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Subscribe to our NewsletterWeek 12 was a pretty wild week with lots of fun storylines. Emotions were definiely running high as we get closer to the end of the season and this played out in more than one instance.
Matt Ceccarelli and Erez Liebermann coming close to blows (Erez is upset he didn't make the top two last season in biggest hot heads)
This week was also a week of lessons learned for this writer as sometimes poking the bear can come back to bite you in the ass:
Alex Fisher letting me know how he felt about earlier recaps after blocking my shot and the ensuing staredown
But perhaps the most fun storyline of the week was players stepping up when needed to fill in as officials for the two games played on Tuesday night. We found out late that Tommy DeCataldo was dealing with the flu and would be unable to ref on Tuesday night. But on top of that Rodney was not willing to officiate the game on his own so Josh Tannenbaum, Dave Nathanson and myself tried reaching out to anyone we could think of to try and cover the games but nobody was available. That was when we decided that canceling the games would be very difficult with only two weeks remaining and decided to go with players reffing the games. So a big shoutout to Rick Auyeung, Alex Schosheim and Colin Neff, who along with me reffed the two Tuesday games. Now having been a part of both games, reffereeing one and playing in the other, it was very clear that Colin and Alex were the A-team (Alex even called a three-second violation) whereas Rick and I got the job done without too many complaints (and as the true team player that I am, any time there was a complaint, I made sure to point out that it was Rick that was in position to make the missed call). So that brings us to the first game of the week:
Red 65 - Gold 51: This game was way closer than the actual score with Red pulling away late in the contest. Gold was playing without two of their top offensive weapons in Michael "neighbor" Huberman and Jake Granoff while Red had their full squad. Red clearly took the playing time criticism to heart as Mike "the dentist" Smulewitz was featured in the starting lineup. This game got off to a scorching start offensively with both teams moving the ball and hitting a high percentage of shots throughout the first half. Steve Bachman (16 points/8 rebs) and Jason Narod (13 points/4 assists) got off to a quick start from deep and when the shots weren't falling Bryan Minasian (10 points) seemed to always be there to grab the rebound (10 of his 23 rebounds coming on the offensive end). We all know Bryan is an outstanding rebounder but reffing the game and seeing it close up gave me an even greater appreciation of how he's really perfected his craft (just an incredible instinct to know where misses will end up). On the other side of the ball, Colin Neff is also an absolute monster on the boards and amazing to witness up close. Colin uses a combination of instinct but also insane athleticism and tireless effort to frustrate opponents by keeping possessions alive for his team (6 of his 10 rebounds were the offensive variety). I love giving PSAs to teams about things I see by watching lots of tape and here's my tip against Colin (though it's a lot easier said than done)...you need to get a body on him as soon as a shot goes up because otherwise you have no chance of preventing him from flying in to grab the board. By the time you find him he's already grabbed the rebound and followed it up with an easy putback, which he did many times in this game en route to 16 points (as well as 6 assists and 6 steals). I guess another baby in the house had the opposite effect for Colin as he seemed fresh and moving at a different speed than everyone else on the court. So both teams were hitting their shots in the first half and Gold took at 38-37 lead into the half (though thanks to all games now being streamed and the ability to quickly access it on the phone, Jason Narod was able to show me that Adam Hynes actually had his foot on the line for a three-pointer so the lead should've been two - good job missing the call Rick). There's a lot of talk about halftime adjustments in professional sports and the decision by Red to switch to zone defense completely changed the game in the second half. Also, when shots like this are falling you know it's going to be tough sledding:
Adam Hynes with the crazy tip-in
The combination of length and athleticism make it really tough to attack Red's zone and the second half opened with two turnovers leading to fast break buckets and an airball on a three-pointer on Gold's first three possessions. This would be a theme in the second half for Gold who after scoring 38 points in the first half managed only 13 points in the second half (with 6 of those points coming in the final moments). Bachman and Narod, who each got off to quick starts couldn't get their threes to drop in the second half and they ended up shooting 6/24 from deep for the game. Adam Hynes had another outstanding game scoring 17 points while adding 10 rebounds and 4 assists. Jon Kanarek got tired of hearing Jason Narod yell "we can live with that" every time he took a three, and finally made one and let Narod know about it. Eric Sass, in what was a relatively quiet performance, still finished with a near double-double (8 points and 11 rebounds). The win moved Red to 11-3 while the loss dropped Gold to 3-10.
