After a whirlwind of an NBA season, the playoffs are now about to start. As the title suggests, The Bulls and Spurs have clinched home court advantage throughout the playoffs - and Patty Mills is in career best form leading into the playoffs for those Spurs. I have not been able to get the Grand Final reviews up since our fantasy NBA season finished a few weeks ago, and Steve sent me a gentle reminder today, so I reckon theres no time like the present. Over the break later will be the reviews, but right now, I would like to congratulate Jasmine for winning the Premier League; Steve for winning Division 1; and Jet for winning Division 2. Well done to the 3 of you and to the other 33 teams that played as it was a fun season.

Before we get to the reviews, I want to spend a bit of time on Patty Mills, as he has been in excellent form of late. He was signed by the Spurs in March after the Chinese season came to a close and he has played 16 games this season. Over all 16 games he has averaged 10.3 ppg, 2.4 apg, 1.8 rpg and 0.6 spg in just 16.3 mpg; however he has had some huge games along the way. He started April off by scoring 20 pts in 20 min against the Cavs connecting on 4 of 5 treys, and then followed that up with a 14 pt game against New Orleans a few nights later. 3 nights after that, he earned his first starting gig when Duncan, Ginobli and Parker were all rested against the Jazz and Patty scored 9pts and had 4 dimes in 24min. He scored 9 points on two other occasions during April, but did not hit double figure pts again until the next time he started, which was the 2nd last game of the regular season against Phoenix last Wednesday. The big 3 did not play in this game again and Patty put on a show, scoring 27 pts and dishing off 5 dimes in 34 min - including 2 FTs near the death that clinched the 4 point win for the Spurs.

This super impressive performance earnt him another start this morning (our time) against the Warriors and he stepped up again, beating <a href="http://espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=300126006" target="_blank">Andrew Boguts record of 32 points in 2010[/url], as the highest score by an Aussie in the NBA! Patty scored 34pts and even scored his first career Double Double in the NBA with a whopping 12 assists, not far away from a tripdub adding 5 boards as well. Add to that a block and a steal and it was a huge night.  Both teams were resting their stars; however those numbers cannot be doubted. Lets hope he has done enough to warrant big minutes throughout the post season now.

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Now onto the reviews of the grand finals of our fantasy leagues. Jasmine scored the highest score of the round with 1931, which was much higher than anyone else - with no other team scoring more than 1750. The highest scoring loser was up against her in the Premier League and that was Owen with 1712. The lowest score of the round (from live games) was 1156 by last years Champ dabombers who had a live game trying to avoid relegation in the consolation final, where he couldnt get over the line against fudges 1530. The closest final was in Division 2 between Jet and travyboy11 with the final margin just 49 points.

Before the game reviews, I just want to outline who has won promotion and who has been relegated for next season:

Firstly, the players being promoted from Div2 to Div1 are:  <a title="Team Travysboys (travis hewish)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10201&amp;teamId=9&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Team Travysboys[/url] (travyboy11), <a title="Team Farken White (Chris Farken White)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10201&amp;teamId=7&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Team Farken White[/url] (Jet), <a title="Team 726 (Sam Lee)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10201&amp;teamId=6&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Team 726[/url] (minis) and <a title="Broady Broncos (nick somerton)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10201&amp;teamId=5&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Broady Broncos[/url] (nicksnow).

The 4 teams going down from Division 1 to Division 2 are:  <a title="CK Nicks (Costa Kastanis)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10094&amp;teamId=12&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">CK Nicks[/url] (costak), <a title="Nahla Vs LittleDee (Paul Rodgerson)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10094&amp;teamId=6&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Nahla Vs LittleDee[/url] (rodgo), <a title="Doobia Dominators (Andrew Doobs)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10094&amp;teamId=5&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Doobia Dominators[/url] (Doobs) and <a title="Everton 149ers (Scott Minetti)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10094&amp;teamId=8&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Everton 149ers[/url] (Rev)

The two teams being relegated from Premier League are: <a href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?teamId=2&amp;leagueId=23530">Too Seriouseses[/url] (walesy) and <a title="Wade Machine (Daniel Laengst)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=15&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Wade Machine[/url] (dabombers)

And last, but certainly not least! The two teams being promoted to the Premier League for the 12/13 season are:  <a title="The Jug-O-Naughts (Kristian Collins)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10094&amp;teamId=2&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">The Jug-O-Naughts[/url] (fez) and <a title="Linsanity 17 (Stephen Nilsson)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=10094&amp;teamId=4&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Linsanity 17[/url] (Steve)

I also want to say again that I think we need to change the rules next year as smokinjoemisiti is really unlucky i reckon as he finished the regular season as the highest point scorer in Division 2, but could not gain promotion.

