Sea Bears rally for dramatic comeback win over Shooting Stars

The ball was in Winnipeg Sea Bears guard Jalen Harris’ hands in the last possession of the game. In isolation, he banked a mid-range jumper to secure a thrilling comeback victory on Saturday night.

He waved Scarborough fans a good night as Winnipeg stole the game 87-86.

Prior to Target Time, Scarborough maintained a double-digit lead for most of the second half. At one point, Winnipeg was down by 17 points, and every time there was a flicker of hope for Winnipeg, Scarborough seemed to pour ice cold water over it.

That was the case until the very end.

A beautiful backcut by Harris and pass by Emmanuel Akot narrowed the lead to eight points. A three-pointer by Tevian Jones and bucket by Nathan Bilamu helped Winnipeg inch within five points ahead of Target Time.

At the end, the game started to feel close like the first quarter.

Scarborough hoisted a couple of three-pointers that missed the mark in the crucial moments of the game. Almost perfectly on cue, as CEBL+ colour commentator Brady Heslip, who was a three-point marksman during his playing career, suggested that three-pointers were not necessary, Donovon Willaims let one fly in an attempt to put away the game and missed.

“One of our goals is to get to the hoop and play with pace, score easily at the rim. I thought we did that at times,” Scarborough head coach Mike De Giorgio said while reflecting on the game.
“We want to get easy baskets and we want to get threes that are good for our team. Find great shots every time down. We didn’t do that on a consistent basis and that ended up coming back and hurting us.”

Before Target Time, Scarborough had only attempted 18 threes.

In the first half, Scarborough led 22-19 and 26-21 in the first and second quarters, respectively. Winnipeg inched within one point with two minutes and 15 seconds left in the first half, but they went scoreless until halftime. Scarborough closed out with a 7-0 run, punctuated by Yuri Collins’ step-back mid-range jumper, which gave Scarborough an eight-point buffer.

Though things started to look like they were slipping for Winnipeg in the third quarter, the series of comeback attempts made early allowed them to make one extra push at the end.

In the third quarter, Jalen Harris initiated the offense with 10 seconds left on the clock, passed to the cutter, the ball got swung to the wing, and an extra pass to the corner led to a wide-open corner triple by Jones. In the subsequent offensive play, Jones made a dribble drive for a paint two. Winnipeg inched within two points, but Scarborough quickly pulled away.

Scarborough guard Williams’ bucket gave his team a 57-43 boost. While Akot’s triple and Kyle Filewich’s paint two made it a single-digit game, Williams’ triple and Danilo Djuricic’s triple made it a 15-point game.

In the fourth quarter, playing catch-up all game paid dividends for Winnipeg as a beautiful pass by Jaylin Williams to Jalen Harris established synergy, and in the subsequent possession, Harris got to the hoop again, but the missed shot was tipped in.
Winnipeg head coach and general manager Mike Taylor was relieved to escape with a victory after losing to Brampton the previous night. “The beginning of the season has been a bit tough for us,” admitted Taylor. “We’ve upgraded with Jalen [Harris], we saw the difference he makes today with the game-winning shot. We also added Simi Shittu, he joined us here on the road trip here to the GTA, so we’re really happy about that.”

Saturday night’s victory was Winnipeg’s first road victory of the season. Alex Campbell also became the first-ever player to play in 100 regular season CEBL games. Unaware of his milestone, he was shocked. “I didn’t even know. It means a lot though and it just goes to show my stick-to-itiveness and age in this league,” he said