London Lightning Extend Winning Streak to Eight Games
Sunday, January 7, 2018 (London, ON) – The London Lightning played the Niagara River Lions for the third time in a week and came away with a 143-132 win.
Assistant coach, Elliott Etherington, knows the offensive performance was great tonight but believes defence can be better. "At end of the day we still gave them too many points. We have to work at containing the ball, make sure we stop the ball early… All in all, we are happy with how the guys played today. They responded any time Niagara made a run, we made a better run on the way back. Now we just have to tweak the defence a bit."
Mo Bolden made a big impact in his second game back with the Lightning, scoring 32 points, nine assists, with two steals and a block. "It was a great team effort, we moved the basketball well. But once again, we have to get better defensively, we let them score too many points. The team is doing a great job, moving the basketball and making it comfortable for me to play."
Royce White had another big night for the bolts scoring 29 points, with 12 assists, seven rebounds and two blocks. "I think this is the first game we were really clicking on offense like we should be. Ryan [Anderson] really sets the tempo early on in the game by knocking down shots. When that happens, there is a confidence that just brews amongst us, we continued to hit shots. Mo hit some big shots, he has been playing amazing after coming off injury." Both White and Bolden shot 68% from the field.
Etherington and the coaching staff knows the pairing of White and Bolden inside is hard to handle. "Really happy with Mo's return. He's playing great. Real smart out there on defense and offensively he had 32 points with very effective shooting. Him and Royce are a handful together."
The Lightning had great performances all around, Doug Herring Jr. added 22 points, six rebounds plus five assists, Garrett Williamson notched 21 points and Ryan Anderson chipped in 19 points along with eight assists and five rebounds.
The London Lightning are back to work this Wednesday, January 10th as they host the KW Titans at 7 PM at Budweiser Gardens. Tickets are available at www.lightningbasketball.ca or the Budweiser Gardens Box Office.