Edmonton NRG BlogBy Chris O'Leary
The weekend that was ...Notes from this past weekend with the Edmonton Energy
Bellingham’s first quarter on Friday night was as freakish a display of perfect basketball as you might ever see from a team. Of course, no team can stay that hot for an entire 48 minutes, but those first 12 minutes from Bellingham were a thing of beauty to watch. The outside shooting (80 percent three-point FG percentage), the ball movement, the confidence that swelled with each basket made...it was overwhelming to watch from the sidelines. I can’t imagine how the Energy players dealt with it.
How the team dealt with it is what made Paul Sir call Friday’s win the best game he’s been a part of in the IBL. The Slam had all of the momentum in their hands. They were on pace for 204 points and had at least convinced me that the game was over (seriously—I had started writing my game story after the first quarter, looking to make some play off of this beatdown being worse than running into a buzzsaw).
The fact that the Energy were able to get back into the game at all would have been enough for a moral victory. What made it the most impressive game that I’ve seen out of the Energy or the Chill was that it took only two quarters—not even—of play for them to not only get back into the game, but to take the lead. Down nine at the half after falling behind an ugly 21 points, they went up 83-82 early in the third quarter on a J.R. Patrick bucket and didn’t look back.
If you were at the game on Friday, consider yourself lucky. It’s rare to see a game like that in any level of basketball, where each team so drastically loses their game on one side and suddenly finds it on the other. It’s like the momentum just got up off of Bellingham’s bench, walked over to Edmonton’s side and settled in for the rest of the night.
Standouts from Friday
Will Funn – A triple-double of 16 points, 16 rebounds and 16 assists—from a point guard who’s six-foot-three—is phenomenal at any level. Funn made something happen every time he touched the ball during Edmonton’s incredible run through the last three quarters of the game.
J.R. Patrick – A 30-point night is par for the course for the team’s best offensive player, but it was how the Eastglen High grad did his damage. He sparked the team in the second quarter and carried the scoring load through the third when the Energy stretched their lead out.
Antwon Mills – The big power forward put his hardhat on for Friday and played a big part in the team’s second-quarter run, collecting a modest double-double of 11 points and 12 rebounds on the night. His one-handed dunk on an offensive rebound late in the fourth quarter helped seal the Slam’s fate.
Saturday night’s 141–121 loss didn’t come as a complete shock. Even just dressing eight of their players (Ryan Diggs, a massive offensive threat for the Slam, didn’t make the trip to Edmonton), Bellingham is too good to be swept. Consider that they allowed a franchise worst 144 points on Friday, and you knew that they’d come out looking to lock the Energy down.
And lock them down they did, holding Edmonton to 44 points at the half. The Energy couldn’t get anything going offensively in the first half. Normally a guaranteed two points under the bucket when he gets the ball, Skouson Harker went six-of-15 from the field on Saturday night. A slashing/dishing threat all Friday, Funn struggled on Saturday, watching a handful of layup attempts roll off the rim. Of course, if you could hear the words from the Energy coaching staff and players, you knew that the team had a lot of issues with the game’s officiating crew. The Energy were hit with four technical fouls in the game. Steve Sir and Skouson Harker both rubbed the refs the wrong way, and Lee Scruggs worked his way into their doghouse, getting his second tech and subsequent ejection with a minute left in the game.
Edmonton outside shooting didn’t show up until the fourth quarter of the game, when the team went into the game’s final stanza down 31 points.
Their fourth-quarter rally attempt actually saw them slice that 31-point gap down to nine at two different points leading into the game’s final three minutes, but the team couldn’t get any closer. As the sharp-shooting Steve Sir (three treys made in the fourth) said after the game on Saturday, you have to play perfect basketball down the stretch to pull something like that off and that didn’t happen.
Standouts from Saturday
Steve Sir scored the majority of his 26 in the fourth quarter, when he almost single-handily brought the Energy out of that massive 31-point deficit. Had the team found that rhythm even in the third quarter, things may have turned out differently.
Ira Graham of Bellingham lit the Energy up for 40 points, 10 assists and six rebounds on Saturday.
Generously listed at five-foot-10 on the Slam’s roster, point guard Jake Linton bombed away from the outside on Saturday for 29 points. He shot six-of-seven from deep on Friday and went eight-for-12 on Saturday for an incredible 14–19 on the weekend.
Up next for the Energy in their eight-game homestand is the Snohomish County Explosion, led by the IBL’s leading scorer, Devon Greene and his 37.2 points per game.
| |