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PREMIER LEAGUE GRAND FINAL (by anthak)

<a title="Run TMC (Owen Beebe)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=19&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Run TMC[/url] (Owen) 1712 lost to <a title="Jasmines Mob (Jasmine Johnson)" href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=5&amp;seasonId=2012" target="_top">Jasmines Mob[/url] (Jasmine) 1931

As alluded to above, this was the highest scoring game this week as it featured the highest scoring team and the highest scoring loser. Jasmine was the form team in the Premier League over the 2nd half of the season, going into the playoffs on a long winning streak and she certainly carried that form into the post season as well, winning a close one against Micka in round 1 before absolutely smashing both Karlos and Owen in the final 2 games. Owen on the other hand, went into the playoffs as the 5th seed and had really tight games in the first two rounds, including a memorable win over Robert Sarvers Handbag by just a single point. Jasmine dominated this final, winning 5 of the 7 days, and one of the losses by just 4 points. Luckily, neither team really suffered any injuries of note during the granny, which was good. Both teams used all 5 acquisitions and Jasmines Mob did finish with 2 more games played through the week. The top scorer for the matchup was CP3 for Jasmine with 224 from 4 games, while he was well supported by Rondo (176 from 4), Ilyasova (174 from 4) and Mayo (164 from 5). Owens top scorer was Cousins with 177 from 5, while Granger had a better ave with 174 from 4 and they were backed up well by Pau Gasol (172 from 4) and Wallace (152 from 4). Have a look <a href="http://games.espn.go.com/fba/boxscorefull?leagueId=23530&amp;teamId=19&amp;scoringPeriodId=100&amp;seasonId=2012&amp;view=matchup&amp;version=full" target="_blank">HERE[/url] for a full box score of the matchup if you want.

Well done again Jasmine, and bad luck Owen. Both of you (along with Karlos and HEAVER) were really consistent across both seasons and deserved to make the top 4. And thanks to everyone else for a great season. Im hoping to do a season review around NBA Finals time as well, but til then, goodbye

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DIVISION 1 GRAND FINAL (by Steve)

Linsanity 17   (Steve)   1545   v   Crossy’s Crusaders   (Crossy)   1358

Both Linsanity 17 and Crossy’s Crusaders were fighting for the last spot in the Premier League next year. The winner of the grand final would gain automatic promotion.

Linsanity 17 led this match from start to finish.  The Crusaders did close to within 46 points with one day to go but Linsanity 17 had 8 players playing on the last day compared to only 4 players for the Crusaders.  Therefore, I was pretty confident heading into the last day that I had done enough to win the grand final.

Crossy threw everything at me and used up all of his acquisitions very early into the match.  He even dropped Rose at the beginning of the round only to then pick him up a few days later.  Linsanity 17 had a number of players missing for most of matchup, Thornton (4 games) and Gooden (2 games) so the final margin could have been a lot higher than what it was.

The leading scorers for Linsanity 17 this week were Ilyasova 174, Carmelo 173 and Thomas 160.  The best players for the Crusaders were Aldridge 193, Lee 178 and Griffin 149.

It has been a great effort by Crossy to make the grand final in his debut season.  He can be very pleased with his season which culminated in the huge upset over the Jug-O-Naughts last week.  I would like to personally thank Crossy for beating Fez last week as I would not have been able to beat him in the grand final.

On a personal note, I have achieved what I wanted to do and that was to make it back to the Premier League.  Also congratulations to Fez on making it back to the Premier League as well.

A big thankyou to Anthak for organising the league and to everyone who participated in our league.  It has been a great season and we can now look forward to the NBA finals.

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DIVISION 2 GRAND FINAL (by smokinjoemisiti)

Team Farken White (Jet) – 1716 defeated Team Travysboys (travyboy11) – 1668

A great matchup here with both teams putting everything into it, using up their acquisition limits. It came down to the final day and almost fittingly, although Trav may disagree, Carmelo led Jet to the win with 71 points against Chicago on the final days play. It summed up Jet’s playoff run with Carmelo producing his best form at the right time of the season along with a few other key players. Anthony’s season average had only been in the mid to high 30’s during the year but he pulled through with 173 fantasy points from just 3 games. Also impressive for Jet was; the much maligned Raymond Felton (174 points), the opportunistic Goran Dragic (174) who has taken over as starter in place of the absent Kyle Lowry, and the surprisingly productive Isaiah Thomas (160). If mid way through the year you had of said to me that these 4 players would be on the winner’s team and scoring highly I wouldn’t have believed you.

Trav had a couple of injury concerns with Amare Stoudemire (season average: 32.7), Ryan Anderson (38.2), and Wilson Chandler missing the week, whilst the ageless Steve Nash top scored with 181. The final day saw DeMarcus Cousins needing a big game but he produced just 15 for Trav and he fell just short.

Well done to JET who clearly peaked at the right time of the season and made some great acquisitions along the way. An injury free Grand Final, and some vintage Carmelo Anthony with his two huge 3 pointers late to lift New York over Chicago, were his recipe for success. Great effort!! Hopefully everyone enjoyed the write-ups and the season in general.