A valiant comeback fell short as the Texas Legends sweep the season series over the Sioux Falls Skyforce 125-118 on Saturday night at the Sanford Pentagon.

After falling behind 62-42 late in the second quarter, Sioux Falls (23-19) took a steady climb to eventually take the lead by the close of the third quarter 91-89. It was a function of taking it to the hole and preventing the Legends (24-18) from doing the same. In the fourth, Texas renewed their attacks in the paint which paved the way to victory.

As far as the second half performance, Skyforce Head Coach Nevada Smith felt the offense was more fluid than the first half.

“I thought we did a good job of getting into the heart of their defense, draw and kick. However, we just didn’t make shots. It’s a bad matchup for us with their size, but we like to play a little smaller. We look a lot better when the shots go in. Ten for 45 (from deep) in a game of that magnitude is pretty tough.”

Skyforce Guard Ike Nwamu only hit 3 of 12 from the outside, but did finish with 23 points which means he was able to find a way to get inside.

“If it’s not falling, you’ve got to go to what the defense is giving you. We were trying to exploit the fact that they had a lot of bigs on the court. Getting downhill and creating triggers, which forces the defense to rotate toward the ball handler then passing lanes open. That was an emphasis for us tonight.”

Johnathan Motley hit 9 of his first 10 shots on the way to 34 points with 10 rebounds to lead the Legends. Both Jameel Warney and Jalen Jones supplied 25 points each for the visitors.

Nine of the ten Skyforce players finished with at least 7 points with four in double figures. Briante Weber scored 25, Kadeem Jack had 15 points and 10 rebounds plus Torrey Craig added 12 points.

Coupled with a three-game Oklahoma City Blue win streak, Sioux Falls only has a half-game edge for the division lead.

Tuesday will be the next Skyforce outing playing host to Santa Cruz. Meanwhile Texas will welcome Fort Wayne on Wednesday.

 


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