Late Push Falls Short for Sioux Falls Skyforce against Vipers

The Rio Grande Valley Vipers extended their win streak to seven and stopped the Sioux Falls Skyforce win streak at five on Monday night with an eight-point win 141-133 at the Sanford Pentagon.

Playing with a double-digit lead for most of the game, the Vipers (22-10) forced 15 first-half turnovers and 22 for the game which played a big part in the road win.

Skyforce Head Coach Nevada Smith knows that letting a good team get a big early lead is tough to overcome.

“We dug a too big a hole for us to come out of. You spend too much energy getting back. We did a great job in the second half on the glass. We gave up 15 offensive rebounds in the first half and 3 in the second. We cut our turnovers in half. It was just too sloppy and lackadaisical in the first half.”

Skyforce forward Raphiael Putney says the early sloppy play was a departure from what they had been doing during the previous five games.

“It was very frustrating because we haven’t been playing like that in a while. For us to come in here and turn the ball over as much as we did in the first half, I think there was some exhaustion, but we’ve got a game on Wednesday so we need to have a quick turnaround for that one.”

Putney was the catalyst for the Skyforce (22-11) with 27 points, 10 rebounds and 4 blocks with Duncan Robinson scoring 25.

Michael Frazier led all scorers with an impressive 43 points including 11 of the Vipers last 14 points.