The 2013 Summer session has turned out to be an extension of the Elephant’s playoff run.  In game one the E’s knocked off the Russian Reds and in game two they fought a hard-nosed battle against team Eyal.  The Elephants have now won six straight going back to last season.

The new session didn’t come at an expense however.  After Casey “the casket” missed game one, there was a onimus text message sent to team President of basketball operations, Mr. King (not the NY Net’s President Billy King), Noel King (NK47).  The text message read…”casey busy, casey tired, casey can no play anymore”.  The team took this as The Casket’s official resignation.  Noel contacted team GM Mike Anicito to discuss a replacement.   With the contract extension of Robbie Hart the team had felt a bit strapped at the moment and the decision was made not to offer a long-term contract to anyone outside of the organization but to only sign players on a need-be basis to 6-day extensions.   So the Elephants are going to roll with a 7 man rotation. 

Game 3 - The Elephants prepped for a Porto (white) team.   Porto has posed as a threat to the Elephants in the past by giving them fits with their bigs and the Elephants don’t know how to handle the Asian player’s math calculation skills running the point.  However to the surprise of the Elephants Porto was not in the gym come game time.  They had skipped town and were now out of the league.  In their place was a light blue team that hosted a familiar face to some of the Elephants.  Vic Shoot’em Up Schettino was the light blue’s star player.  Brian, Noel, and Mike played with Vic in the Y league a couple of years back and knew all too well that he could take over a game with his streaky shooting skills. 

The Elephants came out of the gate flat.  Flatter than a twelve year old grade school girl.  The team looked like they were just not into it.  On offense they were one pass and done.  They were not attacking the rim, Jimmy actually shot two opening air balls and Noel couldn’t hit the back side, front side, or side side of a barn.  Robbie was getting open looks and making them count.  Stu contributed a couple of big three point bombs which kept the Elephants in the game.  As the first half ended the Elephants, despite being horrid, held a one point lead.  This was very much attributed to keeping Vic at bay and limiting to only a couple of shots made. 

As the second half started the champs knew they needed to pick the energy level up.  They needed to be reminded who they were and that their 6 game winning streak was on the line.   They did pick it up a little and Jimmy found his stroke, Robbie continued his barrage of threes, and Buffalo Ant and Brian worked the high low effectively at times.  But Vic got it going too.  His three point shooting was indefensible.  Despite Noel and Anicito’s defense Vic couldn’t miss.  Robbie then wanted to try and Vic just went down to the block and scored over him.  The Elephants found themselves down 8 with three minutes to play. 

The Elephants don’t crumble too easy though.  They are battle tested and have overcome adversity too many times to let a streaky shooter rattle them enough to falter.  The champs methodically got stops and executed big shots.  They traded some big blows but took advantage of missed opportunities.  With 40 seconds on the clock the Elephants found themselves down by 3.  They moved the ball around the perimeter and found Robbie at the top of the key for an open look at his patent shot.  And he nailed it!  Tie ball game.  The Elephants then got a stop on defense, leaving only 8 seconds left on the clock.  A fumble on the sidelines advanced the ball to half court for the Elephants.  With only 4.7 seconds left, Noel took the ball out on the sideline.  They double teamed Robbie, letting someone else beat them and someone else did.  Noel found Stu at the free throw line and put an Eli Manning like laser precision pass in his hands.  Stu took two dribbles to the basket, two Orb-like strides, elevated, and got to the rim with the defender on his back, game over!  Elephants win on a buzzer beater by none other than Stu (circa championship game buzzer beater shot).  3-0 to start the season as two time defending champs.