2024-2025: Week 3 Player Reports

Game 1: Team Orange vs. Team White

-This should probably be the last week we’ll give some leniency to teams in terms of expectation and performance. So, I guess we can let slide the extremely strange decision to have Chuck guard Chris for most of this one. As you might expect, Chris got off to a hot start in the first half, affording Team Orange a comfortable 10-15 spread they carried throughout the rest of the game. Your best players have to guard the other team’s best players, almost always. We saw a similarly puzzling decision last year in the championship and it cost Matt V a title. It’s not like Finley doesn’t know Chris’ game, and even if he and Rob just took turns on Chris, I have to think that gives you a better chance overall. Sure, you can also talk about schemes, like doubles and traps, but Chris did almost all of his damage out of simple perimeter isolations. Yes, he shot well. And you might be inclined to throw your hands up and say, “well, when he’s shooting like that, what are you supposed to do?” But I would venture a guess, based on my basketball travels, that the vast majority of “hot shooting” games are initiated by a few easy opportunities to get things going. So, if you give a good shooter a favorable matchup and space, you’re increasing the odds that they find a rhythm early, which can and did spell disaster. Richie continues to provide reliable scoring for Orange and seems like a lock for 15 points no matter what you do. The task isn’t simple, but it’s imperative: get the ball out of Chris’s hands. Make the other guys do more than just catch and shoot. White barely did that at all and paid the price.

Game 2: Team Green vs. Team Pink

-Green tried this one without three starters and were destined to fall to 0-3 on the year. As it stands right now, I’m not sure what their path back into contention will be. Kennedy scored 42 with his usual mix of pull-up threes, offensive rebounding, and getting to the line. His effort was there. But outside of him, they don’t seem to have shooting, athleticism, playmaking, defensive pressure…it’s all pretty bad right now for Green. Team Pink was able to take advantage of the scheduled opponent to get their first win of the year. If they didn’t throw away their Week 1 game against Blue, they might be feeling different about the start of their season. We still haven’t seen their core front-court play together for extended minutes and the Ed/Paul tandem looks great. They combined for an absurd 75 points in this one, surely a HatchetBall record. But this team is badly in need of rim protection and physical rebounding. If the Bradley/Matt Koll/Alex trio can’t show up and grow up, lots of these points will be empty calories.

Game 3: - Team Purple vs. Team Blue

-In the best game of the night, Team Blue continues to follow a seemingly disastrous gameplan of trailing the entire game and then clanking a bunch of throws late in the game to somehow turn them into offensive rebound, kickout opportunities. It’s hard to describe how chaotic or unlikely to work this all has been. But here they stand at 2-1 on the year. If a buzzer beater heave against Yellow falls, they would be undefeated! Purple had this one on cruise control for most of the game until the last 4-5 minutes. Their possessions changed from decisive attacks to frantic, hot potato and a slew of turnovers and bad shots. Blue and Rodney cashed in on the random opportunities that presented themselves and somehow took the lead in the last minute. Purple should have been running clock and shooting free throws, but the script was quickly flipped and Purple had no response. A Carli-led team is unlike any other and they appear to be comfortable playing one-possession games every week. Let the drama continue.

Game 4: - Team Yellow vs. Team Red

-Red couldn’t even field a team for this one, so no real game ensued. Just a bunch of half-hearted chucking and Chuck half-heartedly playing with his old buddy Steve. Nothing to read into for Team Red. We should see Declan and Colin back in action at full strength in Week 4, but the injuries to TJ and Ralph are going to be a huge handicap. This team was already small. You can’t have Keaton and Kamba tasked with guarding big all the time. It feels like the season hasn’t even begun for Team Yellow and they already nabbed two pretty easy wins. They haven’t looked great, but we’ve seen some of the depth they will need to bring to the table to contend for a title. Mark is still a broken shell of himself, but even with him and Konrad at full strength, they aren’t going to dominate the other top duos in the league. They need to rely on and trust in playing true 5 on 5 ball. That means picking on favorable matchups and sacrificing shots when it’s required. Interesting matchup with Team Pink in Week 4.

Standings

Team	Captain	Win	Loss	Record	Win %	Streak	PS	PA	DIFF
ORANGE	KYLE GARMES	2	0	2 - 0	1.000	W2	144	111	33
YELLOW	MARK KOLL	2	0	2 - 0	1.000	W2	135	105	30
PURPLE	MATT VITALIANO	2	1	2 - 1	0.667	L1	197	161	36
BLUE	LUKE A	2	1	2 - 1	0.667	W1	164	162	2
WHITE	ROB KNAPCZYK	1	1	1 - 1	0.500	L1	124	138	-14
PINK	MATT KOLL	1	2	1 - 2	0.333	W1	219	198	21
RED	STEVE DUDEK	0	2	0 - 2	0.000	L2	112	149	-37
GREEN	DAVE TROY	0	3	0 - 3	0.000	L3	175	246	-71