Grizz Gaming looks to rebound in Week 4

After a tough outing in Week 3, Grizz Gaming (1-3) will look for a rebound performance on Saturday at Noon CT against Magic Gaming.

Magic Gaming enters the week with a 2-2 record. The team lost its first two games of the regular season against Blazer5 Gaming and Wizards District Gaming before following that up with two Week 3 wins against Knicks Gaming and Warriors Gaming Squad.

“We’ve got a couple of things in mind that we’re going to do and that we’re going to change up a little bit,” said Grizz Gaming General Manager Lang Whitaker. “We’re playing against a tough Orlando team. They had a 2-0 week (last week) and they’ll be coming off of what was a great weekend for them. We’ve been watching them and I think we’re ready to go.”

Magic Gaming features a balanced attack, with four of their six players averaging double figures and a fifth averaging over nine points per game.

“They’re a pretty strong all-around team,” said Whitaker. “They have KontruL (Christopher Cantrell) at the point and in Week 3 we saw KingCam (Cameron Ford), Manny (Emmanuel Cruz) and Marley (Jorge Renteria) had big games for them in their frontcourt. They’re a good all-around team, move the ball and run a lot of good offensive sets. It gives us something to really look out for.”

AuthenticAfrican (Mehyar Ahmed-Hassan) has been garnering a lot of the attention so far with his play, but the consistent play of UniversalPhenom (Antonio Saldivar) has been a huge help for the team as well.

“We’ve talked about D.T.P. for us,” said Whitaker. “Defense, tempo, paint. Offensively, he has owned the paint for us. And defensively, he’s been very good for us in the post. IF we’re going to have a chance in these games, center is very important. He’s been great for us so far and we expect him to keep playing that way.”

In last week’s games, UniversalPhenom averaged 15.5 points and 9.5 rebounds in the team’s two games. He has scored in double digits in all but one of his eight games and has reached eight-or-more rebounds in each of his last five.

In order to capture another win and some momentum heading into the second tournament of the season, the team from Bluff City will need to contain the Magic’s balanced attack. Fans can live stream the game at twitch.com/nba2kleague.