Green gets it done for Rocks
The Glasgow Rocks have won four of their last five BBL Championship games after beating the Durham Wildcats 75-92 on one of their shorter trips south of the border. It is the third time this season that the Rocks have beaten the Wildcats, after doing the double over them in their BBL Trophy group.
Mychal Green led all scorers with 35 points, adding 5 rebounds and 4 assists and hitting 4/6 three-pointers; Danny Huffor scored 19 for the Rocks. The Wildcats were led by 19 from Mike Capocci.
The Rocks took an early lead in a high scoring and tight first quarter, at 2-6 with Green scoring 4 points. The hosts drew level at 9-9 on Ralph Bucci’s score before three quick lead changes ensued up to Stephen Jones’s three-pointer making it 16-12 to the hosts with three minutes to play. The Rocks took the lead back on Sterling Davis’s triple, before four more lead changes and a Gareth Murray buzzer-beater tied the teams at 24 at the first quarter break.
After that it took two minutes to register a score in the second quarter, with the Wildcats going up through Notis Chalkidis. But things soon picked up as the Rocks hit 8 quick points, including 5 for Huffor to take the lead at 26-32. Capocci ended the two-minute barren spell for the hosts, and they were soon level once more, at 37, on a pair of Bucci free-throws with Paul Elderkin scoring five points in that run. But the Rocks went on a surge in the run up to half-time with a Green triple and Andrew Wedemire’s three-point play the highlights in a 10-2 run that made the score 41-49.
The Rocks pushed on in the third, with Green scoring their first six points and taking the lead to double-digits at 42-53. But that didn’t last long as, typical of this game, the hosts came back with an 8-2 burst, all scored by Capocci and including two triples, to force a time out from the Rocks. But despite getting the deficit down to 4 points, at 60-64, the Rocks finished the quarter the way they started it with a 7-0 tear, sparked by a Davis three, to lead 60-71 going into the decisive period.
The lead would not diminish to single figures again as the Rocks opened the fourth with a 7-1 run, including 5 more for Green, with the lead hitting its peak at full-time on another Green triple.
Durham Wildcats 75 (24,41,60) Capocci 19, Bucci 16, Hinnenkamp 12.
Glasgow Rocks 92 (24,49,71) Green 35, Huffor 19, Wedemire 11.
