NBLC Recap: December 13th
A two-game Thursday night saw two unpredictable match-ups in both divisions of the NBL Canada.
The KW Titans had the advantage from close range, posting 58 points in the paint against the Sudbury Five. That edge saw them take an early lead over Sudbury, but as the game went on the Titans could not contain Braylon Rayson, who had 33 points and 10 rebounds, and Grandy Glaze with 25 points and 15 rebounds. These performances put Sudbury in control of the game.
Sudbury inflicted the most damage in the third quarter, when they had their biggest lead of the game at 13. Ending with 18 points and 9 rebounds, Derek Hall made a late push for the Titans, but that would not be enough, nor would 23 points off the bench from Akeem Ellis. Sudbury maintain their lead in the central division with a 122-114 win over KW.
With an outstanding performance off the Cape Breton Highlanders’ bench, Deshaunt Walker helped bring the team from down by 12 to the Halifax Hurricanes in the first quarter to up by four at the end of the first half. 20 points and 9 rebounds from Kenny Jones also helped ignite the Highlanders after a slow start.
Fighting back for the Hurricanes were Jordan Washington and Malcolm Duvivier off the bench, who had 19 and 11 points respectively, and 16 points from starter Joel Kindred. Most of these came in the second half, and helped keep proceedings tight for the remaining time.
The score was tied throughout the last six minutes of regulation, until the final two minutes, when Walker put the Highlanders up by three and Bruce Massey later added a free-throw to make the score line 94-90. Each of Halifax’s shot attempts uncharacteristically fell short, and they fell to their second straight loss, while Cape Breton celebrated their second consecutive win.
