MHS grad has 54 to force Game 3
Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Derick Grant has played a lot of basketball, but it is hard for him to recall anything that tops the dramatic swings of Game 2 of the
Princeton Recreation Department Men’s Summer Basketball League championship Wednesday.
Game 2 of the best-of-three series left no highlight untouched. Dunks over and on top of players. Buzzer beaters. A record scoring
performance from Grant. And, what any quadruple-overtime game has a little controversy.
Grant’s foul shot with no time left in the fourth overtime gave him a record 54 points as Mercedes Benz evened the championship series
against Koehler & Company, 79-78, Wednesday. Koehler & Company captured Game 1, 42-41, Monday. Game 3 is scheduled to tip off 8 p.m.
tonight at Community Park.
"It was crazy," Grant said. "I haven’t ever been part of a game like that ever."
It’s saying something given that the Montgomery High graduate is regularly part of the craziness while playing for the Harlem Globetrotters
now. He returned for a seventh season in the Princeton league when the Globetrotters’ touring season ended in June and was named league Most Valuable
Player on Monday. He showed how he earned that MVP with Wednesday’s performance by scoring 16 of Koehler’s final 18 points. His final point came on a
free throw after Mercedes’ Ryan Stein was whistled for a foul on Grant’s jump shot as the horn sounded. Stein, who is expected to be unavailable for tonight’s
game due to a scheduling conflict, protested the call as Grant ended the game.
"I’m not going to complain," Grant said. "I’m not going to say whether it was a foul or not. I’ll take the win. It’s not my decision to call that
foul, but I’ll gladly shoot the free throws for the win."
Both teams had numerous chances to end the game earlier. Grant kept his team in it while Nick Wilson (23 points), Vernon Hicks (21)
and Stein (17) keyed a balanced Mercedes’ attack. Down, 56-50, with a minute left in regulation, Grant hit a pair of three-pointers, the second which hit the
front of the rim, bounced high and straight through to bring Koehler back to even.
"I’ll take it as long as it goes in," Grant said. "I figured I’d just throw it up there and see if it goes in. It got a good bounce and went
in."
Grant added three more free throws in regulation and when Anthony Brown converted a 1-and-1, Koehler had a three-point lead with 11
seconds to go. But as Stein hollered for a time out with seconds to play, Wilson banked in a three-pointer to send the game to a first overtime tied, 61-61.
Koehler had trailed by nine points with 4:30 to play.
"We took them to the end in Game 1 and we were down by 12 at one point," said Grant, who had 23 points in the Game 1 loss. "That
was the worst we played all year and we only lost by one. I told the troops, just keep fighting, keep sticking with it. If we get stops, we were going to come
back and win. When we cracked down on defense, that was the key to our victory."
Victory was still a long way off as the first overtime began. The first extra three-minute period seesawed back and forth with Grant scoring
all eight of Koehler’s points, the final three when Mercedes seemed to be in control with a three-point lead and 25 seconds to play. Grant, however, stole the
ball and nailed a three-pointer to break Gabe Lewullis’ outdoor courts record of 45 points. Grant also holds the Princeton Recreation League’s indoor courts
record of 48 points.
"I had no idea," Grant said. "I heard it (announced), but I didn’t pay any attention to it. I didn’t care if I had two points. I just wanted to win.
I don’t ever go into a game saying, I’m going to score 20 points, or 30 points. I just do whatever it takes to win. If that’s scoring, then so be it."
Grant has always been a scorer. He reached 1,000 points in a brief MHS career. He scored 1,543 points while developing into 2005
Eastern College Athletic Conference Metro Division III Men ‘s Basketball Player of the Year at The College of New Jersey. Lost in his monumental scoring effort
were his defensive contributions. After his steal and three-pointer tied the game, he sent the game to a second overtime by drawing a charge on Mercedes’
Wilson.
It was Mercedes’ turn to rally in the third overtime after Grant and Wanny Carter hit layups for an early four-point cushion. Carter finished
with 12 points. Wilson banked in a three-pointer and Stein scored a layup before Grant answered with a three-pointer to give Koehler a 76-74 edge. But Wilson
drove the lane and found Hicks for a layup to send it to a third overtime.
"It reminded me of a college game, in terms of the crowd being into it and the competitiveness," Grant said. "It’s definitely up there,
competition-wise."
Grant and Wilson traded layups for the only baskets of the third overtime. Koehler had a pair of chances to win as Stein missed the front
end of a 1-and-1 with 49 seconds to play and Brendan Rutledge’s last-second shot was off the mark to force a fourth overtime.
Less than 30 seconds into the deciding period, Grant took a charge on a driving Stein. It was the second charge that he drew after
regulation despite having five fouls. Players are disqualified with six, but Stein was allowed to stay in the game because Mercedes was already down to five
players after losing Duane Hicks to fouls in the second OT.
"I knew I had five," Grant said. "As a basketball player, you don’t think about, ‘I know I have five.’ I was just playing basketball. I knew if I
didn’t at least try to take the charge on Ryan, he was going to go in for a layup. He was getting layups all game. I knew he had five; I had five. I was going to
put the game in the ref’s hands and see if he was going to call it on him. But I noticed he was dribbling with his head down and I thought if I could just square
up, he’d run right into me."
When Grant missed a shot at the other end, Mercedes elected to hold the ball for a final shot. They stalled for just over two minutes to
set up a wild finish. Vernon Hicks, who led Mercedes with 14 points in the Game 1 win, missed both free throws with 17 seconds left, but Koehler knocked the
ball out of bounds on the second miss. It was the beginning of a combined four straight turnovers by both teams over the next 11 seconds. When Koehler
finally got the ball back with six ticks left, they put the ball in Grant’s hands and his final attempt was whistled to set up the game-winner.
"I think both teams were tired," Grant said. "It was kind of a stalemate. We didn’t want them to take the last shot of the game. They didn’t
want us to take the last shot of the game. It’s a crazy turn of events right there. The good Lord was watching over us. We lucked out on that one."
The loss itself was hard to swallow for Mercedes. Stein scored nine points and hit a pair of last-minute free throws, as did Wilson, in the
Game 1 win. Stein likely will not play tonight.
"We’re going to go about it as if he was playing," Grant said. "They’re still a good team without him. They’re obviously better with him. But
they’re a good team.
"It’s whoever wants it more and whoever gets luckier more," he added. "I think both teams really want it. We just happened to be a little
more lucky tonight. They got a little lucky the other day. That’s what it’s going to take for Game 3."
Grant hasn’t won a league title since playing for Dana Communications in 2001. He hadn’t even made a finals series since then until this
year. He’s making up for it in a hurry with performances like Wednesday’s instant classic. It’s one that will be hard to top in Game 3.
Said Grant: "I just want to win."