LBT's B-Team last week had three very close games against GEH, but they only won one of them while losing the other two by one cap each. It showed that both teams were pretty strong, and LBT also had some work to do.
For NIP, they won two games out of three against MB8, but the third game was a depth lineup sort of situation. I'm still really high on the NIP squad, and they didn't do anything to move me away from that. With JSwan and SOGEKING coming back, I wonder how this team plays.
LBT won three halves, NIP won three halves, but NIP won all three games. That's just unfortunate if you're LBT, because they had leads for G2 and G3, but they squandered them in the second halves of those games. NIP got out to a 6-0 start in G1H1, but then they lost 0-5 in the second half but still took the first game. Just repeat that two more times and you have how this series went. Reminds me of the JIB/NIP week back in S18 where NIP had three second-half comebacks and won all three of those games in OT. Just crushing.
JSwan returned to the NIP offense and had a great performance, with the 93.6 ONISH, seven caps, and 517 hold as the lead offender. victor messi and xyzes were his supporting cast, and both of them had solid statlines as well. victor messi has done well next to JSwan, with 549 hold and three caps this week. xyzes has had a nice first two weeks and is continuing to grow. For LBT, Steeze was the best offender, with four caps and 447 hold. The other three offenders for LBT didn't do that great, combining only for five caps and averaging around 300 hold.
The reason why the majority of the LBT offenders struggled was due to the NIP's restricting defense. lukemoo led the way, ranking first in tags and returns while also getting the 10 DGASP and 100 DNISH. He also had 597 prevent. SOGEKING came back to B and had 443 prevent and 34 returns next to lukemoo, a great defensive pairing. FrodoBallins has impressed me with his first two weeks, with a 78 DNISH this week and a 62 DNISH last week, getting the 2nd most prevent out of all the NIP defenders both weeks. It's a solid debut for him so far, while ErectChris is still doing godly things, like existing. LBT has gh0st and Bambino combining for over 1200 seconds of prevent but considerably less tags and returns than lukemoo and his NIP defenders.
Many of these stats are pretty similar for both LBT and NIP, with hold, prevent, H/G and F/G being some of the stats that are close together. NIP does have more tags and returns, with a 38 increase in tags and 32 increase in returns. NIP also has 33 less pops than LBT, but that ended up equating to just one less NDP than them. LBT has the advantage in some other stats, with 12 more pups than NIP and 10 more good handoffs. There are a lot of stats where both teams are near the top, like hold, H/G, F/G, NDP, and LH, which is a sign that both teams are really good and also evenly matched.
Just like on A-Team, NIP had eight key returns, compared to LBT's three key returns, which is a significant difference. NIP also had 10 more quick returns and 14 more returns in base, which led to a 2% increase in RIB% and 3% increase in QR%. Both LBT and NIP had below-average RIB% and QR% though, with LBT coming dead last in both categories. NIP had the higher KD by 0.26, while LBT had the higher Chain% by 7%. If I was going off of just stats alone and I didn't know the scores of this matchup, I honestly wouldn't be able to tell who won and who lost, because they're pretty similar. LBT's pup advantage probably kept them in the games for longer, but the NIP's defense managed to clean up LBT's offender quite well, which ended up giving them the sweep.
I didn' really know who to give this POTM award to. On one hand, you have lukemoo, who led the week in tags and returns and sealed the 10 DGASP and 100 DNISH, but if I just gave the award to the person with the best stats then this would be a pretty self-explanatory section and I don't like it. I decided to look at the eus to see who really had the biggest impact, and I finally settled on JSwan. JSwan got all three caps in G2H2 and got NIP the win at 4-3, plus his other four caps were pretty important. He was the best offender for NIP out there, and without him I don't think they win two of these games, especially G2.
CONCLUSION
NIP swept LBT due to the performances of JSwan and lukemoo, but that isn't to say that LBT didn't try their hardest as well. Winning three halves but no winning a single game is just unfortunate, but at least they can build off these games. LBT now knows they can compete with a really good B-Team, and come playoffs, they can wreak some havoc and make a deep playoff run. For the NIPs, this sweep really shows that they are one of the best B-Teams in the league, and if they continue like this then another Buperball appearance seems very likely to manifest. Overall, tight games from two probable Buper contender.
