{"id":4605,"date":"2024-04-08T19:38:01","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T23:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/?p=4605"},"modified":"2024-04-08T19:38:01","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T23:38:01","slug":"the-path-to-grinder-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/2024\/04\/08\/the-path-to-grinder-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Path to Grinder Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Stop reading my bi-line you creeps<\/p>

Vic Romano<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

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Hello Grinders faithful. Have you missed us? We sure haven\u2019t missed you! Just kidding\u2026 mostly. Yes, it\u2019s true – we\u2019ve been slacking pretty hard here at Grinders HQ. If you want the truth, we\u2019ve found this session extremely boring. Not worth our time really to step away from our extremely interesting and very cool lives to write down our thoughts about all this mid basketball being played. What do you want from us? Here\u2019s your recap of Weeks 3 through 9: Cole\u2019s team and Pauly P\u2019s team are annoyingly good. Every other team is subpar and borderline lousy. Recap over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in all seriousness, I have felt a little bad that you haven\u2019t had our weekly goodness to absorb with your eyeballs. So, while this won\u2019t be a recap article, I thought it was a neat and new idea. I\u2019ll be going down the line and detailing how achieving Grinders glory is a possibility for each team. And, because you all suck, I\u2019ll also be detailing how every team will NOT win the Grinders championship. (I\u2019m sure there\u2019s better verbiage for what I\u2019m doing here. You\u2019ll get the gist.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1 – TheMV(Pauly)P\u2019s<\/strong>
When these guys actually show up to play, they are a nightmare for defenses. You have last sessions real MVP, captain Pauly; perennial PITA and 1st Team All-Grinder lock Gersitz, and a healthy Mike Malicki. In my opinion, this team can F right off. Salvati is that 4th man everyone wishes they had, with his grit and grind play style and ability to hit a fair share of his open jumpers. Pending no more season-ending injuries, I fail to see how these guys aren\u2019t in the final 2. They move the ball well, they force defenders into 1-on-1 situations, and they hit their shots at an above average rate. Especially Gersitz, casually hitting 60% of his attempts. So lame!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key to Success<\/strong>: Just have all hands on deck. Boring analysis I know, but would anyone disagree? They have the size and athleticism to matchup against bigger teams, and Pauly P and Salvati are more than capable on the perimeter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Key to Failure<\/strong>: Besides injury, the only weakness I can think of is if we see the return of 2023 Malicki where he shoots 0\/20 or whatever, and if Gersitz is somehow held below 20 points. They would need to play horrendously to fall short of a ring this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2 – TeamSlimThick(Cole)<\/strong>
Speaking of annoying teams to play against\u2026 the most intimidating big man duo we\u2019ve seen in quite some time of Cole and Wayne have been terrorizing small chumps for months. Hate em or love em, both men are averaging double doubles, and even Richie is flirting with a double double himself somehow. People forget he\u2019s on the team! Tirado and Chuck let it fly from deep while Wayne and Cole play bully ball down low. And they can also shoot from range. Stupid team I say. Their only 2 losses came due to being short handed (missing either Cole or Wayne) and while they\u2019ve had a few close calls, they know how to hunker down and come up clutch. And while we haven\u2019t seen it too often, if the shots are falling from 3, there might not be a team that can keep up offensively. Again, not to be boring, but I fail to see a future where this team isn\u2019t defending their championship in a couple of weeks.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key to Success<\/strong>: Feed the top 2 guys. Let Wayne and Cole do damage down low, and defenses will be forced to bring help, leaving Tirado\/Chuck open on the outside. They\u2019ve shown that they\u2019re a tough team to score on, so exploit any mismatches, score how you can, pass the ball around, and like Pauly P\u2019s team, force those 1-on-1 situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Key to Failure<\/strong>: Cole and Wayne rain suck, and Tirado\/Chuck\/Richie can\u2019t carry them on their backs. Granted, I don\u2019t think anyone could carry those two guys at once, unless you\u2019re an Olympic power lifter, and even then I\u2019d still be concerned for your health and well being. Get it because heavy. The only team that\u2019s given Cole\u2019s squad problems is Pauly P\u2019s. Everyone else is just not big\/good enough. They\u2019d need an extremely poor offensive performance to fall short of the championship game. Or maybe Tirado channels his inner Bang Bang and shoots 2\/30 from the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3 – Team \u201cMyRock\u201d(Peyton)<\/strong>
I am confused. Should a team with two guys on the All-Grinders Teams be 4-5? The young captain\u2019s squad has lost 4 of their last 5, and we don\u2019t even have to bring up the squandered 15 point lead from two weeks ago\u2026 against Old Man Jon nonetheless. Nearly half of their games have been decided by one possession, but is that really the problem? On paper this should be a top 2 team – Peyton really went all in with what should be a small-ball death lineup with Jimmy, $5 Tommy and Bryant. Worm was on the team, then wasn\u2019t, and then was again, and he has been decent if unspectacular (when he shows up). Sure, on draft day it was determined this would be an extremely boom-or-bust lineup. Especially with having no true big man. Perhaps the youngling failed to take into account that by putting together such an offensive-minded squad, literally no other team will play anything but zone, and sometimes they just look flummoxed by it, especially against teams with size. Something just feels off, especially when everyone on the court seems to flourish when they\u2019re ball-dominant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key to Success:<\/strong> Move the damn ball more! We\u2019ve seen everyone have their moments, but when every team plays zone against you, you have to keep the ball moving and find an opening. Also, you have 3 of the fastest and most athletic guys in the entire league. Run that fastbreak – and don\u2019t be afraid to ride the hot hand. If all 5 guys can coexist and distribute the rock evenly, a late season run is certainly not out of the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Key to Failure<\/strong>: Play selfish and take forced shots. Which we\u2019ve seen from multiple guilty parties. Sometimes the shots aren\u2019t falling, and that\u2019ll happen, but forcing low percentage shots against teams with better cohesion is the reason why this talented team has been doing up short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4 – Team \u201cWhere\u2019smyfoul?!\u201d E<\/strong>
