ISA Town and Al Hala were both victorious last night as the 10th week of action resumed in the Zain Bahrain Basketball League.
Sayed Mohsen Mahdi made the go-ahead basket to help Isa Town eke out an 87-84 come-from-behind victory over Nuwaidrat while Al Hala made easy work of Sitra Club 92-59. Both games were played at
Zain Basketball Arena in Um Al Hassam. Isa Town had to battle back from being down by as many as 18 points before coming up with the late-game heroics to seal the win.
After taking an 18-15 lead at the end of the first quarter, Isa Town fell behind 37-45 at the half and even further back at 49-59 after the third period.
But behind the strong play of the high-scoring Ahmed Salman, they came alive and they outscored their opponents by 13 in the entire fourth quarter.
Mansoor Jaber managed to tie the proceedings at 76-apiece following a three-pointer with just three minutes remaining.
A basket from Nuwaidrat’s America professional Curtis Washington and free-throws from teammate Hassan Abbas, plus another pair from Jaber, brought Isa Town to within 79-80 with a minute and 27
seconds on the game clock. That paved the way for Mahdi’s crucial basket, which put Isa Town in the lead for good, 81-80. Mahdi then added another field goal to put his team three points ahead with 50
seconds left, before Jaber stretched their lead to 85-80 with a pair of charity shots. A Washington lay-up with just 14 seconds to go made things interesting as Nuwaidrat were just within a single point, 84-85,
but Jalal Akbar and Mahdi were able to split their attempts in a pair of trips to the free-throw line on separate possessions to close the game out.
Salman spearheaded the Isa Town attack with 40 big points including a whopping seven three-pointers, but he fouled out from the game with a little under three minutes to play and did not feature in the end-
game drama. Jaber added 19 including four three-pointers and Mahdi scored 11. Washington led Nuwaidrat with 31 points and 19 rebounds. Hassan Abbas added 24 markers in defeat.
With the result, Isa Town claimed only their third win to go with six losses, while Nuwaidrat suffered their eighth loss with just one victory so far.
Lead In yesterday’s other game, Hala raced out to a big lead at the half and were never tested.
They had a commanding 42-27 advantage at the break, and ended the game strong by outscoring their rivals by 16.
US import Jalen Robinson had a monster game of 24 points, 22 rebounds and six assists.
Hussain Salman added 17 points and eight assists while Hasan Gerashi scored 14.
Abdulla Ali paced Sitra with 18 and 10 rebounds and Mohayad Ameer added 12.
Hala improved to a 4-5 win-loss record while Sitra dropped to 2-6.
League action continues tonight with Riffa facing Samaheej at 5.45pm followed at 7.45pm by defending champions Manama taking on Al Ettihad.