Fast Takes with Fast Break: Charlotte vs New York
Authors: Serena Monteiro & Ben Mertens
PC: Major League Quidditch
Charlotte and New York enter this series with opposite trajectories. New York is 5-1 and leading the division courtesy of a strong 2-1 win over the Washington Admirals and a 3-0 blitzing of the Ottawa Black Bears, while Charlotte is 0-3 after a season opening sweep courtesy of the Boston Forge. Despite the divergent records, this figures to be a close series where Charlotte will have a real shot at pulling an upset.
Let’s start with Charlotte’s offense, which drew the wrong kind of attention in the Boston series as the Charlotte ball handlers effectively shot the team out of the series. Ryan Davis took the most of these shots, but Trey Pressley and Logan Hartman were guilty of forcing looks as well.
This is not a bad shot from Charlotte’s Ryan Davis (#30) per se - Charlotte’s beaters have taken out the point defender, Davis has momentum on their drive and the hoop is open. But Davis also goes for the shot there because Boston’s Leeanne Dillman (#61) is putting pressure on them. The better play is to take one more step, force the full commitment and throw from Dillman, and then swing it to Mohammed-Yahia Monawar (#99) who’s wide open across the top of the play. Monawar can then either dunk or make one final pass to Lee Hodge for the goal.
It’s not just shots; what was killing Charlotte was that they mostly went for the most obvious play, whether that was a shot or a pass to a chaser directly in the ball handler's line of sight. Take a look at the play on the left.
Again Charlotte goes for the obvious play, in this case a pass to Lee Hodge (#34), the player who’s closest to the hoops. Sometimes the most obvious play is the right play, if someone is wide open next to the hoops you should throw them the ball, but here Boston’s keeper, Ian Scura (#33) is sitting right on top of the pass. Once again Monawar (#99) is wide open across the top of the zone, having been left wide-open by Boston’s mark defense. Swing it to him and he can either score himself or force Boston to rotate and make the final pass.
This play is especially frustrating for Charlotte because their beaters, the great Tony Bonadio (#7) and Celine Richard (#29) create a no bludgers opportunity and force the Boston defense into rotating by tapping out chasers once they’ve cleared the beater. Charlotte was able to create numerous opportunities like this throughout the series against Boston and should be able to again this weekend. It will be up to Charlotte’s chasers to find the right looks to capitalize on these plays, which they did a better job of in the later games of the Boston series.
Charlotte will need discipline to find those looks this weekend though. New York will likely run a mark defense just as Boston did, but New York showed many different looks within the broader mark concept against Washington - leaving the ball handler unmarked, having the Keeper aggressively step to the unmarked chaser, etc. - and will probably do the same against Charlotte.
The beater battle will be key here. Charlotte has a much better chance of finding the right openings against New York’s defense when they have time to read the play and feel settled. New York’s beaters are going to do their best to make sure Charlotte does not feel settled. Charlotte’s star beaters - the aforementioned Richard and Bonadio, Joe Goldberg, Micki Harlason, Kody LaBauve, and Perry Wang were excellent for the most part against Boston, and will need to be so again this weekend. New York is without Rachel Ayella-Silver after her injury in the Washington series, but still has Devin Lee (looking to continue making his case for East division MVP this weekend), Kellan Cupid, Kerri Donnelly, Tessa Mullins, and Jason Rosenberg, as well as the younger Jason Ng and Sedona Sabatino. Charlotte is going to need to be ready for pressure and aggression from New York’s beaters on every trip.
On the other side of the ball, Charlotte will again need to show improvement from their series against Boston. Charlotte’s point defenders struggled to contain Ian Scura in that series, allowing him to get into the lane for his trademark shots or pass behind the hoops to wing chasers for easy finishes. Can they do a better job of staying in front of Leo Fried, Jon Jackson, and Lindsay Marella? New York was able to generate good looks in their season opening match with Washington against a very similar 2-2 zone to the one Charlotte primarily uses, although they at times were guilty of forcing the issue and rushing a bit. With how successful mark defense has been this season, I wonder if Charlotte - who is athletic top to bottom in the chaser game - considers breaking out a mark defense of its own. The story of the East division so far has been adapting, New York switching up its mark defense and Washington breaking out an Outlaws inspired hoop zone against Boston. It’s time for Charlotte to join the party. The 2-2 zone has a place in this series, but Charlotte needs some variation to get New York out of its comfort zone.
Speaking of comfort zones, where New York looked most comfortable against Washington was in transition, where players like Jackson, Marella, and Mike Li really got to shine. Charlotte gave up a lot of transition goals in game 1 against Boston, particularly with Max Havlin and Lulu Xu in the game, but cleaned things up as the series progressed. Charlotte needs to make this a half court series to win. Given how well their beaters rose to the challenge of facing Boston, this is within the realm of possibility. Again, this comes down to the decision making of the Charlotte ball handlers as much as it does the Aviators' beaters ability to hang with New York’s.
The seeking game, of course, favors Charlotte. Davis is the top seeker in the game right now and needs only a precious few seconds to make the grab. New York has talented seekers too, but they went 1-2 against Washington before rebounding with a 3 for 3 performance against Ottawa. It seems a safe bet that Charlotte will come up with the grab in at least 2 of these 3 games.
Will that be enough? Charlotte also went 2 for 3 on grabs against Boston but wasn’t able to pull out the win in either of the games where they caught, notably surrendering a 6-0 run to Boston in a situation where Boston needed six goals and Charlotte only three. In those tense late game situations, Charlotte was again guilty of going too fast and trying to force looks instead of getting settled. Part of the reason for that was that Boston put pressure on them with aggressive beating and physical chaser defense, which New York will aim to do as well. Charlotte though, has the talent to withstand pressure from their opponents. Just as we discussed before, the key will be finding the open chaser even if they aren’t standing on the hoops and looking to complete multiple passes, rather than going for the home run play.
New York has shown more composure in late game situations, taking game 1 off of Washington in a very tense end game but then failing to close out a next goal wins situation in game 3, resulting in their only loss of the season so far. Ultimately, I think New York comes in as the stronger team, but I expect Charlotte to come out more composed and looking to prove a point after their loss to Boston. Improved offensive decision making from Charlotte, combined with their edge in the seeking game, should be enough to take 1 game off New York in front of the Charlotte home crowd
Prediction: New York 2-1