Friday night saw the League leaders Leicester Riders travel into the Wright Robinson Sports College for the SKY TV game against the Manchester Giants. Leicester were hoping to return to winning ways after losing their 1st game of the season against the Surrey Heat last weekend. While the Giants were trying to snap the losing streak of 6 that the Giants were on and was always going to be difficult against a very well drilled Basketball side in Leicester.
The start of the game started well for the Giants as they came out the blocks quick and was in the lead for the early part of the 1st Quarter, but after a timeout taken, things then changed from there. As Leicester took control as proceeded to punish the Giants on both ends of the Court as Leicester started to pull away and come end of 1st it was 16-20 to the Riders.
2nd quarter you could say was where the game really was arguably won as Leicester cut through the Giants "Matador" like Defense, as the Giants were hapless to stop the oncoming onslaught of the Leicester players. The lead ballooned to 16 as Leicester had a 32-16 lead early on in the 2nd Quarter, as the Giants with the inability to score when attack was hurting them more than the Defense side as Leicester cut Manchester to shreds. Leicester had a lot going their way even a shot that missed bounced off the top of the backboard and dropped in.
A timeout was taken by Giants Coach Jeff Jones and some stern words given and that brought a bit of an improvement by the Giants, But the amount of turnovers and lack of rebounds were killing the G-Me but did well cut the score to 31-42 to Leicester. As Leicester coach Paternostro Seething with his players as they had complete control and then last couple of mins left in Quarter, Manchester slowly mounted a comeback to make it 11 points down at half time. When they were pushing 20 point lead. So as team left to the locker room, the Leicester coach face was as red as the Leicester players uniform.
half time: MANCHESTER GIANTS 31-42 Leicester riders
3rd Quarter was much like the 2nd with Leicester obvious still ringing from their coach half time pep talk, they came out and put his words into action as the lead moved to 14pts and the Giants really struggling to find any baskets. But the game almost changed when Devan Bailey was introduced to the fray as he almost single handed guided a Giants revival. As a 16pt lead was cut down to 9pts with some play by him and from David Aliu who started to get hot throwing a 3pt and Bailey driving hard to the basket to bring the end of 3rd Quarter to 50-59 still to Leicester.
4th quarter Giants were still huffing and puffing at the Leicester door and at point the lead was down to 5 pts and the Giants had the momentum and Riders were stunned and struggling to score themselves now. Then with 2:07 left in the game the lead was down to 3pts and a Excellent recovery was well and truly on. Then Giants hit foul trouble with 2 players fouling out and a 3pointer by Taylor and gaining a foul too,lead to Leicester then going to the free throw line and get the extra point to make a 4point play. And so With time winding down the Giants ran out of steam and couldn`t keep up and condemned Manchester to a 7th Straight defeat but a very valiant effort. And gave the Giants and their fans hope that a Win is just around the corner.
Giants now travel to Crisis club Cheshire Jets Sunday and hopefully win their 1st Road game this season and snap the losing streak too!
GIANTS: Aliu 19; Gill 16; Bailey 13, 8 rebounds, 5 assists; J Jones 11; Eaves 6; Watts 4; Bernard 2.
Final Score: Manchester Giants 71- 82 Leicester Riders
No comments:
Post a Comment