Lightning an (im)perfect 2-0, eye busy week

Around the Perimeter: Home opening win a tale of two halves; Balanced effort on offense; The threes aren’t flying … yet; Broadcast snafus, attendance hurdles. Columnist Jason Winders’ Lightning news & notes …

(Photo: Bruce Laing / London Lightning).

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WHAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK.

London (2-0) 117 – Windsor (0-2) 109 | Sunday, Dec. 8 in London

WHAT WE LEARNED.

Exciting night. Home opener. Ring ceremony. Lots of energy. But then …

The Lightning opened the game strong – up by as many as 27 with 59 seconds to go in the first half – but they lost the plot coming out from the break (a common refrain from last season). The second half featured a lot of sloppy, undisciplined ball the rest of the way. A 15-day layoff didn’t help, but the team didn’t look rusty, they looked, well, a little too familiar in some areas: Lack of focus. Playground ball. Technical fouls.

“We lost everything that got us up 20-something points and then started playing pickup basketball. It was hard to watch,” Lightning head coach Jerry Williams said. “We had guys come out and think they were a Harlem Globetrotter or something – go between your legs, behind your back, over your head, hit the ball off your head, and then the ball’s going through the rim. That doesn’t work in this league. It showed (Sunday afternoon) for sure. We went away from what we do, and that’s why [Windsor] broke into the lead the way they did.”

London managed the win – they never trailed in the game, in fact – but don’t look for Williams to start sizing up the rafters for another banner.

“I’m excited we got the victory, sure, but we have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We’re not even close to where we need to be. On a scale of 1 to 10, we're at 1 right now when it comes to where we need to be.”

WHAT WAS AWESOME.

If you like balance in your life (and on your home team), that was a pretty scorecard at game’s end: Eight of 10 players scored in double digits. Eight of the 10 players played 20 minutes or more. Four of the five starters had seven rebounds each.

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The Lightning opened with the same starting five (Jachai Taylor, Chris Jones, Joel Kindred, Billy White, and Corey Boyd) as they did in Sudbury. But don’t bet on this remaining the case for the whole season.

“I don’t even believe in starters,” Williams said. “I believe in The Best Five. Who’s playing great together today? I don’t care what happened yesterday. I couldn’t care less if they’re big or small. I only care about the five who are doing what they’re supposed to do.”

(Photo: Bruce Laing / London Lightning).

WHAT NEEDS WORK.

Halftime is meant to be a break – not the end.

London led 64-41 at the half and appeared to be on their way to cruising to a laugher in front of the home crowd. The Express, however, had other designs, as a 37-point third quarter cut the lead in half. In the end, Windsor outscored London 68-53 in the second half.

“I’ve said a hundred times, this league is a one-shot lead. Anything can happen. No lead is safe. And they showed us. They fought back hard. They came out in the second half, and they played good basketball in that third quarter. They kicked our butts,” Williams said.

The Lightning only shot 36.8% from the floor in the third (against 54.2% for the Express), but their perfect 9-9 effort from the free throw line gave them just enough distance. Those weren’t the only rough numbers – none more irritating than the fact London gave up 25 rebounds on the offensive glass.

“That’s ridiculous,” Williams said. “You get beat doing that. How we won that game, I have no idea, because giving somebody 25 second chances to score on you is bad. It’s terrible. We got to fix that; we can’t give up that many rebounds. We can’t get out-rebounded by every team that we play. People say, ‘Well, you’re not big, and they were bigger.’ No. It was lack of effort. That’s all it was – effort.”

(Photo: Bruce Laing / London Lightning).

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Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Lightning guard Chris Jones was ejected from the game.

Driving the lane with 4:55 to go in the game, Jones had the ball slapped away and out of bounds. As he retrieved the ball from the referee to inbound it, Jones kept on jawing while throwing in a bit of his patented negative body language that we saw a lot last year. You know the look: Shrugs. Pouts. Sighs.

Although not egregious, that performance was enough for his second technical foul of the game – and an automatic ejection. (His first tech came earlier in the third complaining about something. Who even knows at this point.)

Credit a save to Lightning assistant coach Dave Sewell who ushered a still-jawing Jones back to the locker room as game action continued. It could have been worse, believe me. We’ve seen it.

I don’t even know what to say at this point. What was once considered competitive fire is now tiresome display of bad attitude, unsportsmanlike behaviour, and just general pain-in-the-buttness that has kept Jones from playing at the highest levels of the game for his entire career.

It’s hard to consider him a floor general when he keeps demoting himself.

At this point, however, this isn’t on Jones; he is who he is. This is on a franchise that continues to tolerate his behaviour.

(Photo: Bruce Laing / London Lightning).

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Windsor shot 99 times from the field, including 43 from three-point range. Compare that to London shooting 78 and 15, respectively. Heck, Windsor’s Tray Maddox shot 15 threes on his own. (He could call himself Tre Maddox, if he made more than four of those shots.)

That gap in three-point shooting won’t fly every night, as London looks to increase its attempts and accuracy beyond the arc. London shot 26 threes in the season opener.

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After a season opener that saw them shoot 76.3% from the line (29-38), the Bolts improved that to 42-50 (84%) Sunday afternoon. London shot 21 more free throws than Windsor, who went just 20-29 (69%) from the line. That gap made a huge difference in the final outcome.

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No, it wasn’t your internet connection. This weekend’s home opener broadcast on BSL TV tipped off without announcers. None. Just crowd noise until 3:19 to go in the first quarter when John Van Houwelingen joined the broadcast already in progress. (Cheers to his smooth entry. His first on-air words were “I’m just looking at the free throw disparity …” without any mention of the preceding half hour of broadcast silence.) London is 2-for-2 on early season broadcasts with some sort of weirdness. At least this one, live from Canada Life Place, was largely free of the buffering and crashing issues that plagued the Sudbury broadcast.

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Same home. New name. Fresh streak. Canada Life Place (née Budweiser Gardens née John Labatt Centre) is undefeated in its history with Lightning hoops at 1-0. That said, the announced crowd of 499 needs to be better.

Yes, a huge part of the problem continues to be a complicated and buggy Ticketmaster system that said the game as sold out on its system when fans went to buy tickets. Yes, Canada Life Place and Oak View Group officials, Ticketmaster, and London Lightning execs shoulder a lot of blame here.

That all said, fans still need to do their part – show up, get loud, enjoy basketball at the highest level in this city. The Lightning have posted a ticket buying how-to on their website, or you can access via Canada Life Place website or directly from Ticketmaster.

STORIES YOU MISSED.

Coach Williams & Co. ready for home start

WHAT’S NEXT.

KW | Wednesday, Dec. 11 | 7 p.m.

at Windsor | Friday, Dec. 13 | 7 p.m.