Armor Thabeet-en soundly, 108-95, in Texas
The Springfield Armor fell behind by 23 points in the first quarter and couldn’t make up that deficit as the Rio Grande Valley Vipers defeated them 108-95 on Friday night at State Farm Arena.
JamesOn Curry led the Armor (13-36) with 21 points after being held scoreless for the first half. Eugene Sparks had 16 points and Tre Whitted 14 off the bench.
The Vipers were led by Houston Rockets assignee Hasheem Thabeet, who had 18 points and 10 rebounds. Patrick Sullivan had 16 points off the bench and Northeastern product Matt Janning also had 16 points.
The Vipers (32-17), the defending NBA Development League champions, locked up home-court advantage for the first round. The Armor and Vipers will meet again Saturday at State Farm Arena to close the regular season.
It was simply too large a hole from which to climb out when the Armor fell behind 32-9 to start the game and 34-16 after the first quarter. It was easy to pinpoint the source of the Armor’s first quarter woes: Springfield made just 4 of 22 shots from the field and was outrebounded 26-11.
“I don’t know if it's slow starts or we are just not playing with enough effort on defense,” Armor coach Dee Brown said. “You spot this team 20 points, they are too good. We played better the last three quarters, but we had to play a perfect game and every little mistake was magnified.”
The Armor found their shooting touch, especially from the 3-point arc, in the second quarter. Whitted made two 3-pointers and Lance Hurdle another that helped cut the Vipers’ lead to 42-31 at the 6:12 mark.
Terrel Harris scored eight straight points to help the Vipers build their lead to 52-39 with 1:41 left. Mohammad Faye added a three to give the Vipers a 57-41 halftime lead.
In the third quarter, the Vipers maintained their sizable lead through the first seven minutes before the Armor closed the gap to five points on three different occasions. The Vipers’ Jon Scheyer scored two baskets in the final 1:20 to put his team on top 82-73 after three quarters.
The Armor made one more run in the fourth quarter after the Vipers came out firing with four 3-pointers, including three by Janning, that made the score 98-83 with 7:46 remaining.
The Armor cut it to 98-90 with 5:55 left, but it didn’t get any closer. The Vipers responded with an 8-2 run that put them comfortably ahead in the closing minutes.
