EDINBURG — The Sioux Falls Skyforce turned a modest six-point halftime lead into an 18-point advantage late in the third quarter en route to a 115-104 win over the RGV Vipers on Friday at Bert Ogden Arena.
It was the third straight regular-season victory for the Skyforce, and they improved to 3-2. RGV fell to 1-4, extending its losing streak to four games. The teams will play again at 7:30 p.m. today, also at Bert Ogden.
“I wish we could’ve had a better effort with a better outcome,” first-year Vipers head coach Kevin Burleson said. “This is these guys’ profession. You won’t win every game, and there will be streaks. We are going to start winning again, and this will start to feel good.”
Darius Days and Jalen Lecque led RGV with 32 and 27 points, respectively. Days also pulled down 12 rebounds. Days, Lecque and Trhae Mitchell were a combined 25-for-49 from the floor (55.2%) while the remainder of the team was 11-for-43 (25.6%) combined.
It was a familiar storyline for the Vipers as of late in losses. They were outrebounded (52-45), dished out just 16 assists and, other than Days and Mitchell, who were 6-of-13 from 3-point land, it was a poor shooting night from beyond the arc. The rest of the team was a combined 3-of-25 (12%) from deep.
Trevor Hudgins was 4-of-20 from 3-point land.
Prior to the regular season, during the first part of the season known as the Showcase Cup, the Vipers were one of the hottest teams in the G League, winning nine straight before their current 2-6 slump. After the Showcase Tournament in Las Vegas, all teams began the regular season with 0-0 records.
Burleson said not all losses are the same and that he wasn’t happy with how his team lost Friday.
“I didn’t like the way we lost tonight,” Burleson said. “Sometimes you lose to a better team or a team played better than you, but they were tougher than us.
“It wasn’t like our guys weren’t hustling out there but there wasn’t a consistent effort by everybody. There might be two guys out there or three … I told (the Sioux Falls) coach that his guys played collectively harder. There were five guys out there playing for their lives. At moments we had five, but sometimes it was just two or three.”