National Finals Game 3: Sanatura 74 San Ramon 80

After a tough win last Friday night, our team was back at the Gimnasio Nacional Sunday night for the third game of the Finals. Up two games in the best of five series, the biggest threat to our title hopes was complacency; as we all know two is not the same as three.



Our team settled for outside jumpers in the opening minutes, while San Ramon made a concerted effort to attack inside. San Ramon broke out to an early lead, only to see us to get back into the game.  The two teams kept it close for most of the first half, trading baskets with neither team able to break away. After seeing his team get called for two intentional fouls in the first half, San Ramon captain Daniel Simmons pleaded his case to the refs for justice. The pleas worked as San Ramon marched to the free throw line in the second quarter while getting called for only one foul (Second quarter fouls: Sanatura 8, San Ramon 1). Heading into the half, we were all tied up at 37.

San Ramon came out strong in the third quarter, with Simmons leading the charge on offense. We went ice cold for a three minute stretch with only Jaythiev Davis scoring a couple of baskets for our side. A couple of careless turnovers later, and all of a sudden we were down ten points to end the third quarter.

Every time we could string together two baskets, it felt like San Ramon would counter with a basket or two of its own. San Ramon was resilient in making plays to keep us at bay...deflected balls, extra passes...all the right things to get the ball in the hoop. Down eight with five minutes to go, we finally made a run to get the game down to a four point lead with Michael Jackson leading the way and a big dunk from Jaythiev. With two minutes to go, we got a steal and pushed the ball ahead to Cristian Chavarria only to see Simmons track him down and swat his layup away from the rim (I'd love to see a replay on that call...alas no TV). I'm not sure if we got it down to 2, but I do remember Kay Martinez making a late basket to keep it a two possession lead with 30 seconds or so to go.

After turning the ball over, San Ramon was set to inbound with seven seconds to go. Our intent was to go for the steal and if not send them to the free throw line. Greg Platter managed to get free from Chavarria and receive the ball. Chava was draped over Greg, but the ref didn't blow the whistle. Michael Jackson comes over to foul. Platter takes exception, flails out his arms and Michael responds with a slap/chop/punch and gets ejected from the game.  Two free throws and the ball...Game over.

Game Notes

• Michael Jackson led all scorers with 31 points. He was also our leading rebounder with 11 boards. 
• San Ramon had a balanced scoring attack with Greg Platter, Kay Martinez and Daniel Simmons all scoring 18 points and Amaurys Ripool chipping in 14 points. Jefny Anderson was a presence inside with 12 boards and an astounding 8 blocks. 
• As I previously mentioned, Michael Jackson was ejected from the game at the very end for striking an opponent. In our league that means an automatic one game suspension plus whatever punishment is handed down by the Discipline Committee. The Committee determined that Michael would miss only one game, which had the San Ramon fan base screaming bloody murder since their players have been subjected to longer suspensions over the course of the year. I've largely abstained from the discourse. Obviously, I have a biased perspective on the matter, so I will let events in the series unfold. Most of my current and former players know where I stand on the matter of suspensions.