Chelsea Gray was the hero again on Monday as Rose defeated Vinyl in the first Unrivaled championship game. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Chelsea Gray came to play.
A game after scoring 39 points to lead Rose past the Laces in the semifinals, Gray was the hero again Monday night in sparking Rose to a 62-54 win over Vinyl in the inaugural championship game of the Unrivaled 3-on-3 basketball league.
She did so with a sizzling second half that helped secure a hefty paycheck for herself and her teammates. The winning players on Rose each received a championship bonus of $50,000, nearly a quarter of the average salary in Unrivaled of roughly $220,000.
Gray was named Finals MVP.
On Monday it was a halfcourt buzzer-beater from Gray that shifted the tide in Rose’s favor. Unrivaled games are played to a target score similar to the Elam Ending that the NBA previously experimented with in its All-Star game.
The target score is set at the end of the fourth quarter by adding 11 points to the leading team’s score. The first team to reach that score wins. On Monday, that score was set at 62 points after the Rose took a 51-49 lead out of the third quarter.
Vinyl appeared to have a 49-48 lead secured at the end of the quarter. But Gray beat the buzzer from beyond half court for a 3-pointer that bounced straight up off the front of the rim and in.
From there, Rose scored the first two buckets of the fourth quarter to take a 55-49 lead and move within six points of the target score. Vinyl cut the lead to 55-52, but Rose extended its edge back to 59-52 on a pair of jumpers from Gray.
Vinyl scored one more bucket before Brittney Sykes secured victory at the free-throw line after an and-1 layup.
Sykes led Rose with 21 points and five rebounds. Azura Stevens added 19 points and 18 rebounds. And Gray bounced back from a 1-for-9 first half that produced three points to secure 18 points and eight assists while hitting multiple clutch buckets.
Rhyne Howard led Vinyl with 22 points and six rebounds.
Rose won Monday despite playing a second straight game without forward Angel Reese, who was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year on Saturday. Reese suffered a left hand injury ahead of the semifinals that also sidelined her on Monday.
Like in Monday’s title game, Unrivaled also awarded bonuses in its midseason one-on-one tournament. Semifinalists of that tournament received $25,000 each, runner-up Aaliyah Edwards received $50,000 and winner Napheesa Collier earned $200,000, in addition to a $50,000 bonus to share with her five Lunar Owls teammates.
Collier and the top-seeded Lunar Owls were not eligible for Monday’s championship bonus. The Lunar Owls lost to the fourth-seeded Vinyl in Sunday’s semifinal round. The second-seeded Rose reached Monday’s final with a win over the No. 3 seed Laces in Sunday’s other semifinal.
