You are here > Home / Competitions / Nbl / Nbl news / Pistons Survive Upstart Nugs
Pistons Survive Upstart Nugs
Tagged in: NBL
Lemar Gayle may have won the individual battle with Brian Wethers but the Waikato Pistons got the points that mattered.
Ben Hill, Jason Crowe and Ray Cameron made big plays at both ends of the floor down the stretch as the Pistons survived with a 99-93 win over the Cartridge World Otago Nuggets at the Te Awamutu Events Centre to start round eight of the Dominion Finance NBL.
Wethers had a team-high 29 points for the 7-2 Pistons, but scored just four points in the second half, while Gayle finished with a game, season, and NBL career-high 40 points for the now 2-8 Nuggets in the battle of the first and second-leading point scorers in the League.
Hill took over in the second half, shooting 9-of-15 from the floor, and bombing 6-of-9 three-pointers in his season-high 27 points and eight rebounds, while Crowe finished with 20 points, 11 assists and four rebounds.
The underdog Nuggets lead the game inside three minutes to play at 87-84 before Hill tied the scores at 2:48 with his sixth three.
Nuggets forward Brent Charlton answered with a three of his own, and after a Puke Lenden put-back and Nuggets turnover, Cameron gave the Pistons the lead again for good with a deep three with 1:47 remaining.
A Crowe driving three-point play gave Waikato, who played without Tall Blacks captain Pero Cameron, a three-point buffer with 36sec to play, before Crowe and Hill hit free-throws to lock up the win.
Pistons led by as many as 13 points in the third quarter and threatened to blow the game out, but after a timeout chewing-out from coach Don Sims, Otago answered with 10 straight points and later closed the gap to two points.
The Nuggets took their first lead since the first quarter at 8:46 on the back of a Nat Connell reverse lay-up, but the Pistons soon responded with a mini seven-point run that put them up four points.
Gayle shot 16-of-24 from the field, to go with nine rebounds and three assists, and Otago shot 56.7 percent as a team but three-point shooting again proved their Achilles Heel, converting 4-of-15.
Centre Antoine Tisby, in just his third NBL game, could not be contained on the inside, finishing with 24 points and eight rebounds, while Connell recorded a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds as the Nuggets out-rebounded Waikato 42-30 but committed nine more turnovers.
Dominion Finance NBL Round Eight
At Te Awamutu Events Centre, Te Awamutu
Waikato Pistons 99 (Brian Wethers 29, Ben Hill 27, Jason Crowe 20) Cartridge World Otago Nuggets 93 (Lemar Gayle 40, Antoine Tisby 24, Nat Connell 14). HT: 56-49
Pistons vs Nuggets Box Score (22KB html)
