With the Premier League finals on an 11-day break, NATION basketball writer Justin Marville reviews the first three games of the title series between the Lumber Company Lakers and Warrens.
Raise your hand if you had Warrens swiping the first two games in nail-bitters (no, not you Cherilyn Christie) before stifling the champs to just 26 points in the first half of Game 3 to set up the unthinkable – a three-game sweep of Lakers.
Not even the most ardent and diehard of Warrens fans could’ve seen this coming – I certainly didn’t – and that includes Peter Alleyne’s next door neighbours, as nothing from the teams’ regular season matchups would suggest Lakers being outmatched. Especially considering both games were comfortable Lakers victories.
Not that we all haven’t heard this enough already, but to hammer home the point, just remember this is a Warrens side that has been knocked out of the last two postseasons by the same St Michael neighbours.
Good thing I didn’t get to write that finals preview which had Lakers winning in four games, as if I needed another reason for Warrens’ fans to hurl their “pleasantries” in my direction.
• As we’re on the topic of things no one could’ve predicted, exactly what in the name of maturity has come over George Farrell, he of the Game 1 buzzer-beating, game-winning shot folklore.
Not that his impact on these finals – or even Game 1 – is limited to just that last-second trey either, as the often overlooked swingman has been a huge revelation in this series with two huge fourth quarters.
It seemed like every time Warrens needed a big play, there was Farrell either coming up with a clutch drive, a momentum-swinging jumper or a pair of critical free throws in the nervous moments that usually make or break players.
And for all the hype the Game 1 buzzer-beater gets, his go-ahead free throws inside the final minute of Game 2 rank just as high – if not higher – in my book, considering he had lots of time at the line to think about clanking both foul shots on the league’s biggest stage. No pressure, right?
Let’s not forget this is a kid who has never played a single finals game – far less a single minute of postseason basketball – before this year, and is now in his fifth different club in six years amidst earlier reported bouts of immaturity.
What a way to show everyone you’ve grown up, and just when I was ready to write off ole George as a player who couldn’t handle pressure for abandoning the relegation-bound Senators to take a reduced role in Warrens.
Just more evidence that I should give up this analyzing basketball thing in favour of reporting on warri and monopoly.
• Make no mistake, though: Farrell is but the feel-good story of these finals. If you want the real story arc, then look no further than the embattled Andre Lockhart.
He might arguably be this country’s best player (as rated by my Top 30 last season), but there’s no disputing the fact the Lakers star guard is easily their most beleaguered, unless of course I’ve somehow managed to misconstrue the crowd’s constant heckling.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that dear Andre isn’t a suitable lightning rod for the relentless criticism – what with all the prima donna behaviour, cockiness and clearly audible trash-talking!
The woeful three-point effort in Game 2 didn’t help matters any either, as I could just hear repeated expressions from the crowd like “overrated” and “nuh good” liberally interspersed throughout the performance.
But even during Game 1’s heroics, the majority of patrons refused to cheer or even acknowledge they were witnessing one of the all-time finals performances, instead remaining quiet during each one of Lockhart’s big fourth-quarter shots like it was an episode of Everyone Hates Locky.
With the type of jabs he’s been getting, you’d think Barbados’ best was stinking up the joint and not averaging a finals-best 21 points on a red-hot 49.2 per cent shooting from the floor to go with seven assists per contest.
I mean, can you ever remember a time when the league’s No.1 wasn’t a universally well liked player? Jeremy Gill? Andrew Alleyne? Nigel Lloyd? Richard Toppin?
Boy, the times they are changing.
• That said, while Lockhart’s numbers suggest he isn’t quite a one-trick pony, the Lakers point guard may very well be a one-ring bully.
A closer look at the numbers shows that of the 63 points he’s scored in these finals, 44 of them have come on the ring in the Wildey Gym nearest to the court entrance, with Lockhart going on an insane 19 of 27 from the floor.
The other three hoops used so far (including the very generous Barbados Community College hoops)? Try just ten of 32 shooting for an Andrew Edwards-like 31.2 percent.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence, and Lockhart’s second-half outbursts just inadvertently concur at the western hoop.
Or maybe Warrens should be on their guard against the “Lord Of The Ring” for the opening 20 minutes of Saturday’s Game 4 when Lakers will be going at the “one ring” in the first half.
• Speaking of precipitous drop-offs in scoring, has any team ever looked more like day and night from the regular season to the finals than these Lakers?
The customary offensively proficient outfit, which averaged a league-best 80.1 points a contest, has barely scraped that total once all series while doing its best Warriors impersonation by posting a pair of dreadful 69-point performances.
After lighting up the league to the tune of something northward of 42 per cent shooting, the champs’ offence is hardly flickering right now, hardly registering on the radar with a woeful 29.9 per cent clip over Games 1 and 2.
Adding in their victorious Game 3 effort merely “boosts” that percentage to 33.7, although there’s something fundamentally wrong with using the word boost, or any other forward-referencing term, while describing Lakers’ back-pedalling offence right now.
• Credit Warrens’ defence (yes, there is such a creature) with these unforeseen struggles as Lakers’ steep fall-off hasn’t been mere happenstance.
Watch closely and you’ll see each and every Warrens perimeter defender (there’s that oxymoron again) stick on to their Lakers counterparts above the key, either fighting through screens or quickly switching in an effort to keep a body on the jump-shooting guards and chase them off the arc.
So disciplined are Warrens in running Lakers’ guards off the line that even their post players have committed to this strategy and have basically ignored every opposing big man not named Ricardo Jemmott.
Needless to say, this action has completely blown up the champs’ dribble-handoff offence and has left Lakers searching for answers – and more importantly baskets – in the half court.
So much for those run-and-gun days of the Peter Alleyne, Javid Beckles and Kirk Porte-led offence that regularly ran up the scores – and the losses.
• No good deed, though, goes unpunished, and Warrens are quickly discovering the sacrifice for their renewed attention to defensive detail: fatigue.
Just like babysitting, there’s always a price to pay for chasing around those who’re young, fitter and faster for an extended period, and nowhere was that more evident than in the second half of Game 3 when Lakers just ran amok in the open floor for a 54-29 outburst.
It wasn’t that Warrens didn’t want to close out the series; they were just too tired to even think about it, and the ensuing result could only be a sequence of fast-break baskets that came in quick succession.
Remember when Jemmott got away for four dunks in the second quarter of Game 2? Well, that was the first telltale sign this series was beginning to take its toll on Warrens, and don’t think Lakers coaching staff hasn’t taken notice.
I’m willing to bet all the money in the Alexandra inquiry that Lockhart is already being told to push the tempo even faster off rebounds – granted Lakers can get them, of course.
• In light of Jemmott’s aforementioned ability to outsprint his slow-footed defenders down the floor, you’d think he wouldn’t have to wait until Game 3 before being inserted into the starting line-up.
It’s already baffling enough that the squad’s second best player – easily one of the league’s top ten – comes off the bench, but to do so amidst Lakers’ clear offensive struggles is just mind-boggling.
Especially when you consider Jemmott is an elite force at both ends of the floor, not just the offensive side.
• Paging Mark Bridgeman, paging Mark Bridgeman. You’re kind of needed on the court.
Maybe it’s a bit unfair to single out only the talented Lakers swingman, bearing in mind that there are other high-profile absentees in this series (and we do mean you, Zahir Motara), but his has been the most glaring.
Unless, of course, Lakers were expecting the leader of their bench unit to go three of 13 in the finals while scoring a mere point over Games 2 and 3 combined. It’s a good thing Bridgeman’s father actually attends the games or he’d be sending out a missing person’s report based on these stats.
