Shadow League organizes NBA 2K tournaments for European teams. They recently organized a PS5 tournament and the champion team would earn 900 Euros. Turkish 1907 Fenerbahçe Esports and French LDLC OL faced on the final series. Fenerbahçe won the Bo5 series by 3-2, and they became the champions of the NBA 2K Shadow League PS5 tournament.
The group stage of the tournament ended on January 13. The top two teams of each group qualified to the final stage. Fenerbahçe completed the group stage with 9 points and became the top team of Group D. Their future-opponents, LDLC OL also was competing at Group D, and they finished the group stage with 6 points.
1907 Fenerbahçe Esports Announces Its NBA 2K Roster
Quarter-Finals
Quarter-finals were played in Bo3 format. Fenerbahçe faced Spanish team, RavensEU, and won the series by 2-0. So, Fenerbahçe qualified for the semi-finals while RavensEU was eliminated.
Semi-Finals
In the semi-finals of the Shadow League tournament, another Spanish team DUX Gaming, who won against PLG in the quarter-finals, was facing Fenerbahçe Esports. The series again took place in the Bo3 format and Fenerbahçe won the series by 2-0.
Grand Final
While Fenerbahçe was grinding away at the finals, LDLC OL also was eliminating their opponents one by one. Then, they became the two contenders of the Bo5-formatted final series.
First Match
1907 Fenerbahçe Esports started the first quarter of the first match with an 8-0 lead. The final score of the first quarter was 19-10 for Fenerbahçe. They started to the second quarter similar way, and they finished the first half of the match by leading by 34-25. While Fenerbahçe continuing to outscore LDLC, Frenchs admitted the defeat. Fenerbahçe won the first match by 62-42, and they also took the lead on the series.
Second Match
Fenerbahçe started the second match in a better mood, because of the previous match, and they tried to create a winning streak. When the first quarter ended, Fenerbahçe was leading the match by 15-14. After the last buzzer of the first half, Fenerbahçe still leading the match by 32-30. But the third quarter was quite unfortunate for them. Therefore, LDLC OL was winning by 51-42. The fourth quarter was so similar to the third quarter, and Fenerbahçe couldn’t stop LDLC. LDLC OL won the second match by 59-44, and they squared the series on 1-1.
Third Match
While Fenerbahçe was struggling with the bad luck, the Center of the team, Kadir Pektaş’s game was bugged. He fixed the problem shortly, and the third match began.
Fenerbahçe was feeling quite low at the start of the match. And when the first quarter ended, LDLC was leading by 15-9. Tansu Aksoy, the captain of 1907 Fenerbahçe Esports, tried his best to recover the players’ morale. Both teams scored 18 points in the second half and LDLC still leading the game by 33-27 at the end of the first half. Fenerbahçe was in high feather during the third quarter, and they reduced the difference to 4 points. The scoreboard was showing 49-45 at the end of the third quarter. The players of Fenerbahçe were quite pumped up for the upcoming quarter, but they couldn’t seize the opportunities they had, so LDLC won the third match by 62-56. Fenerbahçe had to win the upcoming matches if they wanted to be the champions.
Fourth Match
Fenerbahçe already knew the situation they were in at the start of the match. They were leading the first quarter by 16-14. With Eren Demirtaş’s buzzer-beater three pointer, Fenerbahçe was in front of LDLC by 38-36 at the end of the first half. On the fourth second of the third quarter, Fenerbahçe’s guard Fatih Toprak disconnected from the game. Both teams agreed to play again to resume the game. They started a new game, but teams will play that for only two quarters and Fenerbahçe will have a 2 point advantage. After the two quarters, Fenerbahçe was leading by 42-35, and the total score was 80-71. This time, Fenerbahçe squared the series on 2-2. The upcoming match was going to declare the champion of the tournament.
Fifth Match
The final match of the tournament started. But after they played for 3 minutes and 25 seconds, Fatih Toprak again disconnected from the game. Fenerbahçe was leading by 7-4 at the moment. Both teams agreed to play again to resume the match. The played time was extracted from the new match, and Fenerbahçe will have a 3 point advantage.
When the clocks show 23.37 for the GMT zone, there was an earthquake occurred in İzmir, a city of Turkey. Eren Demirtaş, who is living in İzmir, had some internet issues due to the earthquake and disconnected from the game. The players of Fenerbahçe told the situation to the organizators and LDLC. The organizators offered them that they can resume the game another day, but Fenerbahçe declined that, so both teams resumed the game with a new match. At that moment, the new match will be played for 8 minutes and Fenerbahçe will have a 9 point advantage.
At the start of the second quarter of that match, Eren activated his takeover. Just a few seconds after that, LDLC OL’s player Brox got disconnected from the game. His teammates stated that his internet connection was lost. While he was still disconnected, the rumors started that LDLC knew that they couldn’t win the match, and Brox, maybe disconnected from the game purposely. Another player of LDLC OL player MiiLsO was streaming the match from his Twitch account. The players of Fenerbahçe wanted to see what really happened there when he got disconnected, and when they watch the VOD, they heard that some players of LDLC OL were screaming “Quit, quit, quit, quit!” when Eren activated his takeover. After Brox heard them, he quitted immediately.
None of the players of Fenerbahçe complained about it to the organizators. Both teams agreed to resume the game with the new match. Brox connected again after half an hour. The remaining time played with and Fenerbahçe won the fifth match by 44-38. They won the series by 3-2, became the champions of the Shadow League 2K PS5 tournament, and won 900 Euros.
