Kings vs. Lakestars

Posted on January 21, 2009 7:07 AM

First off I have to apologize for our poor performance on Saturday night. We as a team did not give our best effort in the 85-72 loss to the Lakestars who shot the ball very well.
The Lakestars were setting high picks and screens to get their shooters open and we did not react quickly enough and did not communicate well as a team.
After the first period we trailed 17-22 and went down 33-40 at half time.
We played a little better in the third period and took a 41-40 lead with 7:35 to go in the period and trailed 52-53 at the end of 3.
In the 4th the Lakestars were able to get their sharpshooter Bobby Nash open and he shot 100% for the period and finished with 16 in the 4th and 24 for the game.
Our Offense was stagnant for the whole game as we had 9 assist to 17 turnovers.

Sunday we played alot better. We came out and took a 18-10 lead through the 1st period.
Our defense was much better as we denied their shooters the ball and made them work harder to get their shots off. We had a 39-33 lead at the half.
They came out in the 3rd and were able to get looks at the basket and closed to 46-42 with 6:03 to go in the period.
We used a 15-9 run to extend our lead to 61-51 wih 1:26 in the 3rd by playing good defense and by pushing the ball up the court and getting transisition baskets as we closed out the period 65-56.

They were able to get the score close at 77-71 with 2:51 to go in the game but we used a 14-7 run to close out the game and won 91-78.

Chris Ayer finished with a career high 28 points and Jeff Newton finished with 22 points and 15 rebounds and last but not least I cannot say enough good things about the play of Yosuke Sugawara! He was nothing short of phenominal, he scored 14 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists and did a great job defensively on the Lakestar shooters along with Naoto Takushi who scored 10 points, 3 rebounds and 3 steals, they did a great job defending the Lakestar shooters.

Great job guys!

Up next the All-Star break as we will watch Coach Dai, Jeff Newton and Naoto Takushi participate in the All-Star game on the West squad and Bryan Simpson will show off his spectacular dunking ability in the Dunk contest and Shige Kinjo will display his 3-point sharpshooting precision in the Three-point contest. Good Luck to all!

Thanks to all of you who support the Kings! Without you this would not be possible.

Coach