up triple digits to a bottom feeder averaging just a tick above 70 points per contest.
It shows you just can’t put your money on this up and down Cougars side, no matter what side of the coin you’re going for.
Then again, you probably can bet your bottom dollar they’ll give up points aplenty, having just surrendered their second 100-point total in a season where they’ve been pillaged for an average of over 76 points a game.
