SPORTS

All-Stars go all out in Extravaganza

Winner of the dunk competition Lloyd Samuels.	Phillip Barnes soars over the George Town skyline.	Setting sun, rising star.

Phillip Barnes of GTSC attempts a massive dunk over
a teammate.

Tuesday,  June  28, 2005

THE grand finale of the Cayman Islands basketball season took place on Wednesday and Thursday last week, (22 & 23 June) when the best players in the league played in the Digicel Wendy’s All-Star Extravaganza.

The event, originally scheduled to take place on Wednesday evening alone, had to be split over two days when a power outage during the Slam Dunk contest on Wednesday caused the East versus West game to be postponed.

The events opened with a three-point shootout. The participants had to sink as many three-point shots as possible within athe allotted 45 seconds. There were five set points from where the shots had to be taken, and three balls at each point.

After the preliminary round, Eric McField of GTSC, Gregory Miller of Blazers, and Chad O’Garro of Juniors advanced to the final. O’Garro went first, and set a mark of seven for the others to chase. Although Miller came close, the title was taken by O’Garro, who can now officially lay claim to being the sharpest shot in Cayman.

The smooth technique of the three-point shot was followed by the soaring artistry, and occasional brute force, of the Slam Dunk contest.

There were some extremely difficult dunks attempted, especially by Phillip Barnes of GTSC. For his final dunk he attempted the dunk pulled off by Amare Stoudemire and Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Slam Dunk contest. Barnes passed the ball to a teammate, who headed the ball towards the hoop, where Barnes slammed it down. Although the dunk worked in practice, Barnes was unable to pull it off when it counted. However, it still demonstrated that the talent here in Cayman does not need to stand back, even when compared to the best in the world.

On the back of some sterling work in the first round, Phillip Barnes of GTSC and Lloyd Samuels of Juniors contested the final, with Samuels emerging as the King of Big Air.

The All-Star game, although spectacular, was severely hampered by the fact that it had to be postponed by a day. Many of the national team players, who had been at the game on Wednesday, could not attend on Thursday, as they were busy arranging matters for their trip to Gibraltar on Friday morning. Those who were present were also rather anxious to go home and catch game seven of the NBA finals (San Antonio beat Detroit to take the NBA title).

In spite of this, the game showcased Cayman’s basketball talent to its fullest, with players trying more risky moves than they would in league matches. This resulted in some beautiful combinations, smooth behind-the-back passes, and more dunks than one could shake a stick at.

National captain Colin Anglin showed why he deserves the position with excellent play all over the court. Not only did he do some sterling work from the three-point line, he also took some very good rebounds, which he often converted to points with smooth turnaround jump shots.

At the end of the first quarter the score was 24-12 in favour of West, on the back of the work done by Anglin.

At the start of the second quarter East started coming back, with GTSC teammates Eric McField and Phillip Barnes combining for some beautiful plays, with long passes by McField finding Barnes under the hoop. Kevin Maxwell of Blazers also did some good work to pull West back within striking distance.

Anglin managed to keep West alive with more three-point shots and some rather artistic passing. At the end of the half West still had a nine point lead over East.

East came out hard for the third quarter, nailing the West with three-pointers, lay-ups and slams. This brought on a showboat session of play, with teammates combining for some spectacular slams. Although this is something that one is not likely to see in a league game, it is very much in the spirit of All-Star games, and entertained the crowd to no end.

At the end of the third quarter there was only a three point difference between the teams in favour of East, and the game was wide open.

The fourth quarter had much more intensity to it than the third quarter, as players and coaches realised that the game was now on the line. Although Anglin nailed another three to try and keep West in the game, East had come out to win, and players combined for excellent plays, with Kevin Maxwell of Blazers being one of the standouts.

At the final buzzer it was East with a 78-71 win over West.

All the players received gift bags from main sponsor Cingular, much to the delight of West, who had feared that they might miss out on the loot after losing the game.

With the talent and passion on display during the game, one can expect great things from our national team in Gibraltar. Coach Voot O’Garro said that it was “a strong team; a very, very strong team.”

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