NBADL playoffs: Shocking defeat leaves Skyforce no room or error
Perilous though the road may be, the Skyforce at least won’t have to do anything unprecedented in order to reach the NBA D-League finals.
Teams have come back to win a best-of-3 series after dropping Game 1 at home, the 2012 Austin Toros being the most recent example. And semifinal foe Fort Wayne is not undefeated at home – it’s merely won 15 in a row there since Jan. 11.
If the Mad Ants can steal a game at the Sanford Pentagon, where Sioux Falls had been 21-5, then the Skyforce are capable of returning the favor at 6:30 tonight in Game 2 at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. That’s the way Sioux Falls has to approach it or risk wallowing in the disappointment of blowing a 10-point lead in the last 5 minutes Thursday.
“We had the game where we wanted,” Force rookie guard A.J. Davis said. “A couple calls changed the game, but we can’t let that be the reason why we lost the game. We’ll come out hard (tonight) and get the job done.”
Calls unquestionably changed the complexion of Game 1 even if they didn’t favor one team over another – five players were disqualified in the final 10 minutes. That epitomized the wild nature of the affair the Mad Ants won by a 113-111 margin.
There were 17 lead changes and 11 ties. Both teams had four runs of 7-0 or more. Sioux Falls outscored Fort Wayne by 13 in the third quarter and the Mad Ants bettered the Force by 14 in the fourth. The difference was one play: Fort Wayne guard Tony Mitchell throwing in a driving, twisting, contested bank shot over Sioux Falls standout DeAndre Liggins with 4 ticks remaining.
“We don’t play any better defense than that,” Force coach Pat Delany said of the shot.
On the other hand, fourth-seeded Sioux Falls did not sustain that level of coverage throughout, giving up 55 percent shooting. Also, Fort Wayne finished with a 30-17 edge in fast-break points, rendering moot the fact that the Force were able to hang in a couple other key areas – free throws, rebounds and turnovers.
“I thought the first half our desperation, the urgency wasn’t really there,” Delany said, “yet we were only down one at halftime. I thought we really focused in the second half – we really battled them defensively. That’s what got us back in the game, gave us the momentum.”
Sioux Falls closed the third quarter on a 17-6 spurt to take a 91-79 lead. The edge was 104-94 with 4:43 remaining. Fort Wayne halved the deficit in four seconds and gave up just two field goals the rest of the way.
The top-seeded Mad Ants have won nine games in a row overall and 15 straight at home, including three meetings against the Force.
“Hopefully, we can have a little better start (in Game 2),” said Fort Wayne’s Conner Henry, the D-League coach of the year, “and play a little bit more of a complete 48 minutes.”
Sioux Falls has to get the better end of those 48 minutes in order to earn 48 more. Game 3 would be in Fort Wayne on Monday night. So far this postseason, the Skyforce are 2-0 when facing elimination. Doubling that mark will be at least twice as hard.
“It’s a three-game series,” Delany said earlier this week. “No matter where you win them or how you win them doesn’t come into play – it’s just two games.”
SKYFORCE AT FORT WAYNE
Game 2: Tonight at Fort Wayne (Ind.), 6:30 p.m.
Game 3: Monday at Fort Wayne,6 p.m.*
*if necessary