NBLC Highlight Games: Sudbury vs London, February 13th
It is a recent rivalry in the NBL Canada between the London Lighting and Sudbury Five, but it is one that has developed quickly, as evidenced by seemingly every match-up between the teams being a heated one.
When Sudbury made the short mid-February trip to the Gardens in London, they faced a side with the best record in the Central Division and sitting on a four-game winning streak. London were looking confident but facing a team with some of the league's top scorers, this was not going to be easy an easy encounter for them, either.
London put the first points on the board but Sudbury would not let them break away until midway through the opening period, where the Lightning went seven points in front. Only for Jaylen Bland and JR Holder to put Sudbury in front by one, which was followed by four lead changes, ending in the visitors leading by a point at the end of the first quarter.
Sudbury built on their lead when the game resumed, but London stayed within reach, hitting from all spots on the floor. The Lightning got to within one and Randy Phillips then put them in front, but Dexter Williams kept the scores tight and Sudbury trailed by one at the half-time buzzer.
Marlon Johnson gave the lead back to Sudbury at the top of the second half, the team then had to fight to keep the lead as there was no let-up from the home team. Marcus Capers led London's offence to lift the team to a double-digit lead after a 12-0 run midway through the third quarter. Six points in a row from Johnson kept Sudbury within reach of the Lightning, who still proved too hard to handle from all spots on offence.
In the final two minutes, Jarryn Skeete had two successive threes to bring Sudbury to within one, the rest of the game saw both teams trying to find the game-winning shot and all came up short until Johnson made a game-winning layup with three seconds to go. A final missed attempt by AJ Gaines to save the game for London fell short and victory would belong to Sudbury.
Randy Phillips was the top scorer for London in the close loss with 32 points, while double-doubles were achieved by Marcus Capers (22 points, 12 rebounds) and AJ Gaines off the bench (14 points, 13 rebounds). The Sudbury Five saw a game-high 36 points from Johnson as well as 24 from JR Holder and 23 and 10 boards from Dexter Williams in one of the team's highlight games of the 2019-20 season.