Bolstered by the league giant Tall Justin, this team has seen some ups but more downs – it\u2019s unclear what the root of their 4-6 record is. 4 guys (Justin, Ford, Zach, and Ben) have GAPEs in the double digits and respectable shooting percentages over 33%. Captain E\u2019s production has dipped, but this analyst has noticed the sharp uptick in assists this session, as E is averaging 4 dimes a game! When Justin is being tall and stuff and Ford goes to work or whatever, they are not an easy out. They have the ability to control the boards against most other teams, and they don\u2019t turn the ball over too often – it really seems like it\u2019s just a matter if everyone shows up to play or not. If Justin and Ford are connecting, and Ben\/E can contribute, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s too far-fetched for them to make it at least to the semifinals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Key to Success<\/strong>: Let Justin hit his unblockable jump shots, and everyone else plays 3&D ball. Ideally we\u2019d have to see E knock down some of his patented pull up jumpers and drive, Zach can hit his open looks from 15 feet and in, and Ben + Ford have shown this season they\u2019re capable of hitting from range. And when things aren\u2019t going their way, whether it\u2019s on the court or off of it, they have to keep their composure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Key to Failure<\/strong>: A cold streak can be trouble for pretty much any team, but since E will be playing Team Al in the playoff opener, I went back and looked at the box score when these two last squared off. E shot 50% on his way to 22 points, and Justin had a double double with 18 points and 15 rebounds. The issue is that Ben and Ford shot for a combined 20% from the field (1\/11 and 2\/17, respectively). Not great! And they only lost to Al by 2 points. Another thing I noticed is in most of their losses, the opposing team generally has significantly higher game shooting percentages. I\u2019m not saying they are bad defensively, but against some the more potent offenses in the league (Peyton, Cole, Pauly P) it will be tough to hang in there if one of their scorers goes cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5 – Team \u201cNoDAllowed\u201d Al<\/strong>
Maybe this is an exaggeration due to last week\u2019s OT thriller, in which they fell short in the battle for the 3 seed 81-83. But, looking through their session, every team team Al has faced has scored more than 50 points. In fact, the lowest opposing final score in their 1-4 start to the session was 58. They have improved slightly in that regard over the last 5 games, not allowing an opponent to score over 60 – but they\u2019ve shown that they need an all around scoring effort to overcome their opponents. Hell, last week Jeff May dropped 39 points on nearly 50% shooting, and they still couldn\u2019t pull out the victory. There\u2019s no doubt that they have an above average offense, with Jeff May and Garrett averaging over 18 PPG and Al\/Joe both in the double digits as well. Nixon, while only appearing 4 games this session, is a nice complementary option as well. But giving up 83 points with playoff implications on the line feels pretty telling to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Key to Success<\/strong>: Overcome offensive onslaughts. From a numbers standpoint, you can pretty much chalk in at least 50 points from the other team. I\u2019d say defense is the key, but that just doesn’t appear to be in Al\u2019s gameplan. So, I\u2019d say let Jeff May and Garrett get theirs, let Joe cook down low every now and then, and have Al hit his signature baseline jumpers – as long as everyone shoots around 40-50 percent, there\u2019s a chance they can win some duels. With the playoff opener against team E, who they split their session series with, they are susceptible to cold shooting streaks – Al\u2019s team needs to capitalize if such a situation arises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Key to Failure<\/strong>: Defensive ineptitude. If they have all hands on deck and have a sub to work with, maybe they can let their guys get some rest – but this is the most glaring issue with this team. I\u2019d say there\u2019s still a chance if Jeff May goes nuclear and everyone else contributes handily, but then I look at last week where that happened and it still didn\u2019t matter. I don\u2019t really know a solution, so I\u2019ll just say \u201cD the F up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Team \u201cCurtis\u201d Jon<\/strong>
Unfortunately, despite Curtis averaging 32 PPG, Team OMJ is the first Grinders team to miss the playoffs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key to Success<\/strong>: Curtis play good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key to Failure<\/strong>: Curtis play not good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blurb end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hello Grinders faithful. Have you missed us? We sure haven\u2019t missed you! Just kidding\u2026 mostly. Yes, it\u2019s true – we\u2019ve been slacking pretty hard here at Grinders HQ. If you want the truth, we\u2019ve found this session extremely boring. Not worth our time really to step away from our extremely interesting and very cool lives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-vic-romano"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/04\/IMG_0720.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4609,"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions\/4609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinders.live\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}