Week 18 in Review: Game Re-Caps

What you missed if you were only paying attention to your own game, you selfish prick.

Whoops! Kind of forgot I had a blog here for a couple days. Here, belatedly, are your Week 18 write-ups.

Great Oden's Raven 6 (ft%/3pm/pts/ast/stl/blk)
Screen Team 2 (fg%/reb)
The injury bug bit Screen Team this week, meaning only partial weeks for two of Andres' most valuable contributors: Kevin Durant and Nene. As we saw in last week's Charts & Figgers, Durant is a big part of Screen Team's success in every single category, and though Jarrett Jack (8 3s, 98 pts, 20 ast, 5 st) stepped up in his absence, there still wasn't much the Screen Teamers could do in the face of Beb's traditionally dominant categories. As noted last week, the Ravens are perennial contenders in a handful of categories (3s, points, assists, steals) while rolling the dice on the others. I recommended a trade to sacrifice some of those cats, and Beb responded by giving up some of those 3s and points (Randy Foye) to pick up some boards (Andris Biedrins). It will be interesting to see how that shift in strategy plays out for G.O.R. as we near the end of the regular season.

Working's fo Suckers 6 (ft%/pts/reb/ast/stl/blk)
Kill Whitey 2 (fg%/3pm)
Hey, hey! Look who's involved in a fantasy basketball league! It's Jesse, who not only shook up his roster with the afore-mentioned Great Oden's Raven trade, but also handed Dekker a week 18 ass-whooping. Two of the factors that have dragged the Suckers down this season have been the inconsistent health of Deron Williams and Zach Randolph, but both were at full strength this week and it paid off. D-Will has his old running mate, Carlos Boozer, back, and the ol' Jazz pick-and-roll paid off to the tune of 54 assists. Randolph led the team in scoring (101) and boarding (44), as you might have expected him to at the beginning of the season--an expectation he has rarely met. Between Williams, Jason Kidd, and Leandro Barbosa running the point for an injured Steve Nash, this team has some serious dish power, and they led the league in assists this week with 171. A playoff berth seems unlikely at this point for Delconte, but if the team stays at full strength they might play the spoiler role for their next few opponents.

Professor Dribbles 6 (fg%/3pm/pts/reb/ast/stl)
Snap Jelly Soldiers 2 (ft%/blk)
Holy shit. Professor Dribbles achieved two Cluj milestones this week in an unlikely victory that had the whole league (OK, more like me, Will, and Bardey) aflame with excitement. The first was crossing the 700-points barrier. I'm not sure if this is the first time we've had someone go over 700, but at the very least it's exceedingly rare and impressive. Helping the Professor get there was the continued excellence of Kobe Bryant (136 pts) and the resurgence of his former teammate, Shaquille O'Neal (110 pts). The second notable achievement for Dribbles was handing Snap Jelly Soldiers only their second loss of the season, and their first since Week 4. Dribbs was solid across the board, leading the league in field goal percentage and points, and finishing second in assists. This was very nearly a 7-1 victory, as Snap Jelly (31 steals) was the only team in the league to top Dribbles in that category this week. This was the second straight underwhelming performance for the league leaders, but that blow is likely softened by the fact that even in losing 6-2, Steffens clinched a playoff position. That must be nice for him. Asshole.

Fear the Turtle 5 (fg%/pts/reb/ast/blk)
Dominique Moceanu 2 (ft%/3pm)
Poor Billy. After losing Amar'e Stoudemire to injury, and thus (controversially) negating our trade, his return to the West Coast apparently left him too tired, too late, too hungover, or too disinterested to adjust his line-up for Week 18, and he ended up leaving blanks at two positions. These gaping holes left him at or near the bottom of the league in most of the volume stats, but he still managed to lead the league in threes thanks to Ron Artest, Kevin Martin, and Peja Stojakovic. The Turtles were paced by Tony Parker who led the team in points (102) and assists (31), while new face-of-the-franchise Chris Wilcox was worst on the squad in threes (0), points (7), rebounds (7), assists (1), and both the percentages. With Wilcox turning out to be such a huge disappointment and Juan Dixon inexplicably not on the roster, it's unclear why Dev persists in naming himself after Maryland, or why any of us, besides a lousy team with two empty slots, should fear them.

The Browless Wonders 4 (ft%/ast/stl/blk)
Fire Al Groh 4 (fg%/3pm/pts/reb)
Like Screen Team and Professor Dribbles in last week's match-up, these two cocksuckers found themselves a way to tie so that no one's feelings got hurt and the lovefest between them could continue. I was a party to one or two of their chats last week, but I can only imagine the sorts of private online chats that were going on between these two as their match-up progressed. Surely Bardey marveled at Chris Paul's 55 assists, while Shoaf was awed by the scoring prowess of Nate Robinson (116 points). With the rebound battle so close, I'm guessing that Will called off the dogs headed into the weekend so that Bardey and his tandem of Dwight Howard (54 boards) and Emeka Okafor (37 boards) would not have to face the indignity of losing that category--an unspeakable fate. Still, Bardey must have been crushed to suffer his first ever defeat in blocks, and I can only hope that Will was able to adequately console him via google video-chat.

Black Prezodents 7 (fg%/3pm/pts/reb/ast/stl/blk)
Black Ice 1 (ft%)
Whew! I needed that. Nothing particularly fantastic for the Prezbos this week, but nothing fantastic is called for when you're taking on the likes of Joakim Noah and Javale McGee.

Here are your Best and Worst for Week 18:
Field Goal Percentage: Professor Dribbles .514, Great Oden's Raven .444
Free Throw Percentage: Great Oden's Raven .877, Fire Al Groh .705
Three-Pointers Made: Dominique Moceanu 53, Snap Jelly Soldiers 15
Points: Professor Dribbles 703, Black Ice 370
Rebounds: Black Prezodents 250, Dominique Moceanu 134
Assists: Working's fo Suckers 171, Black Ice 82
Steals: Browless Wonders 42, Kill Whitey 20
Blocks: Snap Jelly Soldiers 31, Dominique Moceanu 10

Week 19's match-ups include...
Black Prezodents vs. Kill Whitey - RGR Match-Up
The Browless Wonders vs. Black Ice
Fear the Turtle vs. Fire Al Groh
Professor Dribbles vs. Dominique Moceanu
Snap Jelly Soldiers vs. Screen Team
Great Oden's Raven vs. Working's fo Suckers - RGR Match-Up

Good luck to all in Week 19 except for Dekker.

Because he's a faggot.