Everyone who came out to support the Fury vs. Bounce fundraiser for Taiwan’s typhoon relief efforts, which pulled over $1000 for the victims of Typhoon Morakot, got plenty of basketball drama for their generosity as the exhibition ended in a dramatic 52-52 tie. Well, as dramatic as a tie can be, anyway.

New York’s Asian American All-Star team, the Fists of Fury carried a double-digit lead for most of the game until the Bobbito-led Bounce squad came storming back in the final 5:00 minutes. The action went down to the wire as Bounce (G) Roman “The Gift” Perez led the charge with 8 consecutive points in the final minutes.

The Fury, however, would decide it in the game’s final seconds as former York College (G) Usama Nausrudeen who had scored a game-high 17 pts set-up the final shot with :20 seconds remaining. Fury (C) Tony Hu set a solid screen, freeing Nausrudeen for an open 18 footer. It fell just off the mark and with no time left for OT, the game ended 52-52.

In a little cultural exchange following the game, Bobbito presented me with a pair of his 2007 25th anniversary Nike Air Force 1 x Kool Bob Love collabo in Puerto Rico red. We decided to auction off the sneakers to raise more money for the cause. More on that to come.

In return, we gave Bounce 5 limited edition Fastbreak NYC “Dragon Mask” tees designed by Epic Proportions designer, Jerry Ma. Big ups to Jerry for one head turner of a design… definitely been a conversation starter.

A very big thanks to all our photographers: Ari Issler, Will Wang, Steve Liu and Lily Ko and our video crew: Nick Scuola and Liren Teng. And a very special thanks to Alvin Wang for keeping things running and hitting us off with what he would himself call, “stellar” play-by-play on the loudspeakers.

Full video of the game plus stats will be posted to the Fastbreak NYC website shortly. Stay tuned for that but until then, peep the slide show of the pics taken throughout the event.