In this edition of On The Ball, NATION basketball writer Justin Marville reviews last weekend’s Co-operators General Insurance Premier League postseason.
Insights, observations and musings of an eventful Game 1 of the Lakers-Pinelands finals rematch.
YEAH, WRITE OFF the champs, you say?
Well, since we’re here, why not just count out Tim Duncan, Brett Favre, Rocky and Stefano Dimera?
If I didn’t write it myself I wouldn’t have believed that Pinelands actually overlooked a four-time championship side that is less than a year removed from beating them on the very same stage.
Sure, I didn’t have LSC to take Game 1, but I didn’t have them to roll over either, not on the premise of a pair of meaningless regular season encounters.
I’m surprised Charles Vanderpool even confessed that his men were relaxed and over-confident coming into the finals, considering that the mere thought alone is an indictment on a team full of veteran players.
What? You thought LSC were going to just hand over the crown because we said they should, or because a group of national players decided to band together in all black and act like they’ve already won something?
It didn’t take long to see who really is accustomed to winning, though, as the champs were focused right from the opening tip while scrapping for everything en route to two separate double-digit leads.
This isn’t to say Pinelands can’t, or even won’t, rebound to win three of the next four games and do what they were expected to all along.
But maybe now they’ll understand they have to earn this championship. Better believe LSC certainly won’t be giving it to them.
Maybe it’s that championship pedigree, or maybe it’s the kind of players LSC bring in.
Or maybe, just maybe Francis Williams is just one hell of a coach.
Without taking Game 1’s effort into account, consider the Husbands head has now led teams to eight league finals in nine seasons without having any of the starters from the first title-winning team play a single minute for this latest finals squad.
There’s no doubt Williams had a virtual national squad when he took that debut crown in 2007, but do you know how you usually refer to a club that subsequently loses Pearson Griffith, Adrian Stewart, Sydney Rowe and Zahir Motara? Try demoted.
Championship side
Far from relegation, all the LSC head coach has done is pilot his teams to every single championship series from 2006 except the 2009 finals – and he only barely missed out on those via a buzzer-beater from the greatest Bajan-born basketballer.
Now Williams is back again showing his pedigree, making changes like using the bigger Ian Alexander to limit Jeremy Gill’s touches and offensive boards.
Game 1’s adjustments did not end there either, as the traditionally weak defensive rebounding LSC kept Pinelands to only nine offensive rebounds.
There also wasn’t a focus of double-teaming Vanderpool anymore, with the champs seemingly willing to let him operate “one-on-one” in favour of a more concerted effort to shut down his other super-star counterparts.
Guess Adrian Allman was right all along about saying they don’t play for the regular season. Or maybe we just favoured the wrong side to begin with.
Vanderpool may be the regular season Most Valuable Player (MVP) and Jeremy Gill is easily the best talent on the floor right now, but neither of them is currently the most important player to this series’ outcome.
No, that would be Keefe Birkett.
If you think otherwise then consider that the LSC guard is his team’s only ball-handler, primary facilitator and still serves as the squad’s biggest scoring option.
It may not seem so significant until you realise the only players of recent history with this type of responsibility on a championship team – Gill, Andre Lockhart and Peter Alleyne – were all national players with finals MVP trophies.
Yet Birkett is doing a similarly credible job without that same star-level talent. And trust me, his fingerprints were all over that Game 1 victory, even if the stat sheets do justice to the performance.
