Around the Perimeter: Lightning looking to tame emotion
The 11-0 Lightning can set a franchise record — in the franchise’s first game in the U.S. — Thursday in Albany. Three games in four days will test the streak. Columnist Jason Winders has all the latest Lightning news and notes …
(Photo: Matt Hiscox Photography).
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STARTING FIVE
1. We’re still going streakin’. Last week, the London Lightning got ready to celebrate breaking the Moncton Magic’s record of 10 wins in a row to begin an NBL Canada season. Turns out, they were chasing themselves, as the actual league record was 11-0 set by the 2012-13 Lightning. That Bolts team went on to finish 33-7 and win the league championship against the Summerside Storm. All that said, the Lightning could set the record by improving to 12-0 on Thursday against the Albany Patroons.
The Lightning have a 5.5-game lead on the second-place KW Titans as we’re now halfway through the NBLC’s 24-game regular season. London’s magic number to clinch first place is now 8.
2. Technically speaking. The Lightning were slapped with three technical fouls in their 110-103 win over the Windsor Express on Sunday. Chris Jones and Cameron Forte each picked up one from the floor, and head coach Doug Plumb got one on the bench. That’s the most T’s the team has picked up in a game since being hit with three against the Sudbury Five on March 13 (and four in the season opener against the KW Titans on March 5). The team has racked up 14 total technical fouls in 11 games. Five players have been T’d up, including Forte (3), Jones (2), Jaylon Tate (2), Terry Thomas (2), and Mareik Isom (1). Plumb has four on his own. In fact, on Wednesday, the NBLC announced the coach had been suspended for one game ‘due to accumulation of technical fouls.’
“Having a talented and emotional team is both a gift and a curse,” the head coach said. “When it’s good, it’s really good. When it starts to become not good, it’s a real problem. We need to stop complaining to the referees. We’re averaging like two technicals a game. We need to just shut up and play.”
3. Talk of the town. But don’t look for this team to quiet down completely on the court – especially when it comes to confronting their opponents on home court. Guard Chris Jones, a man who makes on-court chatter an art form, knows that talk is part of this team’s identity.
“We don’t talk first, but we’re happy to finish it every time,” Jones laughed. “We don’t go into games with a plan to talk crazy to them. But when other teams come in here and do it to us, we just finish it. We keep it to basketball talk – we got kids in the arena. But when they start talking, it gets me going. And when I get going, the team often goes with me.”
4. Player of the Week three-peat. I guess this comes with being undefeated. Lightning centre Amir Williams was named NBL Canada Player of the Week for the week ending March 27. The 6-foot-11-inch centre averaged 18.5 points and 11.5 rebounds per game in two London victories last week. He also set a franchise record with eight blocked shots against the Sudbury Five on March 24. Williams makes the third straight Bolt named Player of the Week after Chris Jones (March 20), and Cameron Forte (March13).
5. A Patroon, you say? Beyond the streak, the matchup against Albany is historic in another way, as it will be London’s first regular season game played in the United States. For the 2022 season, the NBL Canada-TBL partnership adds four U.S. opponents to the Lightning schedule, including three trips south of the border to play Albany (March 31), Flint United (April 8), and the Lansing Pharaohs (April 9).
Albany is a franchise with a ton of cool history, dating back to the CBA, with alumni that include Mario Antoine Elie, who won a pair of titles with the Houston Rockets, and former Lighting standout Xavier Moon. Coolest of all is the team’s wild coaching tree that includes Rick Carlisle, Phil Jackson, Bill Musselman, and George Karl.
The franchise also has one of the worst nicknames in sports, as a Patroon is ‘a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland on the east coast of North America.’ So, watch out for those powdered wigs, boys.
Cameron Forte, shown here sporting the Lightning’s special purple jerseys (worn last Sunday in support of the London Abused Women’s Centre), continues to lead the Lightning in scoring. He’s averaging a double-double (22.6 points/11.3 rebounds) through the team’s first 11 games. (Photo: Luke Durda).
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LIGHTNING NOTES
Plumb has said that the Lightning roster looks to be set for the season, but you never know. Keep an eye on April 1 – that’s the deadline by which players need to be added to a team’s roster (as well as play in four regular season games afterward) to qualify to play in the playoffs. … Last week, London played two of its tightest contests of the year, escaping Sudbury (with a 108-105 win on Thursday) and Windsor (with a 110-103 win on Sunday), both on home court. It was an unusual situation for the Bolts, as they have been beating opponents by an average of nearly 14 points (13.8 points) per game. That Sudbury win was the gutsiest performance of the year, as the team was playing both poorly and shorthanded. “As a coach, I can fix execution,” Plumb said. “I can’t fix someone’s will or desire at the end of the game. You either have that or you don’t – and we’re showing that we have that.” … Speaking of Xavier Moon, the 6-foot-2-inch guard is back in the NBA after signing a two-way deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. Moon has been hot from the field of late in the NBA G League, most recently with a 28-point, 16-assist performance. Moon signed three 10-day hardship deals in December and January and made a strong impression on his teammates despite only playing six games. “His will, his want-to. How much he’s been about the team,” Reggie Jackson told Hoops Rumors said when Moon’s last contract expired. “He’s come in, he’s gotten better every day, hasn’t complained, fears no one, doesn’t back down, so it’s been fun to watch him compete.”… Lightning placed Manny Sahota (personal) on Inactive Reserve, retroactive to March 26.
BEYOND MY BYLINE
I did some math the other day, and it made me feel old. Mick Jagger, that ‘old man’ I saw prancing around the stage the first time I saw the Rolling Stones on their Voodoo Lounge Tour in 1994, was 51 years old at the time. I am 50 now and still cannot dance. That hits hard. Hoping Mick and The Boys keep rocking another 60 years. Maybe I’ll pick up a few moves like Jagger in that time, as well.
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