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Make it two straight losses to open the regular season for the NBA G League Ignite after dropping both contests to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers this week.
Rio Grande Valley picked up its second consecutive win over this year’s developmental team, 112-105, Friday, Dec. 29 from the Bert Ogden Arena. Dating back to the showcase portion of the schedule, the Ignite have now lost five straight games.
Sitting at 0-2 now in the regular season, head coach Jason Hart and company will head to Sioux Falls for two games in three days against the SkyForce as part of four straight road games to start the new schedule. The former of the two games will take place Sunday, Dec. 31 from Sanford Pentagon with tip-off slated for 1 p.m.
While correcting several mistakes made in the first game of the regular season, the Ignite stumbled into different ones resulting in their most recent loss. Prior to the third quarter, the Vipers had only led once and by just two points.
After embarking on a 16-2 run, the home team found itself down two points before tying the game at 69 apiece. Soon after, it would regain the lead before ultimately going up by five before the third quarter buzzer.
Earlier in the third, the Ignite were up by 16 points after cleaning up their play to close the second quarter and head into halftime with a big lead. One night after going scoreless for more than four minutes and without a field goal for nearly six, the team rebounded to race to a 14-2 finish just before halftime Friday.
With things slipping away as Rio Grande Valley made its run to get back into the game, Hart was given a technical foul as part of double techs handed out. That marked his second technical foul in as many nights to start the regular season.
Vipers guard Nate Hinton scored all 18 of his points in the second half as the team found its offensive rhythm. After being held to 45 points on 39% from the field through the first half prior to exploding for 67 points in the second half while pushing its total shooting percentage to just over 46%.
On the other hand, the Ignite had its offensive prowess cooled down after not missing a shot until almost four minutes into the game on the way to a 67% finish in the first quarter. Hart’s group built a lead as large as 10 points in the opening frame.
Draft-eligible big man Izan Almansa powered his way to another dominant double-double despite the loss, closing the night with 19 points and 13 rebounds on 8-of-9 from the floor. In fact, the 6’10” forward connected on his first eight shots from the field while also compiling two blocks and a steal.
Like Almansa, guard London Johnson had an efficient night shooting, finishing with 18 points on 8-for-11 field goals. Both Almansa and Johnson were perfect from the field heading into halftime.
Four other players reached double-figure scoring including veteran guards John Jenkins and Norris Cole with 13 and 10 respectively along with draft-eligible forwards Matas Buzelis and Tyler Smith with 11 and 13 of their own. Once again, Cole and Smith did their damage off-the-bench for the Ignite.
Twenty-four hours after leading the team in scoring with 23 points, projected top pick Ron Holland II had almost the opposite effect on his team offensively. More frustrations came for the Ignite bench after Holland exited the game in the fourth quarter with six points and eight rebounds due to fouling out.