Jam drop close one to Miami 110-107

December 30, 2006 - American Basketball Association (ABA)
Jacksonville Slam News Release


You could feel it in the air prior to tip-off. The JAM and Tropics have indeed created a classic rivalry in this, their inaugural seasons and last night the rivalry continued to grow. Fireworks erupted in the first minute of play between the Jacksonville Jam (12-4) and the Miami Tropics (11-3) on Friday night at UNF Arena. Jam veteran forward/center, Tony Holley and Tropics center, Karel Rosario were involved in a physical confrontation in the first few seconds of play. Both Holley and Rosario were immediately ejected from the game. But the fireworks had just begun as Jacksonville and Miami went at each other for 48 minutes of play. The Jam and Tropics would exchange leads 18 different times during the game. The Tropics biggest lead was 9 points in the second quarter and the Jam led by as many as 6 in the third quarter. All in all it was two heavyweight teams in the ABA just going after each other. It has been that way all season long in the five games between these two teams with four of the games won by Miami.

Both teams have shown spurts of excellence between each other and truly spare nothing during the games. Guards, Carlos Escalera from Miami and Trey Moore of the Jam exchanged back to back three pointers at one point during the second quarter and Jam forward, Jerry Williams and Tropics forward, Terrence Shelman match-up frontline power and athleticism play after play. Then you have points guards, Anthony Lumpkin of Jacksonville and Ray Rose of Miami who just attack each other on every possession of play. It is the battles within each game that highlight these epic contests and the best thing about it is that there are several more times this season that Jacksonville and Miami will match-up. You have to wonder if they just might match-up in the final game of the season at the ABA Great 8 that will crown the ABA Champion in mid-March....

In the fourth quarter with Miami up by five points with 2:12 to play, Jacksonville made two steals that nearly brought the Jam all the way back. The last occurred with less than twenty seconds to play when Jerry Williams knocked the ball away from Shelman. The ball ended up out of bounds and in the possession of Jacksonville. The Jam took a time-out and out of the time-out, Jam guard, Trey Moore was fouled and went to the free-throw line with Miami leading 108-107. Moore missed both free-throws and the Jam was forced to foul Tropics point guard, Pachi Cruz. Cruz sank both his two free-throws to give Miami its final lead at 3 points. Donald Harris missed a desperation shot at the buzzer and the Jam lost again to the only team that has defeated them all season long.

"Whenever you get our two teams together, it is going to be a highly competitive contest, and that is exactly what we had tonight! Neither one of our teams is going to back up from one another. There is mutual respect between us, but there is also a fiery competition! Anytime you get teams of the caliber of these two teams together so many times there is going to be exchanges. Tonight we had a physical confrontation on court, and that is not good, and our organization does not support that kind of action in anyway. We'll deal with our side of that internally, and I hope Miami does the same! Professional Basketball is all about match-ups and Miami gives us some match-up problems that we'll have to solve to be successful against them in the future. We'll make the adjustments that we need to make, but in the meantime I wouldn't read too much into this right now, for all that is going on right now is positioning for post-season play. I've done this a long time, and longer than any head coach in the ABA on the professional level. We're not even halfway through our schedule yet and there is a lot of basketball left to play. This is a marathon and not a sprint! There is still a long way to go and a lot can change from now to the middle of March. We're just going to play this thing out and see what happens. States Jam head coach, Steve Tucker."

DeRon Rutledge led the Jacksonville Jam in scoring with another banner night with 26 points. Trey Moore had 19 points. Jerry Williams and Donald Harris both had 18 points and 7 rebounds. Jam point guard, Anthony Lumpkin chipped in 12 points. Angelo Reyes led Miami with a dominating game with 30 points and 9 rebounds. Escalera followed up with 23 points on the night.

Note: OurSports Central no longer actively covers the American Basketball Association (ABA) as a professional league due in part to its inability to publish and play a schedule and the transitory nature of many of its teams. For information on professional minor leagues, please see OSC's basketball section.



American Basketball Association Stories from December 30, 2006


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