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Round 5 MVP – Tamara James
Safsal
,11/19/2008 |
Tamara James picked up her 2nd round MVP honors of the season following Ramat Hen's win at Ramat Hasharon. Joining her on the 1st Team are two Ashdod players, one more from Ramat Hen and the round's top scorer from Hapoel. In 'After Shock', Safsal wonders what's going on in Ramat Hasharon, reflects on Ramat Hen's system and tries to cool down the two leaders.
Round 5 MVP – Tamara James
IT was hard to choose one player from Ramat Hen who used a total team effort on both ends of the court to win but James was still above the rest with 24 points and 14 rebounds. James was the lone player for Ramat Hen who was actually good in the 1st half too, when they trailed by 11, and she was very good in the clutch with a 3pt play, big assist for a 3 and the biggest rebound of the game with 30 seconds to play and her team up 3.
Round 5 First Team
Tamara Moore - Ashdod's leader scored six out of her 22 points in the final 90 seconds of the game to lead her team to a tight win over Hapoel Tel Aviv. She added 11 rebounds and 5 assists in another great all-around game.
Diamond Rogers - Say hello to the league's 2nd best scorer with 23.4 points per game. Rogers is also 2nd in the efficiency ranking and against Ashdod she was unstoppable with 33 points (including 4/6 from 3) and 16 rebounds.
Tamara James - James finished a productive night with 24 points and 14 boards, attacked the basket for 40 minutes and led Ramat Hen to a win.
Brasheeda Elohim - Ashdod's X-Factor recorded two season highs with 17 points and 10 rebounds and her team needed each and every one of them to win.
LaToya Pringle - 14 points and 10 rebounds is nothing out of the ordinary for Pringle but she was excellent defensively and drew a lot of fouls and attention from Ramat Hasharon in Ramat Hen's win.
After Shock
Living in the paint
They say the more aggressive a team is the more calls they get, and so far that's been working great for Ramat Hen. The league leaders average only 14.2 fouls per game despite allowing the fewest points, and draw 19.8 fouls per game. They shoot the most free throws with 24.2 per night, while the league average is 17.5. It's unlikely that 10 different referees gave them special treatment so the only conclusion is Ramat Hen pushes the ball inside more than any other team. Ramat Hen hardly ever settles for midrange jumpers, and they shoot the least amount of threes in the league aside from Tel Kabir. It will be interesting to see how they react when teams starts packing the paint in a zone and try to make them shoot it.
The whole is smaller than the sum of its parts
At least thus far, Ramat Hasharon is out of sync. They had just 13.5 assists per game in the two home losses to Raanana Hertzeliya & Ramat Hen, which explains the horrendous 37.8% from inside the arc. With 4 high quality foreigners and four Israeli national team players it's obvious the team's expectations are much higher. If they want to start living up to them Ramat Hasharon has to start fighting for every possession, unlike what they did at the end of the Ramat Hen game.
The undefeated
We admit it, its fun to see two teams not named Ramla or Ramat Hasharon at the top of the standings with perfect records. With that said, neither of them is untouchable and it's very important for Ramat Hen and even more for Ashdod, to keep their feet firmly on the ground. We remember how Holon started 5-0 in the 06/07 season, then got blown out in Ramla on TV and went on to lose 8 games in a row. It's all about psychology now, how to acknowledge mistakes after wins and fix them, not get complacent and not fear losing.
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