The Springfield Armor suffered a disheartening, 88-79 loss to the Santa Cruz Warriors in an oft-sloppy NBA D-League game Friday night.
By JIM SEIMAS
SANTA CRUZ – Ben Uzoh scored 17 points -- including 10 in succession in the third quarter – but the Springfield Armor suffered a disheartening, 88-79 loss to the Santa Cruz Warriors in an oft-sloppy NBA D-League game Friday night.
It was the sixth loss in the past seven games for the Armor.
For the second straight night, Springfield couldn’t find a solution to shut down the Warriors (8-2), who hold the best record in the league.
“We need to go back to the drawing board and regroup,” said Uzoh, who played 48 games for the New Jersey Nets in the 2010-11 season. “We were right there. We’ll go and look at film and see what adjustment need to be made.”
Armor coach Bob MacKinnon wasn’t pleased with the outing, especially after seeing the Warriors out-rebound his team 64-46.
“We got manhandled on the boards,” he said. “We need to do a better job, collectively and individually.”
Shawn Taggert scored 14 points for the Armor (4-7) and teammate Carleton Scott had 10 points and 15 rebounds. Christian Polk, who tried out for the Warriors at Aptos prior to the season, finished with 13 points.
“We came out and played hard in stretches, but I don’t think we sustained it for the full 48 minutes” MacKinnon said.
The Armor coach did praise the effort of Uzoh, a 6-foot-3 guard.
“Ben’s an NBA-quality player,” said MacKinnon, hinting at a possible promotion. “He didn’t surprise us. He hasn’t done anything we haven’t seen from him or do anything that’s not expected. I don’t know if he’s going to be with us much longer.”
Warriors forward Taylor Griffin got hot late in the fourth quarter and Santa Cruz made a series of late free throws down the stretch to rally past the Armor.
Despite committing 19 turnovers, the end result was still good for the Warriors. They improved to 3-0 at the newly constructed Kaiser Permanente Arena since relocating from North Dakota in the offseason.
The 88 points on offense was Santa Cruz’s lowest total this season.
“All in all, I don’t think we played great,” Griffin said. “We were out of whack on a lot of our offensive sets and the chemistry wasn’t there. But that’s something easily fixable.”
Griffin, the older brother of Los Angeles Clippers star Blake Griffin, scored six of his 12 points in the fourth, when the Warriors slowly pulled away from a 79-all tie with 3:26 left.
He also finished with 10 rebounds, helping him gain confidence after a slow start shooting.
“That series on the far end, where we had four offensive rebounds and Taylor finished it, our boys fought,” said Warriors coach Nate Bjorkgren. “I thought that was a really big one.”
The teams were tied nine tied times and traded the lead 13 times.
“It was an absolute fight out there,” Bjorkgren said.
Leading the way for Santa Cruz was forward Travis Leslie. He scored a team-high 17 points.
Warriors guard Stefhon Hannah added 13 points and teammate Cameron Jones added 12. Chris Johnson added 10.
Griffin hammered home a couple of late dunks – including one to culminate a series of offensive shots and rebounds -- and drained an off-balance hook shot in traffic to excite the sellout crowd of 2,505 fans.
The Warriors held a tentative, 40-37 lead at the end of a see-saw first half.
Springfield showed an improved effort from Thursday night’s game and jumped to an early lead, but the Warriors battled back from an early deficit to take a seven-point lead, 15-8. Cameron Jones had the hot hand early scored six points in the first quarter.
But Springfield didn’t fall apart, as it did in Thursday’s 113-101 loss. The Armor worked the ball around with efficiency and got plenty of offense from forwards Scott and Taggart, who combined for 18 points in the first half.
Santa Cruz held the lead for most of the first quarter, which ended on a tip-in at the buzzer by Chris Johnson.
Johnson didn’t have the highlight-reel outing he did Thursday, when he hammered down six dunks and scored 24 points. Johnson was kept away from the basket early, limiting his damage.
Taggert had a mini scoring spree with three straight baskets to give Springfield a short-lived lead in the second quarter, but the Warriors stormed back with some high-energy defense and defensive rebounding, allowing Santa Cruz to do what it does best – score in transition.
Mickell Gladness was called for traveling on a dunk attempt to cap a series of crazy passes and rebounds on one sequence, but seconds later Carlon Brown fired up the crowd with a Globetrotter-like layup for a 32-29 lead.
Cliff Tucker drained a 3-pointer to tie the score, but the Warriors went on a mini run to close the half.
On one breakaway, Santa Cruz’s Maurice Baker fed trailing teammate Travis Leslie for a monster dunk.