Red vs Gold Highlights 2/18/2025
Grey 69 - Blue 60: As I mentioned earlier, this week was all about lessons learned and this game featured another lesson learned:
Sorry I got confused about my lessons learned. What I meant to say was I learned to never post a recap criticizing the offensive performance of a team mere hours before facing them (I realize you're all thinking I just did that with Gold above but that was just reporting on the game as opposed to criticizing) because clearly Jon Ackerman and Phil Romero used what I wrote as bulletin board material. The Blue team was playing without Adam Driansky and Zach Sicherman but they came out firing on all cylinders early, especially Jon Ackerman (27 points for the game). Jon scored 19 of his team's first 24 points and finished the half with 21 points. Grey opened in zone defense and Jon took advantage by hitting threes and also finding creases in the zone and hitting pullups. Blue built a double digit lead early and maintained that margin for most of the game. When it wasn't Jon torching Grey it was his partner in crime, Phil Romero. Phil used a combination of threes (2 for the game) and decisive driving en route to 21 points (to go along with 10 rebounds and 4 assists). Blue took a 35-27 lead into the halftime break with Grey relying on the clutch shot-making of Shamar Mason to keep them in the game early. Shamar finished the game with 24 points with most of his shots coming at times when his scoring was desperately needed. The second half began much in the same way as the first half did, with Jon Ackerman hitting another three. But the Grey defense started to get some stops and slowly began chipping away at the lead. Though on this play the ball seemed to still be bouncing Blue's way:
In bound pass tipped by Shamar off of Jon's face and then off of Shamar's face
Blue maintained an 11-point lead with just 11:00 remaining and that is when Grey went on a 7-0 run that would eventually carry them to the victory. Notorious zone killer, Mike Korn, got hot late and hit several timely mid-range jumpers (16 points/6 rebs on 8/13 shooting). Shamar hit back-to-back threes which tied up the game. Matt Ceccarelli, normally pretty calm and cool, got into it with Erez Liebermann which fired up the squad (handled really well by Colin/Alex as the officials). Matt used his inside/outside combo to net 18 points. Mike Hughes didn't have a huge scoring night but his effort defensively in the second half (3 blocks) and on the glass (15 rebounds) was a huge difference. Blue really played their best game all season for the first 2/3 of the game but just ran out of gas in the final 10 minutes. Grey went on to secure the 9-point win and a 10-2 record with another game coming the next night. The loss dropped Blue to 2-12 but they seem to be gelling as a team at the right time.
Grey vs Blue Highlights 2/18/2025
Green 59 - Orange 50: (stats are not yet done for this game so this is just based on watching the tape-see highlight reel for better idea of how the game went) I'm sure it'll come as a big surprise to everyone to learn that Green was playing shorthanded for this contest. But at least they started this game with 5 players, as opposed to their prior two games. Green was looking to extend their two-game winning streak but were missing Adam Bendik, Pete Strauss and Seth Niessen. Orange got out to a quick 10-3 lead thanks to early baskets by Michael Gerstein, Rory Schulman and Ben Huber. But Green answered with a quick 7-0 run to tie the score up at 10 apiece. From this point forward Green controlled the game thanks in large part to the three-point shooting of Jordan Perlmutter and Josh Goodhart. Goody has been a different player this season (as compared to last year) hitting 46.3% of his threes coming into this game but certainly higher after the game was finished. Goody hit 5 or 6 threes and just seems confident when the ball leaves his hands these days. Jordan added 4 threes of his own en route to approximately 15 points. As usual, Dan Amsellem was getting the job done defensively and on the glass though this was a quieter game for him offensively. Andrew Merel, running his familiar PG position (without Bendik), was finding open guys and also hit a few of his famous pullups. And let's not forget about Justin Chodos who was consistently finding open spaces near the basket and his teammates were finding him for layups (at least 4 total baskets for the game). For Orange, sometimes the shots just aren't falling and that was the case on this night. Rory and Gerstein led the team in scoring and Graham Haskell made a couple of big shots which contributed to a late comeback run. But it was too little too late for Orange and Goody put the nail in the coffin with two more late threes. Green has now won 3 straight games and are a team that nobody will want to face come playoff time. The win moved them to 5-9 while the loss dropped Orange to 7-7.
Green vs Orange Highlights 2/19/2025
Grey 80 - Black 61: Grey was back at it 24 hours after having to grind out a tough win over Blue the night before. Both teams were missing their defensive and energetic stars, with Black missing Gary Levine (the full body hair waxing took a day longer than expected) and Grey missing Mike Hughes as well as Rick Auyeung.
TJ Farrell was also nursing a knee injury and was at far less than 100%. Grey came out of the gates quickly in this game seemingly feeling no effects from having just played the night before. Grey opened a 9-2 lead to start the game and proceeded to extend that lead to 25-10 and eventually went into halftime with a comfortable 20-point cushion (48-28). The ball was really moving for the Grey squad and they finished the game with 19 assists compared to just 2 for Black. The scoring was very balanced with 4 players totalling between 14 and 21 points led by Ed Seiden (21 points/6 rebs/5 assists), followed by Matt Ceccarelli (20 points/9 rebs), Shamar Mason (17 points/7 rebs/5 assists) and Mike Korn (14 points/9 rebounds). The absence of Gary Levine was clearly felt on the defensive end for Black. Offensively, Black was led by Siri Carpien (29 points/13 rebs) who continues to put up crazy numbers every week. It was another strong performance by the walking double-double, Damian Jackson, who added 17 points and 13 rebounds. TJ scored 5 points in limited minutes and Andrew Mandelbaum added 6 points. Alex Fisher, aside from his big time swat of yours truly, had a nice reverse layup late in the game. For Grey, Alex Stone (3 pts/6 rebs) and Brandon Wendel (5 pts/4 rebs) both contributed to help make up for the absence of Mike Hughes. The win keeps Grey in first place at 11-2 with two games again scheduled for this upcoming week (thanks Josh Tannenbaum) while Black falls to 9-5 and an upcoming matchup with Red on the slate.
Grey vs Black Highlights 2/19/2025
Upcoming games:
Grey vs Gold (2/24)
Black vs Red (2/24)
Grey vs Orange (2/26)
Blue vs Green (2/26)
No stat leaders this week because we are missing one game still.
Good luck everyone this week
