The Game Breakers defeated Air Mambas,116-75, in dominant fashion to keep their championship hopes alive in the Quarterfinals. What faces them next is a very tough Lob City team who knows what it takes to push through and win it all in the playoffs.
When taking a look at the box score you can see Hadaitullah Amini led both teams in scoring with 37 points. Following behind him Joseph Sekator finished with 27 and Gian Avedesian, who has led the team in scoring all year, finished with 22. The depth and talent up and down their roster has been a conversation surrounding the Game Breakers all season.
Lob City is going to need to find a way to limit the Game Breakers’ scorers in order to win. The only issue is that the Game Breakers have so many of them. With a strong case to have four All-Stars selected for the All-Star Game this year (Avedesian, Amini, Sekator and David Depina) it is going to be a challenge for Lob City to contain everyone.
On the other side Lob City also had a very good game in their Quarterfinal matchup against the Ice Treys. Winning by a margin of 44 points thanks to 50 points from Jose Mercado on 69 percent shooting, it was clear that they are not ready to give up that trophy just yet.
Jose Mercado and Cody Crawford alone were able to outscore the Ice Treys as they combined for 77 points combined. What is so dangerous about Lob City is that we have yet to see them really at full strength. Similar to the Game Breakers, Lob City is a very deep team full of talented players. Players like Carl Lee and Collin Burns both missed about half the season and Lob City is likely not going to have Carl Lee in the Semifinals as he recovers from an injury.
These teams have met twice before in the regular season and the Game Breakers won both games by an average of 24 points. Leading scorer for the Game Breakers and MVP candidate Gian Avedisian knows things may be different when they face off again in the playoffs.
“At full strength they’re an amazing team, but with that being said both games were a large margin of victory,” Avedisian said. “Full team or not we play the same game against whoever’s in front of us.”
Although the game is between the 2-seeded Game Breakers and 3-seed Lob City, Avedesian has confidence that these are the two best teams in the league.
“My confidence level is through the roof,” Avedisian said. “The winner of this game will be the champions and both teams know that, so we’ll see on Tuesday.”
The Game Breakers lead the entire league in points scored (798) and Lob City is the team with the next most points scored (739). Defense is going to be what wins the game for either team. Amini is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate and recorded seven steals in the Quarterfinals. On top of that the last time these teams played, Depina gave Mercado a lot of trouble on defense holding him to 40 percent shooting and 23 percent from three.
On the other side Lob City is equally impressive on defense and showed it in their win against Ice Treys.
“Defensive stops (really helped us) and we killed them early with the fast breaks,” Mercado said.
“Against the Game Breakers, We need to play defense, we need to get back, box out, play our best game and limit their threes,” Mercado said. “I am going to stop David Depina, I’m going to make sure of that. He ain’t scoring more than 15 points on me.”
A lot of emotions are tied down to this game from both teams as we get ready for what should be an epic third matchup between two of the most talented teams in the league. The Game Breakers know the defending champs will be ready on Tuesday night.
“It’s always Lob City has won so many championships which is amazing, but this is the 2023 season and we’re up 2-0 on them,” Avedisian said. “It’s their turn to show how they can beat us, not the other way around.”
