Albany, NY – This one was over before the fat lady even had a chance to do a sound check.
The Legends used a 37 point 1st quarter and the hot-shooting of Guard Ej Gallup to easily dismantle the Lake County All-Stars Friday night at CBA 141-89.
Gallup paced the Legends with 22 points on solid outside shooting and Damone Morris scored 20 points rebounding from a sub-par performance in Sunday’s loss to the Edmonton Energy. Albany was also sparked by the bench play of returning Lloyd Clinton who had 15 points.
The Legends were without starting guard Emanuel Mayben who was serving a one game suspension for last Sunday’s ejection.
Lake County came out slow and unorganized from the tip off and could not find an answer for the up-tempo Legends. They only scored 32 points in the 1st half. The Legends scored 32 points in the 2nd quarter alone to build a 37 point halftime lead.
Fast breaks, runs and dunks were the theme of the night for the Albany Legends who are in a dog fight with the Kankakee County Soldiers for first place in the International Division and are on a 8 game winning streak.
Will Harris chipped in 14 points off the bench for the Legends. Starter Lloyd Johnson scored 11 points, Deandre Thomas 13 and Damone Morris has 20 in the rout.
Clinton had an instant energy boost to provide for the Legends. “It felt great being back out there. I just love to hustle and play defense. Bring that energy” Clinton said.
Clinton is sure to help the Legends out in a long road trip to close out the 2011 IBL season.”We need guys not just for scoring but for defense All of us can score but we need an anchor on defense and I think I can help with that. We need to work on running our sets and locking down on defense to the best of our abilities.”
Albany Legends Coach Ben Smith was pleased to get some of his bench players more playing time and is anxious to use this series to prepare for the grind of the road. “The All-Stars played hard but we played great. It was good to get some of our guys more minutes and we’ll try and do it again tomorrow” Coach Smith said.
But the work never stops and Coach Smith sees an opportunity to use this series to work out some kinks in his Press Defense. “I like to keep games a little close earlier in the game so I can throw a press in. We’re working on the press, the backside of it. The top side of our press is really good and we’re getting across the middle taking passes away but it’s too easily going over the top of us. So if I can just work on that a little bit in this series that’s going to be our main goal.”
Lake County was led by Brandon Stephens who had 19 points and the shooting of Chris Williams who chipped in 18. The All-Stars are still looking for their first win of the season.
