The AND 1 Streetball team brought the curtain down on Wildfire Entertainment’s All-Star Basketball Weekend Sunday night with their 101-55 annihilation of Wildfire Entertainment’s Guyana All-Star team.
The AND 1 team pulled out all the stops, unearthed a barrage of their tricks and brought a level of basketball to Guyana that has never been seen live on these shores.
And due to the sample displays the AND 1 stars gave basketball fans prior to the final night of the All-Star weekend, the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall was almost packed to capacity for what can go down in the books as the best All-Star Weekend ever held in Guyana.
Patrons were kept from their seats for the majority of the game, which was somewhat longer than the usual basketball game played in Guyana.
The game was played using the professional basketball standard 12-minute quarters, instead of 10 minutes.
However, the longer time-span did not deter those in attendance from standing for the majority of the game, which most did as they were fixated on the basketball theatrics.
Others opted to stand since after sitting they would be forced from their seat again by a rim rocking dunk or ankle breaking crossover.
Even prior to the game during the warm-up session fans were enthralled and the Guyana All-Star’s fate come game time was already looking grim.
They also were caught observing the warm-up spectacle with an intimidated appearance.
However, the home team received the full support of the crowd, who went wild when Guyana’s Travis Foster opened the show with a crashing two-handed put back slam off a rebound to record the first points on the scoreboard.
The AND 1 team replied with their own rim rocker even before fans had a chance to take their seats after Foster’s jam and before he could finish his show-boating.
AND 1’s lengthy high flying centre, ‘Africa’ flew in following a fast break to finish an alley-oop one-handed slam, which was only a snippet of what was to come from ‘Africa’.
Prior to the All-Star Weekend, ‘Africa’ was hardly known to Guyana’s basketball fraternity and it was the ‘Air Up There’ whose name resonated among Guyana’s Streetball fans, who highly anticipated his arrival and heart stopping dunks.
However, though ‘Air Up There’ grabbed the crowd’s attention and cheers with his hang-time on fast break dunks and alley-oops, it was ‘Africa’ who stole the show and etched his name in the minds of Guyana’s basketball fans with his flashy, thunderous slams, his pre-dunk antics and post-dunk celebratory dances. ‘Africa’ also had supporters ecstatic when he finished the famous 360 dunk off a fast break, a sight rarely seen in a game in Guyana. When the AND I players didn’t soar, their opponents were being floored when the ‘Bone Collector’ collected the ankle of Guyana’s Travis Burnett after shaking him to the floor with one of his lethal crossovers executed Sunday night. Burnett’s legs couldn’t handle the speed of ‘Bone Collector’ and he fell on his rear. He was quickly assisted up and escorted off the court, since according to AND 1 game rules, any player who gets dunked on or falls has to exit the game for two minutes.
Burnett exited to the laughter of the fans and taunts of the AND 1 players who entertained patrons by acting out their version of a slow motion replay of Burnett’s fall.
One of AND 1’s most famous players, ‘The Professor’ did not leave himself out of the ball handling equation and put on an entertaining show when he took on Guyana’s Stephon Henry in a battle of through-the-leg dribbling and spin moves.
Henry brought a good fight to centre court and was lauded with cheers with his dance-like dribbling which shifted from him dribbling the ball while rolling on the floor to dribbling and doing a hand stand. Despite Henry’s efforts, it was ‘The Professor’ who schooled most of his opponents and won the ball handling war. By the halftime mark Guyana were already being blown out as they trailed 27-68, but they began to reduce their deficit in the third quarter aided by some mid-range jumpers and put-backs from Tyrone Hamid, who piloted Guyana All-Star’s scoring with 18 points.
The Guyana All-Stars were also motivated to cut the AND 1 team’s lead since it was announced by the AND 1 team’s MC at halftime that the home team would receive $US500 if they could come within 20 points or less of AND 1’s final score, but this could not be achieved by the end of the fourth quarter as the AND 1 stars added to their massive lead.
