Battle of the I-95: Melo League (Baltimore) VS Team Philly

Post #1 » by **mkwest** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 10:21 pm

The game is being streamed live on http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/

Melo league is a star-studded team with Carmelo, LeBron, Durant and Paul. Philly is composed primarily of role player types, but it's basketball.

Game is a few minutes away from tip-off.

Ranma · Post #2 » by **Ranma** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 3:19 am

Associated Press (9/25/11)

James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul couldn't lead their team back from a dreadful start, as Team Philly beat Melo's stars of Baltimore 131-122 on Sunday night at the Palestra.

Just like when the Miami team led by James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh was knocked off by Dallas in the NBA finals, the bigger names didn't click in time to get the victory many expected.
...

Paul shot only 3 of 12 for six points and struggled to keep up with Philly's speedsters.

LeBron, Carmelo, Paul fall short to Team Philly in 'Battle of I-95'

LeBron finds himself on the losing end yet again on a team stacked with a superstar triumvirate. I heard Eric Bledsoe was also on the team but didn't get off the bench even as CP3 was struggling. Hope he uses that as motivation the next time he plays against these guys.

Post #3 » by **mkwest** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:14 am

Durant did not end up playing. After the game started, I thought Philly was going to take it. They opened the game to like 20 something to 8 lead and held a nice cushion for most of the game. Once they took a 101-99 lead then it was pretty much certain that they would hold onto victory (Lawler's Law). I will also say that Philly did get the benefit of the hometown whistle.

Throughout the different cross league exhibitions and scrimmages, star power has shown to not be that important. Nobody is really playing defense. Guys are settling for distance shots. Nobody is working for their points and if they do penetrate, nobody is really trying to contest. It's just fun to be able to see basketball after the long lay off. Only a handful of these games have actually been streamed.

Ranma wrote: I heard Eric Bledsoe was also on the team but didn't get off the bench even as CP3 was struggling. Hope he uses that as motivation the next time he plays against these guys.

I know that he played with them in earlier exhibitions (e.g. Melo/Goodman), but didn't know that he was in Philly. If he was there, then he should have played. It's not like the other guards were lighting it up.

Ranma · Post #4 » by **Ranma** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:08 am

mkwest wrote:I know that he played with them in earlier exhibitions (e.g. Melo/Goodman), but didn't know that he was in Philly. If he was there, then he should have played. It's not like the other guards were lighting it up.

Well, I can't find confirmation that he was on the roster for that particular game but I did find that he was originally scheduled to be on Team Melo:

Kate Fagan, Philly.com (9/13/11)

Team Melo originally included Knicks star Anthony, Kings forward Donte Green, Spurs guard Gary Neal, Clippers guard Eric Bledsoe and Grizzlies guard Josh Selby.

Idle NBA stars set for an exhibition at Palestra

Of the names mentioned, only Bledsoe's was absent from the scoresheet you provided.

Post #5 » by **thanumba2clippersfan** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:25 pm

I had no idea this was going on yesterday and I missed it

Guess I got caught up in football