Celtics Meet the Central Brave's in Winner's Bracket game

Saturday morning. Alarm goes off at 7 am. Time for the Celtics to prepare for last years 5A State Champion Central Braves. We faced the Braves twice in the last tournament, and knocked them off twice with come from behind victories.

With the luxury of seven Celtics, it was a nice feeling to begin the game. We started the IRON MAN five from Saturday, as Steven Smith's ankle had 15 hours of ice treatment and was feeling fine. The Celtics took it to the Braves at tipoff and exploded to an 8-0 lead behind two 3-pointers by Brock Morton.

[My personal thought was "Oh no... this is opposite of the last two times we met when Central had control throughout the first half, and the Celtics came back to win both times."]

Robert Aery came off the bench and wearing the green of the Celtics for the first time, nailed his first 3 point attempt. We played strong and depended heavily on point guard Matt Reynolds and inside presence Nick Harris on both ends of the court. Supporting Harris and Reynolds, most of the game we ran a box and one with Morton keeping track of the 6ft 5" Brave sharpshooter. Smith and Thalken battled the athletic Braves on the inside and Santos provided quality minutes of solid play.

The Celtic coach (this author!) was reprimanded by the younger official after a Brave got entangled with Hall of Fame official Johnny. While receiving a pass, the Brave collided with Johnny and stumbled with 3 or 4 short steps while having possession of the ball. I spoke (yelled?) loudly asking the younger official "How can that NOT be traveling?"

After either my 2nd (or was it 3rd?) repeat of the same sentence, he pointed, walked at me, and scolded with "You're NOT gonna be out on the court yelling at me!" and the unsaid THREAT of a technical foul shut me up quickly.

After that exchange, the younger official did the CELTICS no favors as he repeatedly called charges against us, and other questionable foul calls.

Central came on strong in the 2nd half and took control with a 5 point lead late in the game. Aery's 3 pointer knotted the game at 54-54 with 90 seconds left. There was a short debate on whether it was a 2 or 3 pointer, but the referee claimed it was a 3, though at least one of our Celtics informed me after the game that Robert was not behind the line. Coincidentally, this was the same official which had made some terrible charging calls against us. The Braves held for a last shot and were unsuccessful, sending the game into a 1 minute overtime.

The first overtime was quite boring to the paying fans as the Braves got the ball and held for a last shot. They missed.

In the second overtime, they gained control of the tip again, and though we had several opportunities to steal, the second overtime was similar to the first. The Braves missed their game winning attempt again.

OVERTIME #3: We almost came up with the jump ball, but it wasn't meant to be. They kept the ball outside and we allowed them to run the clock down again like the 2 previous overtimes. Except, this time, a Brave who possibly had not scored the entire game, nailed a jumper with 2 seconds left in the 3rd overtime to send the Braves into the Championship game, with a 56-54 squeaker over us.

After the game, I pointed out that it was a well played game; a tremendous experience with super effort by both teams. However, the loss didn't really mean diddly squat as far as our goal of winning the tournament championship is concerned.

Now it is our mission to battle back, and get a rematch with them in the championship game.
It sure is nice that we don't have to wait weeks for the rematch. All we have to do is win one game and we will get another shot at the Braves AND another Championship.