NBLC Daily: November 15th
The eighth NBL Canada season gets underway with unexpected results in both opening night games.
Defending champions London Lightning began their campaign with an uncertain start against the Windsor Express, but led by leading scorer Al Gaines, who had 19 points, they found their rhythm in the second quarter and went on to lead by ten points at half time. Windsor struck back when the game resumed, and stringing together multiple scoring runs in the paint, went into the lead and put the Lightning on the back foot.
The pressure seemingly got to London, who kept coming up short in the fourth, while Windsor kept adding to their scoreline. Anthony Ottley Jr and Luke Cochrane had the biggest impact in this late stage of the game, both in the end contributing 13 points off the bench, while Ryan Anderson had a team-high 14 points in his return to Windsor. London did not have the home opener they wanted, as they fell to the Express 111-103.
Meanwhile, after a close first half in the Scotiabank Centre, the Moncton Magic opened the third quarter with a six-point run to take a double-digit lead over the Halifax Hurricanes. With Doug Herring Jr accurate from long range and a big impact off the bench from both Gentrey Thomas and Denzell Taylor, the Magic out-scored the Hurricanes 36-18 in the third, giving them an insurmountable 22-point lead.
Joel Kindred was doing his all for Halifax, putting up 27 points, while Mike Poole was one rebound shy of a double-double. The Hurricanes, though, could not find a way around Moncton's defence. Taylor had 16 total rebounds for the Magic, who also saw 21 points off the bench from Thomas and an amazing 29 points, 7 rebounds and 3 steals from Corey Allmond. Moncton were the better team, and closed out their opening game with an impressive 121-94 road win over the Halifax Hurricanes.
