Shoot­ing guard Ah­keel Boyd’s stand­out per­for­mance helped Mal­oney Pac­ers punch their tick­et to the cham­pi­onship se­ries in dom­i­nant fash­ion, while South­side Elite, boost­ed by the trio of Tyrik Singh, Ja­son Fri­day, and Je­lani Val­ley, clawed back to keep their ti­tle hopes alive Wednes­day night in the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Cham­pi­onships.

​This was in Game 2 of the Big Four play­off se­ries, host­ed by the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Fed­er­a­tion of T&T (NBFTT) at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville, San Fer­nan­do.

​Led by Boyd, Pac­ers dom­i­nat­ed Strak­er Nets 91-72 to sweep their best-of-three se­ries 2-0. Af­ter a stel­lar 31-point per­for­mance in game one on Fri­day, Boyd eclipsed that mark on Wednes­day, torch­ing the Nets for a stag­ger­ing 44 points.

Pac­ers dic­tat­ed play from the open­ing tip, rac­ing to an 18-10 first-quar­ter lead. By half­time, the gap had widened to 42-27 as Nets strug­gled to con­tain the Pac­ers’ tran­si­tion game. De­spite a valiant 27-point ef­fort from point guard Sadi­ki Guer­ra and 21 from fel­low guard Tris­ton Ben­jamin, the Nets had no an­swer for Mal­oney. Ha­keem Mor­gan added 17 points for Pac­ers, who led 73-50 en­ter­ing the fourth quar­ter be­fore coast­ing to a 19-point vic­to­ry.

​In the night’s oth­er matchup, South­side Elite bounced back from its game one heart­break. Hav­ing lost a nar­row 85-78 con­test to Po­lice on Fri­day, South­side en­tered Wednes­day with its back against the wall.

​This time, the script was flipped. Elite con­trolled the score­board for the du­ra­tion of the match, hold­ing off a phys­i­cal Po­lice squad to win 76-65 and force a win­ner-take-all game three to­day at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na.

Singh and Fri­day were the cat­a­lysts for South­side's of­fence, scor­ing 19 points apiece, while Val­ley added 16. Po­lice, led by Dex­troy Man­swell’s 22 points and Mika­hail Williams’ 19, trailed 39-35 at the half and couldn't close the gap in the fi­nal pe­ri­od.

​The re­sult sets up a mouth-wa­ter­ing de­cid­ing Game 3 to de­ter­mine who will face the for­mi­da­ble Mal­oney Pac­ers in the fi­nal.

Wednes­day's re­sults

(Big Four play­offs)

Men's First Di­vi­sion (Game 2)

Strak­er Nets 72 (Sadi­ki Guer­ra 27, Tris­ton Ben­jamin 21, Shaquille Lewis 12) vs Mal­oney Pac­ers 91 (Ah­keel Boyd 44, Ha­keem Mor­gan 17). Quar­ters: 1st 18-10, 2nd 42-27, 3rd 73-50 (All in favour of Pac­ers).

Po­lice 65 (Dex­troy Man­swell 22, Mika­hail Williams 19, Fab­rice Fish­er 11) vs South­side Elite 76 (Tyrik Singh 19, Ja­son Fri­day 19, Je­lani Val­ley 16). Quar­ters: 1st 20-16, 2nd 39-35, 3rd 58-48 (All in favour of Elite).

Match­es

Sat­ur­day (March 21)

(At Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na)

Girls U-19 Di­vi­sion (Game 1)

500 Hawks vs Club En­ter­prise, 5 pm

EBA vs Roy­al­ty, 6.30 pm

Men's First Di­vi­sion (Game 3)

South­side Elite vs Po­lice, 8 pm

Sun­day (March 22)

Boys U-17 Di­vi­sion (Game 1)

Mal­oney PAc­ers vs Bronx, 5 pm

Spar­tans TT vs Roy­al­ty, 6.30 pm