Toughest test to date awaits Grizz Gaming in “THE TURN”
June 7, 2018
As the NBA 2K League season’s second tournament approaches, Grizz Gaming’s toughest test of the inaugural season awaits. The team’s first round matchup will take place this Friday, June 8, at 2 p.m. CT against 76ers GC.
Philadelphia’s team is in the league’s upper echelon and arguably the league’s best, sporting a 4-1 regular season record after winning “THE TIPOFF,” the league’s first tournament of the season.
“They’re awesome,” said Lang Whitaker, General Manager of Grizz Gaming. “They’ve been pretty much unstoppable through the early part of the season and Radiant has been in the MVP conversation. They’ve got a lot of shooters on the floor, they spread the floor, they space it out, they move the ball and set a lot of off-ball screens. They’re a really good team and it’s going to be a tough task for us.”
“THE TURN” is the second of three tournaments that will be played throughout the season. Each team that wins a tournament will take home a coveted steel champion banner – with the goal of collecting all three banners that link together to form THE BANNER CHAIN.
One thing Whitaker hopes to continue to build on is AuthenticAfrican’s dominant 32-point performance in last week’s game. The move to a ‘point forward’ role has proven fruitful for the Canadian national and he averaged 22.0 points per game this season to date (in tournament and regular season play combined).
“He was basically unstoppable,” said Whitaker. “For us, we really stress defense but it was nice to have an offensive weapon in that game that was able to consistently score for us.”
The team looked poised to earn its second regular season win Saturday against Magic Gaming, leading for the majority of the game and by as many as nine in the second quarter. The fourth quarter proved to be Grizz Gaming’s undoing and Whitaker pointed to finishing games as one of the prominent factors in earning more wins moving forward.
“We had a lead in the second half and I think going into the fourth quarter,” explained Whitaker. “Those are the kind of games we need to win and finish. I think that’s part of the learning process for us and this team as we go along. We’re going to see situations we’ve never seen before and it’s time for us to learn how to finish these games.”
The team’s first round matchup and entirety of potential games is listed below. Fans can tune into action at “THE TURN” at twitch.com/nba2kleague.
– Friday, June 8 at 2 p.m. vs. 76ers GC
– Saturday, June 9 at Noon (Quarterfinals; Tentative)
– Saturday, June 9 at 4 p.m. (Semifinals; Tentative)
– Saturday, June 9 at 5 p.m. (Finals; Tentative)
We caught up with @langwhitaker before his flight to NYC for our matchup against @76ersGC.
🗣🗣🗣#PressStart pic.twitter.com/S20z9fpwHD
— Grizz Gaming (@GrizzGaming) June 7, 2018